This paper aims to bring the concept of 'fairness' into the debate about what constitues inclusive education. 'Fairness is a relatively under theorised concept as it applies to education. Education is one of the areas of civic life in many European countries that seems to be characterised by a lack of fairness. Parents can find themselves in the role of advocate and activist to ensure educational provision for their child with special educational needs. Teachers can find themselves lacking training and resources to educate the young people in their care – despite those writing about  imaginative pedagogy (Hart, 1996). And wide income disparities and high levels of poverty mean that there is still a wide attainment gap between children from families living in different economic circumstances OECD (2008). However, injustice also exists in school choice, in how resources are allocated - which implies a consideration of how different needs are defined, and in participation in both decision-making and in active, engaging learning. Education can help address the effects of social and economic inequalities and yet, without a sufficiently rigorous social justice framework within which to balance competing demands, many educational practices currently exacerbate unfairness. There is a profound problem for social justice in a system which is purportedly meritocratic, but which consistently rewards the most privileged in society. This paper draws on ideas of the conceptual ideas of social justice of Sen (2002), Fraser (2008), and Dean’s (2010) ideas of ‘thin’ and ‘thick’, relating to individual and community, needs. Whilst concepts of social justice have often been considered in relation to inclusive education, it is relatively rare to apply issues of fairness to this area.This paper argues that 'fairness' is a concept that is accessible for discussion for many people outside the academy, and is indeed found within everyday conversation and thinking. The paper aims to contribute to ideas about inclusive education by exploring how 'fairness' is currently conceptualised.

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