DOI 10.1007/s11218-005-3319-9 Social Psychology of Education (2006) 9:97–118 © Springer 2006 Spheres of justice within schools: reflections and evidence on the distribution of educational goods CLARA SABBAGH 1,* , NURA RESH 2 , MICHAL MOR 1 and PIETER VANHUYSSE 3 1 Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel 2 School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel 3 Faculty of Education and School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel (Received 23 November 2004; Accepted in final form 19 September 2005) Abstract. This article argues that there are distinct spheres of justice within education and examines a range of justice norms and distribution rules that characterize the daily life of schools and classrooms. Moving from the macro to micro level, we identify the following five areas: the right to education, the allocation of (or selection into) learn- ing places, teaching–learning practices, teachers’ treatment of students, and student eval- uations of grade distribution. We discuss the literature on the beliefs by students and teachers about the just distribution of educational goods in these five domains, and on the practices used in the actual allocation of these goods. In line with normative ‘spheres of justice’ arguments in social theory, we conclude that the ideals of social justice within schools vary strongly according to the particular resource to be distributed. Moreover, these ideals often do not correspond with the practices that actually guide resource distri- bution in education, which may go some way toward explaining explicit or latent conflicts in this sphere. Key words: distributive politics; justice perceptions; educational goods; spherical plural- ism; complex equality; Walzer Justice is a human construction, and it is doubtful that it can be made in only one way. Michael Walzer (1983, p. 5) 1. Introduction The just distribution by and within institutions of scarce goods, including money, influence, jobs, status, and in-kind benefits, has been the object of * Author for correspondence: e-mail: csabbagh@construct.haifa.ac.il