An Indigenous view of social justice leadership in the Malaysian education system

Abstract

Social justice leadership is a method of building greater inclusivity in a variety of fields, education being prominent among them. This article considers how social justice leadership can improve educational opportunities for Orang Asli (the original people; the Indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia). It explores the concepts of social justice and social justice leadership, arguing that they are useful, but in focusing on the relationship between the individual and the collective, they do not always fully appreciate the epistemological bases of the concepts, thus missing their true import for Orang Asli people. Practical examples of how Orang Asli people suffer in educational settings are given, the emphasis being on underachievement and bullying. Finally, the strands are tied together with a discussion of how social justice leadership can be of benefit, the onus being on how social justice leaders need to be cognisant of Orang Asli culture and forms of knowledge before serious progress can be made.

Introduction

When entering the contested field of social justice leadership (SJL), the Indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia, the Orang Asli (the original people; the Indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia) offer a powerful and instructive case study. Not only do they suffer on a persistent basis from the types of inequities and inequalities that are the major concern of social justice initiatives around the world, but they also encourage a nuanced consideration of how SJL might be rendered in practice. Subject to a cocktail of injustices, they are economically disadvantaged, often crushingly so, and their cultural uniqueness (Sam & Seow, 2013) is often ignored.

Social justice leadership’s current fashionability in the literature (Hefferman, 2022) can be attributed to events such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Karpadia, 2022) and the Black Lives Matter movement (Silver et al., 2022). Both have thrown into sharp relief global inequalities in healthcare, education, opportunity and outcomes. It would be wrong, however, to assume from this that, as a notion, SJL is novel; writing and research on the subject can be traced back to several decades (Lewis, 2016).

For the most part, the locus of this work has been the field of education. Authors have tended to concentrate on how SJL is, or could be, the antidote to latent inequities in education systems, particularly that of the USA (Skousen, 2022). The practice and preparation of, primarily, principles has been the major concern (DeMatthews, 2015), with some authors arguing that social justice should be placed at the very heart of the training given to those who aspire to the role (Furman, 2012). For Orang Asli young people in schools and other settings, marginalisation and resultant trauma are all too prevalent (F. Idrus et al., 2023), making the need for more context-specific SJL urgent.

While there is general agreement on the core idea – that social justice leaders are those who place their highest priority on the centring of groups that have traditionally been marginalised because of gender, race, sexual orientation, class or disability (Lizarazo Pereiro et al., 2022; Wang, 2018) – the finer points remain topics for negotiation (Furman, 2012). The literature has largely concerned itself with SJL as conceived in the West, but injustices happen everywhere, for a range of reasons. Modes of oppression in the West bear little resemblance to those from elsewhere. In educational settings, Orang Asli students face high dropout rates, low attainment and bullying, to name but three problems. Above all, though, they are subject to deficit narratives (Valencia, 2019) based around pseudoscientific claims that underachievement is an external manifestation of internal states that are in some way deficient. It need hardly be said that this shows little understanding of the circumstances, or worldview, of the Orang Asli.

This article will consider these issues. It will begin by setting the context of injustices suffered by the Orang Asli, before giving functional definitions of social justice and SJL. The focus will then narrow to consider how both are manifested in the education of Orang Asli students. In terms of methodology, this is a perspective piece, considering the literature and specific real-world examples in advancing a point of view. It takes an activist stance. Therefore, recommendations for taking the argument further will naturally be proposed.

The Orang Asli as a marginalised group

The Orang Asli have inhabited the region of Peninsular Malaysia for over 10,000 years (Endicott, 2016). They comprise 18 different subgroups, or tribes, which are themselves further categorised into three main groupings, the Senois (the most numerous group of Orang Asli people who are distributed around the whole of Peninsular Malaysia), the Proto-Malays and Semang (an Orang Asli group that lives primarily in forest and Mehta in regions). These classifications are not in and of themselves strict markers of Orang Asli identity – a 19th group, the Temoq (a Proto-Malay group that is largely concentrated in Pahang), has been included and excluded over time, depending on current thinking about who has the right to be called Orang Asli (Laird, 1979).

As a whole, Orang Asli communities amount to around 0.7% of the Malaysian population (Dong et al., 2022), which makes them a minority ethnic group in a very multicultural country. Like many other Indigenous communities and minority groups around the world, the Orang Asli face various socio-economic problems such as lack of land rights, poverty – some 34% of Orang Asli households live below Malaysia’s hardcore poverty line, which is defined as having household income of less than 1,169 ringgits per month (Saifullah et al., 2021) – low educational attainment and poor access to high-quality healthcare (Chupil & Joseph, 2003; Gomes, 2004; Nicholas, 2020; Nicholas & Baer, 2007; Wong & Abdillah, 2018). Given the scope of this article, education will be at the forefront of the discussion.

Throughout their history, the Orang Asli have experienced waves of colonisation and oppression by both internal and external forces. For some of the pre-British colonial era, the interaction between the ancestors of Orang Asli and the outsiders was operated on a basis of equality. For example, from 400 CE onwards, Orang Asli communities traded with merchants from India and China (Endicott & Dentan, 2004). When the Minangkabau Malays (a group that has its origins in Western Sumatra, Indonesia) arrived in the region in the late 14th century CE, marriages between Orang Asli women and the Minangkabau immigrants became common (Parthipan & Ishar, 2022).

Somewhat inevitably, as the Malay population grew, the relationship soured and the political and economic importance of the Orang Asli communities began to decline (Andaya, 2002; Endicott, 2016). The situation reached the point of Orang Asli community members finding themselves enslaved by Malay rulers (Endicott, 2016, 1983). In the 19th century, slave-raiding activities often led to the killing of Orang Asli men and the abduction of women and children (Endicott, 2016, 1983). Among the Orang Asli groups, the Semang were most affected by slave-raids, their areas being easily accessible to outsiders. By contrast, the Temiar (a Senoic people) were largely left alone because they occupied the difficult terrain of forests (Andaya, 2002). In some instances, slave-raiding was the cause of internecine conflicts within Orang Asli groups themselves (Andaya, 2002; Endicott, 1983).

This grim era marked the end of the once cordial and equal relationship between Orang Asli and non-Orang Asli communities. As Edo (1990) has noted, its legacy remains in Orang Asli populations being scattered across Malaysia, far from their ancestral homes. Traditionally rural, some 60% of the community now lives in, or close to, urban centres (Saifullah et al., 2021). The consequence has been that they have suffered discrimination, stigmatisation and injustice – much of it lasting for generations.

The oppression and subjugation of Indigenous groups continued during the British colonial era. In general, the British government did not directly interfere with Orang Asli affairs since there was little to be gained economically from doing so. Following pressure from abolitionists in England, the colonial government helped to end the enslavement of Orang Asli people, a favourable and moral action given their symbiotic relationships with the Malay rulers (Andaya, 2002; Endicott, 2016; Toshihiro, 2009).

Nonetheless, it is crucial to acknowledge that policies introduced by the colonial government have entrenched a number of injustices. For example, the colonial government’s move to grant land rights to Malays in the 1930s and confine the Orang Asli to the Sakai reservation further disempowered Indigenous communities (Nicholas, 2000; Toshihiro, 2009). The struggle over land rights continues into the present day. In addition, the introduction by the British of the Aboriginal Peoples Act 1954, revised in 1974, set a foundation for more paternalistic and assimilationist policies. Such approaches continued to shape the lives of Orang Asli people in the post-independence era (R. Idrus, 2011; Nicholas, 2020).

Now, more than 60 years after Merdeka – Malaysian independence – Orang Asli communities are still grappling with socio-economic and political disadvantages that have their origins in the years leading up to it (Dong et al., 2022). Arguably, the Aboriginal Peoples Act in its current – 1974 – form is not entirely compatible with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), especially in regard to land rights and political participation (Hassan, 2020). Orang Asli communities have thus been forced to make legal challenges to encroachments on their lands (Subramaniam, 2011; Subramaniam & Nicholas, 2018). More overt resistance has included the building of barricades (Azhar, 2016).

History aside, it should be remembered that although Orang Asli is a blanket term covering peoples with different languages, customs and traditions, a feature of all to whom it is applied – from an SJL perspective at least – is that they have a very different world picture from that of other societies, such as those in the West. The Temiar tribe, for instance, assign a prominent place to dreams as repositories of insight and knowledge (Masron et al., 2013). For all groups, land is more than just a commodity; it is a touchstone of culture and identity, there being no acknowledged gap between human life and nature (Bala & Tan, 2020; Dong et al., 2022). In these respects, even the terms individual and society as normally used cannot be taken for granted: their meanings for the Orang Asli are not what they would be for a person with a different background.

Culture, especially storytelling, has become a means by which Orang Asli people have been able to assert their distinctive identity (Ibrahim, 2021). The author Mahat Anak China, known as Akiya, has, for example, explored the Orang Asli experience through fiction. His novels Perang Sangkil (2007) and Hamba (2013) vividly describe the period of enslavement; his short story collection Tuntut (2001) focuses on young members of the community attempting to come to terms with their ethnic history and what it means for them as individuals. Similarly, the Temuan (a Proto-Malay ethnic group that is classified among the peoples that constitute the Orang Asli) artist Shaq Koyok uses visual arts to capture the struggles of Orang Asli communities (Chin, 2023). More recently, a group of Temiar leaders, including the lead author of this article, led by Batin Awin Pedik, has begun a project to collectively rewrite the history of their people. The aim is to elevate Temiar standpoints, voices and worldviews from the margins.

In addressing the educational problems to which all of this is a response, various policies, interventions and studies have been introduced over the years. Across the literature on Orang Asli research and policies, most past studies and interventions have tended to view the plight of Orang Asli communities through a deficit lens, foregrounding what students and teachers lack. This propagates victim-blaming narratives. Some recent studies have adopted a strength-based discourse (Nicholas, 2020; Rosnon, 2016; Wan, 2020; Wan & Idrus, 2021) that draws attention to persistent social injustices.

Social justice in the Orang Asli context

The major issue when considering social justice for the Orang Asli is, as has been suggested, that their circumstances are unique. It might be said that this is not taken into account by prevalent, western-centric notions of social justice, but the fact is that there is almost no agreement in the literature as to how social justice should be defined (Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022; Novak, 2000). Furthermore, as a concept, it has been subjected to surprisingly little problematisation (Bankston, 2010). Instead, it is simply accepted as an unquestionable good. The phrase was presumably coined to be distinct from purely legal justice. Legal justice, though, is rational, even logical, and is blind to individual circumstance: society is bound by laws that, in theory at least, govern behaviour without fear or favour (Goldman & Cropanzano, 2015). Social justice implies a different standard. It may borrow legal language, but it is associated with morality: it is about redistribution on the basis of merit, however, that might be determined (Sadurski, 1984).

Insofar as this demands a theoretical lens, most persuasive is that supplied by Fraser (2005), according to whom social justice refers to opportunities for all the members of a society to participate as peers. Just social arrangements, by this measure, will create a parity of participation (Leijen et al., 2021), but in ensuring justice, efforts should go beyond ensuring an equal contribution from everyone: equal contribution does not necessarily warrant a parity of participation. Stemming from this, overcoming injustice requires efforts to dismantle institutionalised obstacles that could prevent individuals from participating in society as full partners (Cohen, 2007). Systemic and institutional obstacles such as land rights and the Malaysian education system are clearly barriers to social justice for Orang Asli people.

Where social justice thinking – such as that of Fraser (2005) – becomes more complex is when individuals are considered in relation to the collective (Rovenpor, 2022). Social alludes to interactions and bonds between people, but that does not, in and of itself, discount the possibility that social justice is an individual property. Inclusion (Qvortrup & Qvortrup, 2018), which is central to Fraser’s (2005) writings, ultimately revolves back to individuals. It posits that individuals excluded from society in some way should, in justice, be included. This is a straightforward statement, but exclusion is taken as predicated on group membership – of a race, of a gender, of a class of disability (Richards-Shuster et al., 2019). Essentially, then, social justice refers to being aware of inequalities that arise from individuals’ membership of given groups and vigorously taking steps to address them. The apparent contradiction in its being about helping individuals, but only after sorting those individuals by group membership, is the first of many concerns around social justice as a concept.

Another is that inclusion as a term has resisted semantic specificity. It is not fairness since that cannot be assumed to equate to justice (Rawls, 1999). Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are two phrases that are often bandied around, but even the word equality is too narrow. For true social justice to occur, the goal must be equity (Vetter et al., 2022), which does not denote giving everyone the same opportunity; it means compensating for inherent structural inequalities before even getting to work on providing opportunities. Again, this is not as clear-cut as it sounds. For the Orang Asli, it will certainly touch upon societal features, but may also involve the inclusion of new ways of knowing.

Taking all of this into account, a useful definition of social justice would broadly align with that of Buettner-Schmidt and Lobo (2012): social justice, as a concept, refers to individuals having the ability to participate fully in society in such a way as to respect their identities as individuals, while appreciating that those identities will, in part, be determined by a group membership that may carry with it societal and structural disadvantages that need to be acknowledged and overcome if full participation is to be achieved. Such a definition applies to the Orang Asli, whose determinants of individual identity are not those of their context society. It is also behind any meaningful idea of what is meant by SJL and is therefore the key conceptual framework for the current argument.

SJL in the Orang Asli context

Given what has already been said, it should not come as a shock to learn that there is little consensus around what constitutes SJL (Lowery, 2022). A point upon which most commentators do concur is that social justice and leadership occupy the same space. The connecting tissue is action, or activism (Theoharis, 2007). Social justice leadership is not, or should not be, merely a concept, or a philosophical stance; it should be evident in everything that leaders do. Social justice leaders should put the needs of marginalised groups front and centre in their practice.

That such an approach is necessary is largely driven by the contexts within which SJL operates. Leadership as conventionally conceived is dynamic (Eddy et al., 2023) and evinced in an interpersonal relationship: someone with a vision – a leader – influences people who adopt that vision and wish to bring it about – followers (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). This is obviously a simplification, but it captures the essence. Leadership, on this basis, can occur anywhere and among any people. It is not always successful, to be sure, and the environment is an important enabler or impediment, but context in this sense is not content: leadership happens between people.

Social justice leadership, on the contrary, is pitched from the outset as adversarial. If injustices are created by structural factors, then SJL is impossible without being, in some respect, in opposition to those factors (Rivera-McCutchen, 2014). It is, by definition, an activist approach that aims not only to build-up the individuals to whom it is directed, but to destroy, or at least alter, the structures that hold them back and prevent them from realising their full potential. Berkovich (2014) references this idea when he argues that SJL cannot confine itself to the intra-institutional but must also be extra-institutional in its focus. Put another way, this is to argue that SJL needs to be located within a complex ecology of social relationships, all of which are likely to be tainted by macro-structural inequalities. It would be pointless, then, to change conditions for individuals within an institution if they still suffer inequalities outside it. Changing all aspects of the system is the social justice leader’s aspiration and responsibility. Orang Asli people reside at an intersection of the modern and traditional, often attempting to juggle two contrasting, perhaps opposed, identities. Structural injustices arise when they attempt to access the former.

That having been said, the tendency to downplay Orang Asli traditions is an injustice in itself and the true social justice leader cannot put it right by simply changing aspects of the external environment. They are important, of course, but they are superficial, at best, if efforts are not made to tackle inequality on a deeper level, that of the internal world. Arguably, the most potent structures of oppression for the Orang Asli – and others around the world like them – are not social institutions, but ideas, norms and doctrines (Joldersma, 2001). Social justice is as much epistemological as social and behaviour can only be changed if the beliefs underlying it are also changed. The entire architecture of a marginalised person’s thinking will potentially have been conditioned by their structural context: leadership will in part be a reprogramming job before any new vision can be installed. A deconstruction of the social justice leader’s own cognitive biases is an essential prerequisite (Sonmez & Gokmenoglu, 2022). As a major pillar of the traditional Orang Asli identity is a specific way of knowing the world, SJL cannot afford to ignore it. Education has an obvious role to play in this process; as Rosnon et al. (2021) affirm, it is the major means by which Orang Asli self-determination can be made more than purely symbolic.

In practical terms, addressing this problem calls for social justice leaders to be in possession of a range of skills. Advocacy and empathy are givens, but courage is also needed (Lowery, 2022). Toppling a monolith by chipping away at it with an ice pick takes time and tenacity; not everyone will have the staying power. Torrance et al. (2021) highlight the potential of public school systems to create fair opportunities for marginalised groups and help build social cohesion; an example of this in action would be the increasing use of textbook inserts aimed at Orang Asli pupils in Malaysian schools. As Hytten and Bettez (2011) argue, though, translating one’s understanding of and commitment to social justice into practical steps in educational environments is a difficult task. It is complicated by the question, ‘who are the social justice leaders?’ Article 14 of UNDRIP bestows on Indigenous communities the right to establish their own education systems (Rosnon et al., 2021), but most of those with influence over Orang Asli pupils are members of other demographics (Adnan et al., 2020). Initiatives to address this are under way, with such institutions as Institut Pendidikan Guru Kampus Tengku Ampuan Afzan, the Tengku Ampua Afzan Teacher Training Insitute, aiming to produce Orang Asli teachers; a shortage of sufficiently educated members of the community is a stumbling block (Rosnon et al., 2021). For the present, then, SJL cannot be generated by the Orang Asli alone – a wider effort is required.

The struggles of Orang Asli students in formal educational settings

Two main issues have been widely associated with Orang Asli students in schools, namely high dropout rates and educational underachievement (Malaysia Ministry of Education, 2018; Mohd Noor, 2012; Nicholas, 2006, 2020; Sharifah et al., 2011; Wan & Idrus, 2021). Most studies of Orang Asli education have taken what Valencia (2019) calls the at risk deficit approach by positioning Orang Asli children as culturally deprived by a build-up of deficits through the history of a family or tribe. This follows from superficially foregrounding statistics concerning low attendance and underachievement in Orang Asli schools, as well as unfairly portraying parents as anti-education. As an instance, it is sometimes stated that 42% of Orang Asli students drop out before the end of secondary school. In fact, there is considerable variation between Malaysia’s states. The rate may be 41% in Kelantan, but it averages only 3% in Johor, Perak and Kedah (Bernama, 2022). Even so, resulting interventions often make the assumption that students are the problem, when a proper analysis of the data should suggest different actions.

Deficit framing has been challenged by more recent publications (Nicholas, 2006; Wan, 2020 Wan & Idrus, 2020, 2021), which argue that high dropout rates and underachievement are merely the symptoms of many other underlying problems (Nicholas, 2006; Wan, 2020; Wan & Idrus, 2021). These studies have taken a deeper dive into the struggles of Orang Asli students. As mentioned earlier, this is to consider individual injustices within a more collectivist and contextual frame: the recent work alluded to here has attempted to identify the structural matters which need to be challenged by social justice leaders.

The deep dives have brought out the voices of Orang Asli students, parents and communities, which convey a different narrative based on such underlying factors as poverty, bullying and the stigmatisation of Orang Asli languages and cultures. An often-underplayed issue is the bullying of Orang Asli students in schools – which is given by students as one motivator for drop out.

Many Orang Asli children have to live in hostels known as asrama for most, if not all, of their years at school, commonly from the age of 7 years. Those who are determined to complete their schooling may have to live in an asrama for more than a decade, meaning that they are separated from their families for most of their formative years. Bullying being rife in such spaces, there is obvious potential for SJL to create a safer and more inclusive environment for Orang Asli students.

Bullying is ‘an aggressive behaviour that involves unwanted, negative actions, is repeated over time, and an imbalance of power or strength between the perpetrator or perpetrators and the victim’ (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2019, p. 14). Across the literature, different forms of bullying have been identified: physical bullying, verbal bullying and psychological bullying, sexual bullying and cyberbullying (UNESCO, 2019). Nicholas (2006) and Endicott (2016) pointed to bullying being a crippling reality for Orang Asli students. More recently, a study by Paul et al. (2021) found that not only have Orang Asli children experienced physical and verbal bullying, but some have also faced sexual harassment. In illustrating the lived experiences of Orang Asli students, a compilation of stories written by a group of 18 young Orang Asli women (Danker & Idrus, 2019) has become – in line with Ibrahim’s (2021) ideas – a powerful voice. In the 2020 Malaysia’s Women‘s Rights Tribunal, these stories were included as witness statements to the conditions endured by Orang Asli girls in schools.

The contributor Rosita (Danker & Idrus, 2019), for example, recalled her schooling experiences in an especially bittersweet way. Her enjoyment of taking part in extracurricular activities was tainted by the depressing bullying that affected both her motivation and self-esteem. In her story, she recalled constantly feeling sad, angry and annoyed after being insulted and mocked by non-Orang Asli students. Her tale is far from unique, or even unusual (Salim et al., 2020). Another witness, Chipang, wrote that her bullying experiences had caused her to drop out of school at the age of 15 years. She recalled:

The biggest challenge that I faced in school was being bullied. It demotivated me. The bullies liked to hide my things. I was beaten by my classmates even though I didn’t do anything wrong. The same bully also bullied other Orang Asli students and the bully used to insult, mock and beat us. (Danker & Idrus, 2019, p. 22)

More positively, elements that could be the foundation of a more inclusive schooling environment for Orang Asli students are not ignored. In some of the stories, supportive teachers are the characters who create a more inclusive environment through culturally respectful approaches (Danker & Idrus, 2019) and through making an effort to understand the epistemological underpinnings of the Orang Asli worldview. Beyond these stories, other studies such as those by Wan (2020) and Wan and Idrus (2021) have uncovered other narratives from Orang Asli students and parents, which echo the challenging experiences of these Orang Asli girls.

Although studies specifically examining the impact of bullying on Orang Asli retention rates and achievement levels are scarce, the previously mentioned lived experiences of students and parents suggest that these negative experiences have made schooling more challenging physically and emotionally for Orang Asli students. Unfortunately, based on current developments, unsafe school environments, which are largely perpetuated by the stigmatisation of Orang Asli cultures and ways of knowing, have not received enough attention within the system.

Despite the urgency of this issue, most educational initiatives implemented in Orang Asli schools solely target Orang Asli students and their parents. In many cases, the initiatives aim to raise their awareness without considering other external factors or actors that are equally, if not more, important; an example would be a meeting of the Orang Asli Consultation Council of the Ministry of Education in 2022 at which were presented intervention programmes that aimed to improve Orang Asli education in terms of access, equity, welfare and achievement. It should also be noted that there have been efforts to improve Orang Asli participation in education by community members themselves. The work of the Temuan activist, Jenita Engi, stands out. Utilising a strength-based approach, Jenita works closely with community members to co-create culturally responsive teaching approaches and learning materials through her Pendidikan Dalam Komuniti (Community-Based Education) scheme, which emphasises capacity building by community members. Jenita epitomises SJL as practised by the Orang Asli.

While all these programmes help in many ways, the absence of non-Orang Asli students and non-Orang Asli communities is startling. Indeed, it is questionable whether educational interventions best serve the Indigenous community at which they are directed, or mainstream society (Rosnon et al., 2021). An awareness of the important roles played by all students, regardless of their social backgrounds, in creating an equal and inclusive school environment allowing for the participation of all students in such programmes and interventions is required. Programmes that bring together all students will help to build bridges between Orang Asli students and their non-Orang Asli peers, as well as promote the better mutual understanding and trust that could serve as a foundation for properly inclusive approaches.

Building a more inclusive school environment through SJL

The foregoing discussion of the lived experiences of many Orang Asli students in Malaysia begs a more important question: how do we create a more positive school climate? Beyond the individual teachers mentioned in the Orang Asli female students’ personal narratives (Danker & Idrus, 2019), SJL is little in evidence. Deficit narratives predominate and strength-based discourses are embryonic at best. Yet, across the literature, past studies have suggested that SJL has the potential to dismantle the inequalities experienced in schools and build inclusivity and full participation for all.

An example is a study of 549 high-school students in Turkey (Kocak, 2021) which found that SJL can play a role in developing student resilience and a sense of school belonging. Outcomes of the study suggest that to enhance academic and social resilience of students, school leaders need to eliminate barriers to inclusivity. This is in line with the contention that for Orang Asli education to be more effective, intentional efforts to remove all type of barriers in schools are a priority. In this case, school leaders need to remove or minimise social gaps among students and create a more equitable, just and ultimately inclusive school culture. For Orang Asli students, building resilience and a sense of belonging is necessary given the challenges that they face inside and outside schools. In Canada, a study of 22 school principals by Wang (2018) found evidence that SJL practices are useful in creating a parity of participation within a school by emphasising the engagement of all stakeholders and the provision of opportunities for all actors, particularly students, to inform decision making.

Irrespective of these benefits, researchers and practitioners have agreed that implementing policies and practices that promote SJL in schools is a difficult process (Hytten & Bettez, 2011; Torrance et al., 2021; Wang, 2018). Some of the challenges identified by Wang (2018) include as follows:

• The momentum of the status quo;

• Deficit thinking about marginalised groups;

• Obstructive staff attitudes and beliefs;

• Lack of resources: financial, temporal and personnel.

When discussing Orang Asli education, emphasis should be placed on identifying the specific barriers as this is a vital step to creating fair opportunities. For Orang Asli students, the first two barriers mentioned by Wang (2018) above are the main problems that need to be addressed.

Wang (2018) found that deficit thinking could encourage teachers to resort to victim-blaming by locating students’ educational problems in their own internal battles. Wang (2018) further explains that a deficit mentality is often related to the embedded values and belief systems of teachers. This is certainly the case with regard to Orang Asli students (Wan, 2020; Wan & Idrus, 2021). It should be appreciated that since most teachers working with Orang Asli students come from different socio-economic backgrounds, their values may not always be compatible with those of local Orang Asli people. To break the cycle of underachievement, Orang Asli students need, first, to think like members of the community to which they belong as individuals. This does not mean rejecting all other forms of knowledge, but it does call for awareness of context and the application of criticality.

Conclusion and recommendations

Fraser (2007) argues that, as a term, social justice covers two areas: wealth inequality and misrecognition. It is, therefore, an economic and cultural phenomenon. For marginalised groups to achieve full participation in a society, they may need to experience a growth in their levels of wealth, but they must also be acknowledged and accepted for who they are: their uniqueness must be celebrated. In Fraser’s (2007) terms, the Orang Asli of Malaysia live at the intersection of both varieties of injustice. They are economically deprived, but also misrecognised. The bullying stories discussed above eloquently testify to the lack of acceptance that Orang Asli students often experience among their peers. It is not enough, however, to attribute this solely to interpersonal, or even intercultural, disjunctions. Orang Asli students suffer injustices as individuals, as well as injustices as a collective, the connection between the two being somewhat more nuanced than may be appreciated at first glance.

The situation for Orang Asli students is the consequence of many centuries of contact, and conflict, with other groups and cannot easily be summed up in a few short paragraphs. Any putative social justice leader who expects an off-the-peg toolkit of strategies to work will be disappointed. Perhaps the most profound level of engagement would need to be with Orang Asli forms of knowledge (Dong et al., 2022). As was stated at the beginning, the constraints that the poet William Blake called ‘mind-forged manacles’ in his poem London (1794), which is itself a cry for social justice (as cited in Bentley, 2005, p. 123), need to be cast off. Only a social justice leader who is able to understand what the manacles are, or may be, can hope to accomplish this.

In some ways, this only complicates the task of applying SJL. A major issue with much writing on the subject is that it tends to take a purely practical line – following through on the assertion that it is an idea rooted in activity – proposing relatively simple solutions to the problems it identifies. Indigenous peoples, such as the Orang Asli students dealt with here, often have different mental frameworks from the people around them. Valuing their uniqueness means more than merely giving them a boost in specific social contexts. It means appreciating that social justice is epistemological in foundation and orientating leadership efforts in that direction.

So, how might SJL be implemented in Orang Asli education? The following recommendations are not intended as a comprehensive list, but they should reinforce the general point that only actions tailored to context, in all of that word’s complexity, can hope to make the differences that advocates of social justice desire. In the respect that they are practical in orientation, the recommendations suggest the type of activism that is the central to the work of social justice leaders.

The first suggested action follows naturally from this: there needs to be more exploration of SJL within the context of Malaysian schools, particularly for Orang Asli students. While prior studies have demonstrated the value of SJL in many contexts internationally, Malaysia has been somewhat left out. As has been argued, trying to map SJL practices developed elsewhere on to the circumstances of Malaysia is not likely to make a serious difference. The incorporation of SJL practices within the policies and interventions designed for Orang Asli students could potentially help to dismantle the deficit approaches that have hitherto been used, as they would provide an opportunity to re-examine the process of problematisation (Bacchi, 2012). The absence of a social justice angle in existing, admittedly well-meaning, official policies and interventions has rendered them less responsive to the current needs of Orang Asli communities. Although many policies and interventions are claimed to be data-driven, the lack of a framework that critically examines the socio-political factors and promotes a parity of participation may further disempower Orang Asli communities, particularly given the huge power imbalances that exist within society as a whole (Rosnon, 2016).

Second, the creation of an awareness of social justice issues among all actors, such as policymakers, school leaders, teachers, students and parents, is a sine qua non. This goes beyond shining a light. It is about changing mindsets and addressing epistemological concerns. To achieve such a lofty goal, a clear suite of guidelines that clarify what social justice and SJL could mean in the context of Orang Asli education is vital, since the term social justice itself may be defined and understood differently depending on socio-historical conditions (Rizvi, 1998, as cited in Hytten & Bettez, 2011; Torrance et al., 2021). It is worth re-emphasising here that most Orang Asli students come from a unique socio-historical background, which is often overlooked or underplayed despite its significance and relevance to policies and practice. In addition, as proposed by Wang (2018), the guidelines should outline the characteristics of a social justice school leader and the specific actions that they could take to achieve their social justice goals. These guidelines should include some case studies of how SJL is practised in similar settings locally and internationally – with the proviso that one context is not a perfect match for another.

In addition, open dialogue with teachers and school leaders about the proposed guidelines is recommended so that feedback from these critical actors can be obtained. In line with the recommendations of many previous studies (Kochak, 2021; Torrance et al., 2021; Wang, 2018), it can be stated that getting school leader buy-in and building their commitment is essential, considering the highly contextual nature of SJL: school leaders know best how to shape their SJL practices. The dialogue could help raise awareness about the relevance of SJL and its potential to create a more inclusive education system for Orang Asli students. Raising awareness is essential. Social justice leadership in schools is often ineffective because of the minimal appreciation that school leaders and teachers have about how some of the norms and practices, as well as structural and systemic matters, could lead to inequity in schools (Wang, 2018).

Finally, strengthening school–community partnerships is another step that needs to be taken. Across the literature, three key facilitators for SJL in schools have been identified: (a) school leaders, (b) teachers and (c) parents (Torrance et al., 2021; Wang, 2018). This implies that a strong partnership between the three parties could help facilitate a successful integration of SJL in schools. In the case of Orang Asli schools, numerous studies have called for this step to be taken to bridge the existing school–community gaps (Wan, 2020; Wan & Idrus, 2021).

It is clear that social justice leaders should be drawn from across Malaysian society as a whole, but greater input from Orang Asli actors is an urgent requirement. Leadership is being provided by the directors of Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (Department of Orang Asli Development) (JAKOA), who are themselves members of the community, although the danger that JAKOA is primarily an arm of the government, enjoying only symbolic control of education (Rosnon et al., 2021), is to be guarded against: policy is made by the relevant ministry, not, contrary to UNDRIP, by the Orang Asli themselves. Still, numerous education task forces and working groups have been created over the years to improve Orang Asli representation in the teaching profession as a whole. The activities of Jenita Engi and, indeed, the lead author of this article, among others, are also an important foundation, but even greater involvement of the community along the lines suggested should be encouraged. A positive, strength-based approach would allow for full inclusion as envisaged by Fraser (2007).