Academics, especially those in the social and health sciences, are often tasked with teaching some of society’s most sensitive and uncomfortable issues. These include discussions about systemic inequalities in health, employment, and education that arise from discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, and class. As social psychologists specialising in teaching sensitive content, we (Doron and Stacey) frequently find ourselves in a unique position where we must balance the responsibility of providing accurate, evidence-based education with the moral imperative to honour the lived experiences of those most affected by these issues.

A recent sociological study defines ‘marginality’ as the ‘involuntary position and condition of an individual or group at the margins of social, political, economic, ecological, and biophysical systems’. While there are other (and sometimes contradictory) ways to discuss the term, it nonetheless represents one, important critical ‘lens’ through which researchers and policymakers have long been attempting to understand inequality in education.