Bringing a Social Justice Lens to Matthews’ Five Propositions for Genuine Students-as-Partners Practice: A Narrative Review

Abstract

In 2017, in the second issue of the International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP), Matthews presented five propositions for genuine students-as-partners practice. Whilst these propositions did not focus directly on social justice, a social justice ethos (seeking to achieve parity of participation for all in higher education) was implicit within the discussion. Working with students as partners (SaP) can contribute to social justice, and a social justice perspective can contribute to the practice and conceptualization of students-as-partners work. From this perspective, I present a narrative literature review that brings a social justice lens to Matthews’ five propositions by examining 26 publications (research articles, case studies, reflective essays, and opinion pieces) in IJSaP concerning students-as-partners work. These are identified using the search terms “justice”, “equity”, “inclusion”, and “ethical”. The review provides clear examples of how the practice of working with students as partners can promote equity and inclusion in higher education, thereby striving toward social justice.

1. Introduction

Students-as-partners practice has the potential to contribute to social justice efforts in higher education. It challenges traditional hierarchies and power structures in institutions, with some work specifically focusing on breaking down barriers that prevent equitable opportunities and engagement. In 2017, in the second issue of the International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP), Matthews proposed five propositions for achieving genuine students-as-partners practice, arguing that good partnership practice should aspire to (1) foster inclusive partnerships; (2) nurture power-sharing relationships through dialogue and reflection; (3) accept partnership as a process with uncertain outcomes; (4) engage in ethical partnerships; and (5) enact partnership for transformation. Whilst Matthews did not directly refer to social justice within the five propositions, a social justice ethos (seeking to achieve parity of participation for all in higher education) was implicit within the discussion of the different propositions. Recognising the symbiotic relationship between the endeavours of working with students as partners and socially just higher education practices, this literature review revisits Matthews’ (2017) propositions to explicitly draw out the socially just practices embedded within them with the goal of understanding more about effective students-as-partners practice that both contributes towards social justice endeavours and is approached in a socially just manner. Using this focus on social justice within Matthews’ five propositions as a framework, this review is based on a systematic approach to a narrative review of 26 articles published in a leading journal on student–staff partnerships in higher education, IJSaP.

2. Bringing a Social Justice Lens to Matthews’ (2017) Five Propositions

2.1. What Is Social Justice?

The term social justice is commonly used, but rarely explicitly defined. It is often related to principles of equality, solidarity, and dignity for all (Zajda et al. 2006). This may include the notion that it is a form of moral duty, based on the principles of equality, addressing the needs of marginalised groups in society, and active engagement in anti-oppression work (Zajda et al. 2006; Reinholz et al. 2019). The concept of social justice aims to achieve fairness in the “division and distribution of rewards and burdens” in society (Zajda et al. 2006, p. 13), focusing on the redistribution of resources (economic, knowledge, cultural, and social), the recognition of individuals, and the representation of different identity groups (Novak 2000; Fraser 2013). However, treating people with fairness can be defined in different ways, e.g., it can mean treating people the same, equally, or equitably (potentially meaning that people are treated differently to achieve equitable outcomes in practice) (Hytten and Bettez 2011). Social justice might therefore be understood as removing the barriers that necessitate support in the first place. Such a conception is what Fraser (2013, p. 164) called “parity of participation”, whereby all adult members of society are enabled to participate meaningfully. This includes both providing support to, and removing barriers for, individuals who are marginalised in society. The lack of a single understanding of social justice means that the term is situated within the historical and social context in which it is being used (Rizvi 1998). In summary, social justice relates to enabling everyone to participate in society in ways that are understood to be fair and just. Hence, the term can be understood as a multi-layered ideal (Troyna and Vincent 1995; Zajda et al. 2006).

2.2. Social Justice in Education

Tuck and Yang (2018, p. 7) argue that “social justice is the ghost in the machine of the educational apparatus. It is the only part that makes any part of the field of education matter”. Fundamentally, higher education institutions (HEIs) are in service to the public good (Watermeyer et al. 2022). HEIs serve individuals, local communities and wider society by providing life-changing opportunities, and contributing to the development of knowledge in the general enhancement of humankind. In this way, higher education offers the opportunity to remove or reduce barriers individuals experience in broader society by educating people about injustices and contributing to broader social change.

This goal is related to the way in which students are taught and learn. Social justice underlies both the content that we teach and how we go about teaching it. Briffett Aktaş et al. (2023) make the distinction between social justice in education and a socially just education. The former focuses on teaching about social justice topics; the latter focuses on the relationships within the classroom and ensuring justice between educators, students, and teaching content. Both these elements contribute towards an education for social justice, which Bell (1997, p. 3) describes as “both a process and a goal”. As a process, a socially just education should support students to take an active role in their education (Hackman 2005) whilst working towards the goal of both recognizing and eradicating oppression and the differential treatment of individuals (Murrell 2006, p. 81). This approach develops students who are “justice-orientated citizens”, meaning that they systematically analyse societal problems and participate in collective action for change (Hytten and Bettez 2011, p. 8).

Despite the widespread use of the term social justice in educational contexts, its practical implications and impact on teaching practices and educational philosophy are often unclear (Hytten and Bettez 2011). Social justice in education is hindered by wider social inequality, which makes it challenging for educators to address differences and oppressions in their institutions and elsewhere (Zajda et al. 2006). However, addressing educational injustices in the small local contexts over which a tutor has control, such as the classroom, has the potential to be a catalyst for broader transformational change both within and beyond education (Briffett Aktaş et al. 2023).

Freire (2000, p. 80) has argued that a traditional “banking education” dehumanizes and oppresses students. Instead, he argues for an education that is built around problem posing in which students are taught to recognise contradictions and address oppression (Freire 2000, p. 35; cited Hytten and Bettez 2011, pp. 17–18). This goal requires a process in which the elements of parity of participation—redistribution, recognition, and representation—are applied to practices within education. The process of working with students as partners offers opportunities to address parity of participation.

2.3. Social Justice and Students as Partners

Students as partners and social justice are two sides of the same coin. As de Bie et al. (2021, p. 96) argue, “partnership can meaningfully and intentionally contribute to redressing epistemic, affective, and ontological harm to bring about greater justice”. Achieving the ultimate aim of macro-level social justice may begin with meaningful change at the micro-level, such as within partnerships. Healey et al. (2014) make the distinction between four different areas of student–staff partnership: learning, teaching and assessment; curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy; subject-based research and inquiry; and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. To this I would add areas beyond learning, teaching and research, and the use of integrated approaches. Within these different types of partnership, the roles and power relations students have may be different at different points along the spectrum of understanding and implementing social justice principles in a given partnership. Students have the right to influence their education (Seale 2010) and higher education has become effective at seeking out student voices (Dunne and Zandstra 2011). However, as Young and Jerome (2020) note, student voice practices designed around restricted feedback mechanisms initiated and led by institutions can limit the opportunities students have to challenge the status quo. Such mechanisms may lead to social justice in education—i.e., teaching socially just content (Briffett Aktaş et al. 2023)—but may not address fundamental issues in teaching practices in a way that leads to broader social justice. In contrast, socially just higher education practices that include people and recognize diverse knowledges (Soudien 2015) create “places of possibility” (Osman and Hornsby 2018, p. 397). This form of education focuses upon building socially just relationships between educators, students, and teaching content (Briffett Aktaş et al. 2023).

Working with students as partners moves beyond listening to students and staff making decisions over how to respond to concerns raised, and instead gives students the opportunity to identify the areas of practice that matter to them and make recommendations to bring about the desired changes (Dunne and Zandstra 2011). Socially just partnerships intentionally name the inequities and injustices experienced by individuals and groups of people, alongside their resulting harms, and intentionally generate opportunities to enact partnership principles (de Bie et al. 2021, 2019). It is only in doing so that partnership practice might reach its potential to promote justice (de Bie et al. 2021) through redistributing power, recognising individuals, and representing identity groups in a more in-depth manner. In this way, partnership has the potential to both remove barriers from participation and enable support. Working in partnership with marginalised groups is a powerful way of recognizing individuals from different backgrounds as “holders and creators of knowledge” (Delgado-Bernal 2002, p. 106). Fundamentally, the student voice is imperative for developing a socially just education (Briffett Aktaş et al. 2023). Yet, anything that is done to rather than with students cannot be socially just (Lister 2023).

Socially just partnerships recognise and value the diverse backgrounds of individuals and celebrate the knowledge people bring with them as valid and just (Munevar-Pelton et al. 2022). As Zajda et al. (2006, p. 15) argue, “we need to act, not just talk”. This means that working with students as partners is a process of striving towards social justice. However, some partnership work may conversely reinforce injustices (de Bie et al. 2021). This unintended potential refers both to the violence inflicted in the process of institutions and individuals attempting to preserve dominant structures and processes, and to the harms experienced because of this process by individuals seeking equity (de Bie et al. 2021). de Bie et al. (2021, p. 56) call for further research to investigate the ways in which partnership work might redress the harm experienced by individuals and groups.

3. A Social Justice Lens on Matthews’ Five Propositions for Genuine Students-as-Partners Practice

Given the clear synergies between the goals of social justice and students-as-partners practice, many of the characteristics of social justice are implicit within Matthews’ five propositions for genuine students-as-partners practice. Below, I summarise Matthews’ five propositions, drawing out the explicit elements of social justice embedded within them (

Table 1. A social justice lens on Matthews’ five propositions for genuine students-as-partners practice.

Matthews’ Proposition	Social Justice Lens on Proposition
Foster inclusive partnerships	Fostering inclusive partnerships involves people from diverse backgrounds engaging in student–staff partnerships alongside offering opportunities that include students and staff from all backgrounds rather than inadvertently embedding bias into the practice by just working with people like us. From a social justice perspective, this means actively working to include and uplift marginalised voices and perspectives of people from equity-seeking groups within partnerships “with an explicit focus on employment equity and challenging the imbalance of opportunities in the academy” (de Bie et al. 2021, p. 107). This involves ensuring that students from diverse backgrounds and identities, including those traditionally underrepresented in higher education, are given a seat at the table and empowered to contribute to decision-making processes. Inclusive partnerships have transformative potential for equity-seeking students.
Nurture power-sharing relationships through dialogue and reflection	Whilst power is inherent in social systems and cannot be eliminated through ongoing dialogue and reflection, the different expertise partners bring to student–staff partnership practices can be recognised and valued. Partners can re-imagine power dynamics and redistribute and share power within their collaborations. A social justice lens calls for intentionally working towards equitable power-sharing relationships where all parties have an equal say in decision-making processes and their voices are heard and respected. This involves recognizing the positionality of individual partners and naming the power dynamics involved in the partnership in relation to the individual’s “specific social locations and how dimensions of identity intersect with institutional practices, local and larger contexts, and more” (de Bie et al. 2021, p. 107). These working relationships are continuously revisited through ongoing reflection to ensure the effectiveness and transformative power of the practice.
Accept partnership as a process with uncertain outcomes	Partnership is a process with uncertain outcomes, rather than a predetermined achievement. The unpredictable nature of working in partnership is a strength that allows for the co-creation of meaningful learning relationships between students and staff. Recognising SaP as a process rather than just an outcome is a key factor in creating truly successful and meaningful partnerships in academia. Through a social justice lens, this proposition requires the consideration of how uncertainty might impact upon individuals differently—an examination of “who can tolerate, afford, and benefit from what kinds of uncertainty” (de Bie et al. 2021, p. 107). From this perspective, rather than accepting uncertainty in all areas of the process of partnership, partners must “commit to the complex and ongoing struggle for action and change toward greater equity (even if the outcomes remain uncertain and in need of perpetual attention)” (de Bie et al. 2021, p. 108). This proposition also encourages us to prevent the practice being misappropriated for neoliberal purposes by focusing on SaP as a relational process that values and celebrates the individual and the expertise they bring to the table.
Engage in ethical partnerships	Ethical students-as-partners practice involves ensuring that all partners experience parity of participation and stand to mutually benefit from the collaboration through, for example, personal growth in the short term. It also means contributing to the broader social good, serving more than just the individuals involved. Applying a social justice lens to this proposition emphasises the importance of partnership relationships being grounded in mutual respect, honesty, and integrity, and prioritizes the well-being and rights of all individuals involved. This may look different in different cultural contexts, where the sharing of power may be understood in different ways (Kaur and Yong Bing 2020; de Bie et al. 2021). It also conceptualises ethical partnerships as a moral duty contributing to wider societal development, asking for example “For which and for whose good(s) are we working together? When are democratic principles insufficient to name and redress epistemic, affective, and ontological harms? And, how might our pedagogical partnership work serve greater equity beyond the particular individuals directly involved?” (de Bie et al. 2021, p. 108).
Enact partnership for transformation	Genuine partnership is an act of resistance to the traditional hierarchies in which staff have power over students in higher education. The transformative potential of SaP lies in creating a space where collaborative ways of working can be explored and eventually integrated into higher education as a whole. Enacting partnership for transformation aligns with social justice goals by emphasizing the potential for collaborative efforts to bring about meaningful and sustainable change. This proposition calls for actively working towards dismantling systems of oppression through dialogue with others about the harms they have experienced and explicitly naming and redressing the “epistemic, affective, and ontological harms created and perpetuated by violences structured into postsecondary education” (de Bie et al. 2021, p. 108). This work includes proactively challenging, dismantling, and providing alternatives to hierarchical and harmful structures (de Bie et al. 2021).

Source: developed from Matthews (2017) and de Bie et al. (2021).

). I developed this framework in three stages. First, for efficiency, I asked Generative AI (GenAI) to produce a summary of each of the five propositions. Second, I asked GenAI to apply a social justice lens to each of the propositions. Third, noting the original GenAI outputs, considering that the summaries of the propositions tended to be repetitive, verbose, and missed key points of the proposition, I used the GenAI outputs as a basis, and I cut, edited, and rewrote each summary according to my detailed re-reading of Matthews’ propositions and feedback from others. The social justice perspective outputs on each proposition were variable. I read and edited these in relation to the earlier discussion of social justice. For some propositions, I entirely rewrote the social justice interpretation, whilst some of the GenAI output remained close to the final text. Overall, the framework was therefore written with the support of GenAI rather than by GenAI.

4. Methodology

This literature review employs a systematic approach to undertaking a narrative literature review. It is systematic in the way in which the reviewed articles have been identified for review, but narrative in the way in which the analysis has been undertaken and presented (Healey and Healey 2023). This approach recognises the following: “While reviewing the literature is often presented as a scientific, objective process, the reality is much messier, nuanced, and iterative. It is a complex, context-dependent procedure” (Healey and Healey 2023, p. 1). A literature review is therefore influenced by the positionality of the individual undertaking the activity. In this case, with the author is a middle-class, highly educated white woman working in a university in the West. This will inevitably have influenced my interpretations of social justice and how I have applied this to the reviewed literature. Based on the discussion of social justice and students as partners, I identified five terms related to socially just approaches to students-as-partners practice. These were “justice”, “equity”, “inclusion”, “ethical”, and “anti-oppressive”. Using the search system for IJSaP (https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/ijsap/search (accessed on 24 June 2024)), in June 2024, I entered these terms as follows: “justice” or “equity” or “inclusion” or “ethical” or “anti-oppressive”. This systematic approach provided a list of 34 articles, including Matthews’ original ‘Five Propositions’ editorial (Matthews 2017). I then filtered these publications in a way that one of the terms needed to be used in the title, abstract, and/or key words. This led to my removal of 8 papers from the review, alongside Matthews’ (2017) editorial, reducing the total number of papers to 26. These included all genres of work published in the journal: 12 research articles, 4 reflective essays, 2 opinion pieces, and 9 case studies.

Table 2. Inclusion criteria.

Inclusion criteria

Published in International Journal for Students as Partners

Published between 2017 and 2024 (v1–v8)

Found in a search for “justice” or “equity” or “inclusion” or “ethical” or “anti-oppressive”

At least one of the search terms being found in the title, abstract, or keywords (note IJSaP reflective essays and opinion pieces do not include an abstract or key words)

lists the inclusion criteria for the review. Appendix A provides a summary of each article, highlighting the frequency the different search terms were used in each article.

I read and coded each of the 26 articles by applying a socially just lens based on Matthews’ five propositions of genuine partnership framework (Table 1) using NVivo. Following this initial categorisation, I read and iteratively coded into subthemes quotes from each proposition.

5. Analysis

In this section, I explore the range of different rationales that were given in the reviewed articles for seeking social justice and/or wanting to work in partnership to do so. I then discuss, in turn, the themes found in the literature in relation to each of Matthew’s five propositions.

5.1. Context and Rationale

The rationales discussed in the literature all related to wanting to change the status-quo. This overall commitment ranged from generally wanting to advance equality, diversity, and inclusion (Islam et al. 2021; Atkins et al. 2022) to seeking to eradicate systems of inequality such as racism and colonialism (Shekhawat et al. 2022) and opposing the neoliberalisation of the academy (O’Shea 2018). For some authors, their activity was triggered by events, such as the move to emergency remote teaching during COVID-19, which highlighted significant inequalities between students (Addy et al. 2022), or a moment of campus conflict (Bunnell et al. 2021). For others, it was a broader recognition that initiatives to increase access to higher education (e.g., widening participation activities in the UK) have not been accompanied by the evolution of institutional structures or disciplinary cultures which support a heterogenous student body (Bunnell et al. 2021; O’Shea 2018; Reinholz et al. 2019). Others were driven by personal experiences of witnessing or experiencing the damaging effects of social injustices, including colonialism and Western hegemony (Bindra et al. 2018; Halliday 2019). Finally, some authors were particularly interested in adopting a students-as-partners approach to addressing issues of social justice as the previous approaches had been limited due to the lack of involvement of key student stakeholders in their design (Brown et al. 2020). These contexts informed the range of decisions, activities, and partnership practices that the different articles discussed and influenced the extent to which the different propositions were evident in the publications.

5.2. Foster Inclusive Partnerships

Fostering inclusive partnerships was the most common SaP proposition that emerged from the analysis of the articles in this review. This work focused on including and uplifting marginalised voices and perspectives, and often sought to specifically include people from equity-seeking groups within the partnerships. The two dominant and interrelated themes in relation to inclusivity were related to addressing issues of underrepresentation and supporting people in developing their sense of belonging.

Authors considered underrepresentation in a wide range of ways, including in relation to the focus of partnership work and within the partnerships themselves. Many of the studies built explicitly or implicitly on Bovill et al.’s (2016, p. 203) argument about the need to “consider whose voices are heard and whose are not” (e.g., Fisher et al. 2021; Pohl et al. 2022; Schaefer et al. 2022). Others started from the basis that considering underrepresentation was part of wider requirements and initiatives, e.g., access and participation plans in the UK (Smith et al. 2021). From these perspectives, authors argued that change in higher education needs to include a range of voices from different perspectives (Dianati and Hickman 2023). Moys (2018) also recognised the current limitations in students-as-partners work, which can reduce the effectiveness of the practice and maintain students’ experiences of a lack of cultural diversity. For example,

“The lack of global voices not only reinstates Western dominance of ideas, but also could prevent SaP from deeply embodying culturally relevant, decolonized practices. If we want SaP to become more equitable, it must become more representative and accessible to non-Western institutions.”

(Bindra et al. 2018, p. 11)

Many studies recognised that working with students with lived experiences of the issues being addressed is essential to developing an authentic understanding of the inequalities and working to address them (Bunnell et al. 2021; Islam et al. 2021; Marquis et al. 2022; O’Shea 2018; Schaefer et al. 2022). Asking students what their needs were contributed to creating a healthy and successful learning environment (Addy et al. 2022) and helped students to feel that they had a voice at the university (Bunnell et al. 2021). This perspective countered the common misconceptions that see individuals from equity-denied groups as having inherent deficits (Atkins et al. 2022; Brown et al. 2020), and the pathologizing of people with a diversity of identities without understanding their lived experiences (Gibson and Cook-Sather 2020). For example,

“Instead of primarily treating disabled students as lacking capacities and requiring programmatic intervention to succeed in the university, a partnership approach validates and draws on disabled students’ specific expertise and experience to make institutional change.”

(Brown et al. 2020, p. 97)

Some authors also argued that partnerships involving students who identify as members of equity-denied groups can help to counter some of the injustices such students often experience (Marquis et al. 2022) and allowed them to feel valued as a part of the university community (Burling et al. 2019). For example,

“From my experience, the university felt exclusive in its design and actions surrounding accessibility-making me feel a bit like an ‘outsider’. In contrast, this project was very inclusive, accommodating, and overall a very positive experience...”

(Brown et al. 2020, p. 101)

Being a part of a partnership approach offered opportunities for students to develop more cultural capital and enabled them to better “decode the implicit ‘rules of the game’” (Aschaffenburg and Maas 1997, p. 573). Therefore, being a part of a partnership project not only increased students’ sense of belonging but also supported them to develop the skills and strategies that are rewarded within higher education (Zhang et al. 2022).

However, authors also pointed to underrepresentation in partnerships themselves and the recognition that partnership practices can exacerbate existing inequalities and/or reproduce existing structures (Marquis et al. 2018; Zhang et al. 2022). Different studies approached this problem in different ways. Some teams embodied diversity within their partnerships. For example, one study noted that their team was “a great example of what EDI [equity, diversity, inclusion] looks like” (Obadare et al. 2022, p. 112); others sought to explore different ways of reaching beyond typical students in their work to utilise different representational network committees and accessing authentic spaces, e.g., prayer rooms and online communities (Islam et al. 2021).

5.3. Nurture Power-Sharing Relationships Through Dialogue and Reflection

Intentionally working towards equitable power-sharing relationships within partnerships raised several challenges, often related to the nature of the partnership project, and authors addressed these in a variety of ways. This variety included considerations of, for example, embedding the principle of co-creation throughout the partnership (Islam et al. 2021); ensuring student and staff ownership of the partnership process (O’Shea 2018); building meaningful relationships through equitable collaboration and balanced reciprocity between all members (Gourlay and Korpan 2018); considering the authorship order in written outputs (Bindra et al. 2018); holding separate meetings for students and staff partners to discuss the project and receive support (Marquis et al. 2022); and adopting dynamic approaches to sharing power in which the traditional roles are disrupted, e.g., positioning conference audience participants on an equal footing with panellists (Dianati and Hickman 2023).

The university environment sustains power relationships between students and staff through the spaces of education, such as the lecture theatre, and the use of language, e.g., taken-for-granted academic terms (Smith et al. 2021). These need to be considered and appropriately disrupted to enable effective partnership (Smith et al. 2021). The way this is carried out will be partnership-specific and likely require different approaches for student and staff partnerships where the members do not “share a common cultural heritage, language, and context” (Zhang et al. 2022, p. 68). Such power relations are further complicated when considered in the context of how the student is compensated for their time and work. For example, when a student receives course credit and/or a grade for their work in a partnership, this impacts efforts to develop equal and collaborative student–faculty partnership processes by positioning the student in an even less powerful position because their work within the partnership is also being assessed (Litvitskiy et al. 2022).

Atkins et al. (2022) noted that anti-oppressive work requires some members of the partnership to step outside of their comfort zone and intentionally yield control to others. However, they noted that

“Anti-oppressive work for people who are used to being comfortable requires them to strip themselves of that sense of comfort, knowing full well that they can hide under the safety of their privilege at any time they choose, while others aren’t afforded the same luxury.”

(Atkins et al. 2022, p. 134)

In some contexts, it might be easier for faculty to share power with students who have capabilities with which staff are familiar (Fisher et al. 2021). Such unconscious bias may draw staff towards working with students who portray more traditional academic skills at the expense of working with a more diverse student body.

As Zhang et al. (2022, p. 75) argue, “power is ubiquitous in learner-teacher partnerships”; even when students feel they are empowered, power differentials still exist between students and staff (Addy et al. 2022; Pohl et al. 2022), and this imbalance takes on new meanings in cross-cultural practices (Zhang et al. 2022). Rather than attempting to remove the power differentials entirely, students-as-partners practice needs to question assumptions and redistribute power through relational practices and continuous reflection and discussion (Zhang et al. 2022). This involves naming the power relations within specific partnerships, recognizing the positionality and social locations of individuals, and discussing how these impact upon the dynamics between partners (de Bie et al. 2021). Intentionally working in this way requires that you “stay with the trouble” (Haraway 2016, p. 2). This approach recognises the “messy entanglements of power, identity, and culture in SaP practices” (Zhang et al. 2022, p. 75) and requires us to raise the issue of, observe, and discuss power in the context of the specific partnership.

In different ways, these practices facilitated the equal sharing of power, enabling some projects to have extended engagement over multiple years in which students progressively took on further leadership roles (Reinholz et al. 2019). Overall, these approaches to working in partnership were seen as even more important when working on issues of social justice. For example,

“This concept of doing with rather than doing to is particularly significant to activities within the equity and outreach field. This relationship should be collaborative, with power held equally by all parties and outputs and with activities characterised by immediacy and authenticity.”

(O’Shea 2018, p. 18)

5.4. Accept Partnership as a Process with Uncertain Outcomes

Recognising SaP as a relational process with uncertain outcomes was the least common SaP principle espoused in the literature reviewed. This may relate to the need to “dig more deeply into who can tolerate, afford, and benefit from what kinds of uncertainty and at what point in their development and whose personal and professional selves might be damaged or otherwise harmed by such a process-oriented approach” (de Bie et al. 2021, p. 107). None of the reviewed articles explicitly discussed the challenges of uncertain outcomes in relation to the positionality of the individuals involved. Instead, they focused on the relational approach partnership teams had adopted to develop relationships and the impact of the partnership on individuals and/or institutions.

5.4.1. Approach

The approaches adopted can be summarised as the importance of doing things with students rather than doing things to students (O’Shea 2018). This ‘doing with’ approach begins with how students and staff are positioned in relation to one another. Litvitskiy et al. (2022) built their collaboration on complementary knowledge and skills rather than assuming expertise was held by the faculty member, and Obadare et al. (2022) treated the students they worked with as valued colleagues. In contrast, Pohl et al. (2022, p. 33) avoided engaging with role labels altogether: “the students did not classify themselves as ‘student partners’ nor did the professors identify as ‘supervisors’”. These approaches made space for the unpredictable nature of working in partnership, in which partners could respond to a plethora of contributions that might emerge and build meaningful relationships. Through this approach, individual expertise is embraced and celebrated.

Accepting partnerships as having uncertain outcomes involves investing in collaboration and the partnership relationship (Fisher et al. 2021; Moys 2018). Examples include adopting relational practices such as “interdependency and critical listening to lived experiences” (Dianati and Hickman 2023, p. 56) or trusting students to direct their own learning experiences, recognising that they have their own aspirations for their learning and for the standards of their work (Lesnick et al. 2024). Alongside this trust and recognition, some studies illustrated how they created spaces that allowed for the relational process of partnership. For example, Marquis et al. (2022) ensured participants met frequently, not only to discuss the developing project, but also to offer guidance and support. Suresh and Rofles (2023, p. 212) created guided spaces to “participate in partnership, not problem-solving” in which people could engage in honest discussion and share lived experiences.

5.4.2. Impact

Authors recognised that working in partnership can mean welcoming risk. This openness included receptivity to “uncertainty and unpredictability, awkwardness, surprise, and disappointment” (Lesnick et al. 2024, p. 185). By challenging hierarchies (Schaefer et al. 2022) and increasing visibility and recognition (Moys 2018), the partnerships inspired others and exposed them to new ideas (Shekhawat et al. 2022), which enhanced social justice in a range of ways. For example, partnership generated a more socially just course in terms of content and execution (Addy et al. 2022), developed a more learning-centred approach (Gourlay and Korpan 2018), enabled greater questioning of academic language and the barriers it can create (Smith et al. 2021), and increased all students’ abilities to thrive (Bunnell et al. 2021). Such outcomes increased participants’ trust in the process and one another: “… the challenges of partnering with students with intellectual disabilities strengthened our relationships with each other as faculty-student mentor teams” (Fisher et al. 2021, p. 24).

Several studies noted how passionate and excited people can be about social justice work, but how that energy can be lost very quickly when people are overwhelmed with all their other commitments (Reinholz et al. 2019). Authors argued that working in a partnership inspired and invigorated them (Suresh and Rofles 2023; Reinholz et al. 2019). As Pohl et al. (2022, p. 43) comment,

“… we arrived with optimism and yet were surprised at the actual benefits that arose out of our work together…. we anticipate burnout, group tensions, and disillusionment just as we aim for change, recognition, and some spark of joy”.

The uncertainty in the process of partnership in this study led to positive emotional outcomes for the individuals involved. However, the list of anti-racist demands were, at the time of publishing, largely ignored (Pohl et al. 2022). As such, the partnership did not lead to the desired outcomes. Whilst the partnership relationships were beneficial to the individuals involved, the lack of response regarding the changes they had fought for was disappointing. Such an outcome will be more manageable for different individuals depending upon their social situation and personal experiences of oppression. Whilst the undesirable outcome may have led individuals to feel a lack of agency, working together in this way also offered the potential to create change and built a network of likeminded individuals who supported one another. Partnership practice needs to carefully consider, and prepare individuals for, the possibility of uncertain outcomes, whilst committing to a supportive and empowering partnership process for all members, with a particular focus on assisting those who can tolerate and benefit from uncertainty the least.

5.5. Engage in Ethical Partnerships

The concept of ethical partnership relates both to how partnerships are practised and to their purpose of contributing to wider societal developments. These two elements are often mutually affirming, as the way a partnership is practised can contribute to enhancing social justice more broadly. The reviewed literature discussed a variety of reasons for engaging in partnership as a way of addressing specific issues. This range included seeing partnership as a way of creating more socially just environments in the classroom (Addy et al. 2022) and recognising that the decisions a lecturer makes about how they teach are ethical choices (Halliday 2019); shifting the focus from surviving to thriving, in which opportunities are created to enable students to thrive as agents of change (Atkins et al. 2022); and embracing this approach as a broader response to counter the dominant neoliberal market-driven rhetoric that has become prevalent in higher education (Zhang et al. 2022). In different ways, these studies questioned previous practices and actively chose to work in partnership because other approaches were insufficient in terms of addressing the harm experienced by equity-denied groups.

Authors presented a variety of ways in which ethical partnerships were practised. Such ethical practice often began by rejecting deficit narratives of different equity-denied groups (Atkins et al. 2022; Brown et al. 2020), instead recognising oppression and dehumanization as the root cause of differential experiences (Atkins et al. 2022). Importantly, this recognition required an affirmative response to the lived experience of individuals (Atkins et al. 2022). This involved enacting the values and an ethos of respect, responsibility, and reciprocity (Dianati and Hickman 2023; Shekhawat et al. 2022); supporting, amplifying, and enhancing the lived experiences of underrepresented groups (Islam et al. 2021); and listening and reflecting with intentionality (Suresh and Rofles 2023). Such practices mediate power differentials, enable the development of trust, and build stronger relationships (Dianati and Hickman 2023; Moys 2018). These practices emphasized the importance of partnership relationships being grounded in mutual respect, honesty, and integrity, alongside the need to prioritize the well-being and rights of all individuals involved. It was also recognized that such approaches may look different in different cultural contexts (Zhang et al. 2022).

Intentional ethical partnerships are conscious of the vulnerability of different partners (Fisher et al. 2021) whilst recognising the transformative potential of such approaches in terms of creating more equitable and inclusive practices (Gibson and Cook-Sather 2020). Examples included staff recognising the potential insensitivity in attempting to learn more about the lived experiences of a student in which they unintentionally adopt “an extractive or exploitative approach” (Marquis et al. 2022, p. 18); the potential for “politicised compassion” as a way of talking about and practising “meaningful social justice and equity” (Gibson and Cook-Sather 2020, p. 17); and developing spaces for “productive discomfort” that were characterized by being “welcoming, affirming, and co-creating” (Suresh and Rofles 2023, p. 211).

5.6. Enact Partnership for Transformation

Finally, as mentioned earlier, authors often discussed working in partnership to actively dismantle systems of oppression and create more just and equitable structures within higher education in relation to the context and rationale of the activities undertaken. Working with students as partners was considered to be “a radical praxis that contributes to the transformation of both individuals and institutions, positioning higher education as a force for social justice” (Zhang et al. 2022, p. 65). In this way, partnership work has the potential to transform the classroom and increase the agency of every student (Bindra et al. 2018; Schaefer et al. 2022).

Partnership activities undertaken to produce more socially just outcomes included raising awareness; deconstructing and making visible systematic barriers and biases (Addy et al. 2022; Atkins et al. 2022; Bindra et al. 2018; Zhang et al. 2022); establishing equity-focused activities and proactively inviting students from equity-denied backgrounds to partner on such projects (Marquis et al. 2022); validating and drawing on the student lived experience to justify and implement change (Brown et al. 2020); discussing anti-racism, diversity, inclusivity, and equity across contexts, both within and beyond the classroom (Suresh and Rofles 2023); and developing whole-class partnerships based around midterm conversations to foster communities of learning (Lesnick et al. 2024).

Authors argue that partnership offers opportunities for students to improve their own education and change the system itself (Reinholz et al. 2019). The reviewed articles demonstrated the range of potential transformations possible through partnership work. These include eradicating systemic inequalities in higher education to make way for a heterogeneity of approaches and ideas that may offer solutions to the wicked problems society and the planet face (Shekhawat et al. 2022); providing “counter spaces” in which differences are embraced with compassion and which inform action to address inequities (Gibson and Cook-Sather 2020, p. 24); and building more “liberatory and justice-driven educational spaces” (Schaefer et al. 2022, p. 59). However, whilst these transformations might offer alternatives to hierarchical and harmful structures (de Bie et al. 2021), they are often either aspirational or developed at too small a scale to contribute to significantly to redressing the harms marginalised groups have experienced.

6. Conclusions and Implications

Working in partnership with students and striving for social justice are complementary endeavours. Authors have argued that working with students as partners has the potential to enhance social justice more broadly by developing “justice-orientated citizens” (Hytten and Bettez 2011, p. 8); that working with students as partners can benefit every student (Briffett Aktaş et al. 2023); and that by, including more diverse voices in collaborative thinking around the most pressing issues of society and the planet, we are more likely to achieve effective solutions (Shekhawat et al. 2022).

The articles I reviewed were driven by a desire to enhance the inclusion of marginalised groups, increase the representation of a specific group, or create spaces of belonging for all students. Many of the articles discussed the approaches they had adopted to ensure inclusive partnership practices. Authors recognised that working in partnership may counter negative experiences (Marquis et al. 2022) and increase people’s sense of belonging in higher education (Brown et al. 2020; Burling et al. 2019) and the ability of marginalised students to perform well (Zhang et al. 2022). Power relations remain a challenge in all partnership work, but are more complex when working with a wider variety of people who do not share a common cultural heritage, language, and/or context (Zhang et al. 2022). It is easier for privileged groups to step out of their comfort zone than others (Atkins et al. 2022) and fall into the habit of choosing to work with people ‘like me’ (Fisher et al. 2021). Addressing issues of power means building partnership relationships through relational practices that involve creating safe spaces where trust can be built and the lived experiences of individuals validated (Dianati and Hickman 2023; Lesnick et al. 2024; Suresh and Rofles 2023). Significantly, some studies commented on how partnership inspired and invigorated individuals to continue to work towards social justice despite the significant drain those individuals had experienced in the past due to slow and limited change (Pohl et al. 2022; Reinholz et al. 2019; Suresh and Rofles 2023).

Overall, this analysis has demonstrated the overlapping nature of Matthews’ five propositions and their relationship to activities that seek to enhance social justice. For example, the first proposition, “Fostering inclusive partnerships”, focuses on ensuring voices that are often marginalised are centred in partnership discussions, and the second proposition, “Nurturing power-sharing relationships”, enacts socially just principles within the ways power is recognised and disrupted through dialogue and discussion within a partnership. However, it has also illustrated the nuances in the ways different propositions align with social justice principles, with some being more strongly underpinned by social justice than others. For example, the fourth proposition, “Engaging in ethical partnerships”, focuses on the mutually affirming benefits of practicing social justice within partnership whilst ensuring that the partnership itself contributes towards enhancing social justice more widely. The fifth proposition, “Enacting partnership for transformation”, considers how partnership work might be a mechanism for dismantling systems of oppression and developing more equitable structures within the higher education sector. As de Bie et al. (2021) propose, we may need to revisit and revise some of the partnership propositions to provide a stronger foundation for social justice. This is particularly the case for the third proposition: “Accept partnership as a process with uncertain outcomes”. Whilst the ethos of relationship building and the flexibility to foreground diverse voices align with social justice, we need to consider further how uncertainty in the process may be experienced by different individuals. This becomes even more important when partnerships strive for socially just changes that are beyond the control of the partnerships themselves, in which we need to ensure individuals who are least able to manage a lack of impact from their work are appropriately supported.

There has been a rise in partnerships for social justice across higher education, especially in centrally run equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programmes aligned with institutional strategies (Reid 2024). These aim to address inequalities through working with students from marginalised backgrounds to understand and address the issues they face. However, we need to move forward in our work with students as partners for social justice with caution and consideration. A few of the reviewed articles mentioned that working with students as partners has sometimes been idealised, is often on a small scale, and, as de Bie et al. (2021) have noted, has the potential to inadvertently reproduce inequities by, for example, selecting to work with the ‘usual students’ rather than diversifying who becomes involved in students-as-partners opportunities (Bindra et al. 2018; Marquis et al. 2018; Zhang et al. 2022). Partnerships built around the lived experiences of marginalised groups often rely heavily on the emotional labour and personal knowledge of these students to identify solutions to issues in the context of systemic processes of oppression (Reid 2024). Future research needs to investigate the potential harms of partnership practices (Reid 2024) and how the realities of these challenges might be addressed and supported, including the potential emotional responses to partnership relationships (Healey and France 2024).

I have focused this review upon a selection of articles published in a single journal dedicated to students-as-partners practice. Additional research should seek to further understand the existing approaches in the literature to seeking social justice through working with students as partners in a wide range of publications in other outlets. This wider effort should include analysing the extent to which partnership work that did not seek to focus on social justice may or may not be approached in a socially just manner. Analysing all students-as-partners practice in this way will help to ensure that, going forward, we do not fall into the same pitfalls identified in some of the literature reviewed here (de Bie et al. 2021; Marquis et al. 2018; Zhang et al. 2022).

I conclude by repeating Tuck and Yang’s (2018, p. 7) argument that “social justice is the ghost in the machine of the educational apparatus. It is the only part that makes any part of the field of education matter”. Social justice is the why of higher education, offering opportunities people would not have otherwise had and influencing the content we choose to teach. Working with students as partners enables us to also practice social justice in how we teach, conduct research, and achieve more as we continue to strive for social justice throughout higher education and beyond.