Social Justice Individual Exploration - Response

For my individual exploration reading on social justice, I found an article titled Understanding Education for Social Justice by Kathy Hytten and Silvia C. Bettez.  The article explained how a growing number of teacher education programs are fundamentally oriented on a vision of social justice, but "it is often unclear in any practical terms what we mean when we invoke a vision of social justice or how this influences such issues as program development, curricula, practicum opportunities, educational philosophy, social vision, and activist work" (8).  The goal of this article was to examine social justice literature in education to gain a better understanding of what it is and why it's important.

This article cited explanations of social justice as "'both a process and a goal' with the ultimate aim being 'full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs'" and as an educational system that "'encourages students to take an active role in their own education and supports teachers in creating empowering, democratic, and critical educational environments'" (8).  Based on these explanations, I would define social justice as an extension of fairness, equal opportunity, and moral rightness towards all social classes without any discrimination or oppression.  Social justice seems to encompass a mindset wherein everyone is empowered and given chances to participate and succeed.  It acknowledges, validates, and respects the diversity between the social classes and empowers individuals by treating them how they ought to be treated.  At it's core, social justice appears to simply be justice within society; the problem is that "justice" is an ambiguous term, and what is just for one person may not be just for another.

Social justice would be important for our classrooms because an educational system or policy without social justice will tend to be oppressive.  An education that is not socially just will not accommodate the needs of all students.  According to my article, a socially just school would promote inclusion, hold high expectations for everyone, and develop reciprocal community relationships; everyone's needs are taking into consideration without excluding anyone in a socially just system.  The way I see it, social justice is important for education because it gives everyone a fair shot at success through a policy of equality.  However, equality doesn't mean that all students receive the exact same educational experiences; rather, I see social justice functioning in education by equally addressing the diverse needs of all types of students.

It is very interesting that so many schools advocate for social justice, but there doesn't appear to be a coherent, agreed upon definition of what the term means, or how it can be applied.  I think the problem is that we all agree that justice should be extended to everyone, but we are not sure how to do that, or even what that means.