Rethinking Questions and Issues of Social Justice in Education

In an age of increasing social inequality and diversity, debates about redistribution and recognition, equality, equity and participation, have become central to contemporary discourses and practices of justice in education. While these concepts offer different accounts of what social justice is and how it should be conceptualized and practised in educational settings, they remain important keywords in the grammar of educational justice. This session welcomes papers that promote exchanges between researchers doing studies on social justice education, particularly with a focus on the relevance and use of the paradigms of distribution, recognition and participation.

The session aims to address questions such as: What does social justice mean to school participants (e.g. students, teachers, principals)? Can we learn what is happening in educational settings through the concept of social justice? Which paradigm of justice is dominant in school settings and practices? What are the possibilities for enacting a more plural social justice in educational settings? How can socially unjust discourses and practices be interrupted in schools and other educational contexts? Do we need distribution and/or recognition to remedy educational inequalities? What does a socially just education look like?

Answers to these questions are a first step to discovering what social justice means in education settings and how socially just education manifests in different contexts and regions. Theoretical and empirical papers addressing these and other questions around debates of social justice education are welcomed in this session.