Teaching For Social Justice - About

About

Herbert Kohl argues that teachers may be inclined to teach against their conscience, limit their methodology, and focus heavily on being good teachers without placing similar emphasis on being good citizens. Overcoming these inclinations is the crux of what he and many other educators call "teaching for social justice".

Other popular educators who have explored the practice of teaching for social justice include John Dewey, who may have been the first advocate for teaching for social justice when he developed the first theories about technical education and student engagement in the classroom in Democracy and Education.

Following him were George Counts, who focused on a democratically-inclusive, socialistic educational model, while Charles A. Beard and Myles Horton both provided more individualistic lenses which emphasized teaching for social justice. A variety of social and political theories and backgrounds inform the practice of teaching for social justice. Starting as early as the work of W. E. B. Du Bois in the early 1900s, social activists and educators have called for the realignment of educative practices towards a conscious, deliberative practice of engaging society in fostering justice for all.

After the publication of Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1971, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire became closely associated with teaching for social justice. Freire expounded the belief that teaching is a political act that is never neutral. Over the course of dozens of books, Freire proposed that educators focus on creating equity and changing systems of oppression within public schools and society.

The main goal of engaging in social justice through education is to fight oppression by giving all groups the opportunity to receive resources more equally. Esposito and Swain studied urban teachers that promote social justice in their teaching by using culturally relevant pedagogy. Esposito and Swain found that these teachers that engage in social justice through their teaching have to ensure that their students not only thrive academically, but also socially, which can create a burden on educators . By promoting social justice pedagogy, students can increase a sociopolitical consciousness, have a sense of agency, and help students develop a positive social and cultural identity .

Recently teaching for social justice has been built on ethnographic and discourse research on the complex work of educators, including works by bell hooks, who pioneered a culturally-relevant, critical classroom theory strongly informing teaching for social justice. Ira Shor, Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, Joe L. Kincheloe, and Stanley Aronowitz have each built upon the contributions of Freire to develop uniquely American critical examinations of culture and society. Michael Apple is remarkable for his democracy-focused project which reinforces the tenets of teaching for social justice. Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Susan Searls Giroux, Khen Lampert, Michelle Rosser, and Lisa Delpit are among the growing body of modern educational theorists who have also contributed greatly to this practice.

Attention to social justice issues incorporates a broad range of sociological dimensions in teaching, and education more generally, including attention to fairness and equity with regard to gender, race, class, disability, sexual orientation, etc.

Teaching for social justice has a common goal of preparing teachers to recognize, name, and combat inequality in schools and society through culturally relevant pedagogy, anti-racist pedagogy, and intercultural teaching among others . A number of subject specific fields of practice and enquiry in education, including science education and mathematics education have sub-communities of teachers and scholars working on social justice issues. For example the 2007 special issue no. 20 of Philosophy of Mathematics Education Journal is devoted to social justice issues in mathematics education.