Imagination is supposed to act as a means by which one’s mind is freed from the often contextual limitations to which one becomes accustomed. But what if imagination, in the instance of already marginalised learners serves to limit their thoughts, in particular their abilities to imagine the possibility of attaining success? The need for substantive equality is highlighted in this paper as such equality focuses on the degree to which individuals have been disadvantaged when determining the level of support required at present. Through the use of narrative inquiry, learners were given a platform from which to express their individual experiences of inequality and their imaginings of themselves in the future. From this, we were able to fathom the degree to which learners’ imaginations of success were limited by experiences of inequality. Findings suggested that mere formal equality was insufficient to aid the emancipation of these learners and therefore a sort of substantive equality was required. A shift in policy is thus necessitated so as to provide teachers with a different tool to address such limited abilities to imagine.
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