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Teaching for social justice is an educational philosophy that proponents argue provides "justice and equity" for all learners in all educational settings.

Contents 1 About 2 Practice 2.1 Peer relationships among learners 2.2 Teacher relationships with students 3 Classroom issues 3.1 Instructional strategies 3.1.1 Ideology of injustice: Roots of oppression in the classroom 3.1.1.1 Status, dominance, and internalized oppression 3.1.2 Inclusive learning communities 3.1.2.1 Culturally responsive instruction 3.1.2.2 Transformative Instructional Practices 3.2 Parent and community involvement in classrooms 4 The teacher's professional stance 4.1 Teachers' professional disposition 4.2 Teacher activism within schools 4.2.1 In the classroom 4.2.2 In the school 4.3 Teacher activism outside of schools 5 Relevant individuals 6 Relevent organizations 7 See also 8 References 9 External Links

Teaching for social justice is based on the claim that many students experience oppression in America's public schools based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, ability level or socioeconomic status^[1]. This oppression is understood to operate on institutional and systematic levels as well as personal and interpersonal levels, through discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and social prejudice^[2].

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.^[3]

The principle of correspondence argues that the dominant cultural values of a society are reflected and endorsed in its educational institutions. Proponents of Teaching for Social Justice argue that in the case of the United States, individualism and competition are reflected in the public education system, despite learning theory accepted by some that places an emphasis on interaction and cooperation in peer relationships among learners. ^[4] Some research has shown that individualism was the most frequently occurring cultural theme in classrooms, depicted in individual learning activities, teacher questioning, and whole class instruction. ^[5]

Giving students the opportunity to form relationships in their academic work in the context of cooperative group work is seen to benefits all students according to Cohen. She explained, "It is a superior technique for conceptual learning, for creative problem solving, and for increasing oral language proficiency"^[6]. One study also argues that Cooperative learning also benefits students’ second-language acquisition.^[7]

Dominant culture students that are encouraged through classroom norms and communal learning contexts to form bonds and friendships with a diverse group of classmates might be in a position to act as allies against systems of privilege and oppression. For example, white students that hear racial slurs on the playground can challenge such individual racist expressions. Those that benefit from privilege can challenge the systems that unfairly advantages them and disadvantages some of their classmate. Similarly, straight and able students can take a stand against the heterosexism and ableism common in U.S. culture. “When people join together to end any form of oppression, they act with courage to take responsibility to do the right thing, and this empowers them in ways that can extend to every corner of their lives”^[8]

Some parents who did not go to college are unable to provide their children with academic guidance of many types^[9]. This implies that teachers should offer aid to all students, and not just to those who ask for help; provide informal interactions with students outside of the classroom to increase teacher approachability; provide information on college applications and financial aid, as well as the dominant culture's social capital.^[10]; analyze the school and self for policies that are harmful to students from specific cultures; realize that students with problems are something teachers can work to change, and not necessarily the student's fault.^[11] It is also seems important to recognize and appreciate the many possibilities students might pursue outside of formal academia as well, for teachers often view their own past as a more appropriate path that students ought follow.

Lisa Delpit said that, "All teachers should be able to help all students."^[12] Teachers should become knowledgeable about their students.^[13] Teachers should consider the perspective that although all students have capital to draw from, dominant cultures might profit more from their capital resources in society.^[14] A simple and subjective syllogism might read as follows: if teachers do not know their students, the students will likely trust them less. If the students do not trust their teacher, they will be less likely to learn. Teachers can learn about the cultural and social capital students have available.^[15]; strive to know better the communities they teach in, and; provide opportunities for students to teach adults, especially teachers, about themselves and their cultures. This could be useful to a teachers' knowledge base and also might increase student empowerment.

Low expectations have repeatedly been linked to low student achievement; clearly suggesting that teachers ought raise expectations and standards for all students^[16]. This might be an authentic way for teachers to communicate to students that belief in them, instead of communication that communicates disengaged sympathy or pity. This implies that effective teachers ought communicate to students the expectations that they all need to try and to work hard, and; that effective teachers avoid labeling students as stagnant, low ability learners.

How a teacher chooses to teach and plan units is influenced by how the teacher perceives the nature of learning and what she/he does to create conditions that motivate students to learn and to become critical thinkers^[17]. A teacher cannot teach under the assumption that “equal means the same.” Students come from numerous cultures, languages, lifestyles and values and a monocultural framework will not suit all student needs^[18]. A skilled teacher is able to acknowledge and critically reflect upon her/his own received cultural perspective and come to know how that perspective influences her/his understanding of and actions toward individuals from groups different than her/his received culture. ^[19] Making racism and discrimination an explicit part of the curriculum can be a healthy and caring way to address these difficult issues. Teachers can promote prejudice reduction through well-planned units and lessons that help students develop knowledge and positive images of a wide range of groups. ^[20]

Curriculum needs to build on rather than neglect the experiences with which students come to school in order to broaden their worlds^[21]. Education practice often does not provide a good match between the students’ cultures and the curriculum and instructional practices^[22] Students learn what is meaningful at home is often neglected at school^[23]. Robert Fried, a proponent of “passionate teaching,” suggests developing curriculum and pedagogy related to students’ interests and lives is the best strategy. He says that passionate teaching can only be recognized in terms of students engaging in productive learning that connects with real world problems and events^[24]. In the context of schools, equity and multiculturalism are inextricable^[25]. A major problem with a monocultural curriculum is that it gives students only one way of seeing the world. When reality is presented as static, finished, and flat, the underlying tensions, controversies, passions and problems faced by people throughout history and today disappear^[26].

Curriculum and educational practice are often not culturally responsive with limited integration of information about different cultural groups into the curriculum ^[27] Process and content should be merged into a thoughtful and critical pedagogy...All students should become comfortable with multiple narratives-their own and other peoples. Educators should move toward creating a common composite narrative that approximates the complex and too often painful history of our nation. Fairness in education can emerge from such diversity. ^[28] When attention is given to the learning styles of students, and incorporated into curriculum decisions, students’ ease in learning and their retention of material increases. ^[29] It is important to have high expectations for all students.

Instructional practices utilized for the purpose of teaching for social justice work to interrupt systems of oppression and create equity. Yet, the teacher who employs such pedagogy is not just employing special instructional practices, these teachers are committed to the cause of creating inclusive classroom communities. The instructional practices they choose to utilize in their classrooms are a reflection of that educator's posture of social justice.

"...the true focus of revolutionary change is to see the piece of the oppressor inside us" Audre Lorde^[30]

In these terms, teaching for social justice becomes a stance that teachers take and involves connecting theory with reflection and action, which is what Paulo Freire defined as praxis^[31]. Rather than viewing instructional strategies as individual "activity" that gets done on Wednesdays from 10:00 to 11:00 or as any one specific teaching strategy for teaching math or social studies, instructional strategies that foster social justice can be conceptualized broadly to include everything that happens in the classroom.

Instructional strategies that foster social justice create inclusive and democratic classroom environments where students participate equitably in the learning activities, and classroom life.^[32] The following instructional strategies represent a set of decisions about the processes of the classroom life.

American public schools have traditionally operated upon the ideology of meritocracy; the belief that individuals succeed or fail in classroom learning activities according to their own merit. While operating upon this premise, students are seen to be successful in a learning activity solely because of their individual efforts and abilities; instructional tasks are understood to be activities that reward effort and talent so that those who deserve to excel in fact do so^[33].

Although individual merit and effort do matter for academic success, significant bodies of research have demonstrated that merit and effort are quite differentially rewarded, supported, encouraged, funded, and framed depending on whose talents and efforts are being evaluated^[34]. Within the lens of meritocracy, teachers' instructional strategies have traditionally been seen merely as different ways to transmit useful knowledge and skills in an effective and neutral manner to all students. According to these researchers, when teachers' instructional strategies operate from a meritocratic worldview, the system of instruction works to propagate the existing social injustices of the larger society.

Merit and effort are differentially rewarded in many ways through a teacher's instructional strategies. One way is through Cohen's^[35] status characteristic, which refers to a socially constructed, social ranking, where societal systems of privilege and power influence who is deemed to have a high rank, or a low rank. Examples of status characteristic are race, social class, sex, physical ability, and physical appearance. Status characteristic has the power to affect how children participate in the classroom environment. Research has shown that among interracial middle school children, whites were more likely than blacks to be influential and active^[36]; thus white students held a high rank, while Black students held a low rank. This happened even though the students did not know each other and saw themselves as equally good students in school. Likewise, other studies have found that boys are more dominant than girls in mixed-sex groups, and thus are more influential and active in study activities; also, Anglos are more often dominant than Mexican-Americans who have an ethnically distinctive appearance^[37].

The social hierarchy of status characteristic is one way instructional strategies work to propagate societal structures of oppression. This normalization of oppression in the students' everyday life is achieved when instructional strategies work to internalize attitudes and roles that support and reinforce systems of domination without question or challenge. Both those students who are privileged in the hierarchy and those students who are penalized, play a role in maintaining oppression. For students who are members of oppressed groups, internalized subordination consists of accepting and incorporating the negative images of themselves fostered by the dominant groups.^[38] For example, girls may actively accept the belief that boys are more capable in study activities. They may unquestioningly adopt assumptions about female limitations and negative stereotypes of women as not good at math, or not able to lead group activity. Members of dominant or privileged groups also internalize the system of oppression and through their complicity with the system, operate as agents in perpetuating it.

The alternative to this traditional, meritocratic, white-supremacist, patriarchal, hegemonic hierarchy is creating learning communities that operate on the principles of democracy and inclusion. Traditionally, an inclusive classroom was described as one in which all children, regardless of performance level, were educated with their chronological peers in a "typical" classroom. That is, children are educated in the "third-grade" even though they do not read "at the third grade level", and individualized or specialized services were provided within the context of the general education classroom.^[39] Inclusion, however, can be defined much more broadly, so that it refers to welcoming and accommodating many kinds of student differences, not just those typically labeled as "disabilities". In terms of teaching for social justice, inclusion means addressing student differences related to race, class, gender, ethnicity, language, family background, and religion.

This broader definition of inclusion refers to a classroom in which all children are part of a shared community. These inclusive learning communities give explicit attention to systems of power, privilege, and oppression; they make concrete all the ways in which students' differences can become the basis for discrimination and oppression. They utilize instructional strategies that teach students to be allies to one another. The goal of having an inclusive classroom community is not to homogenize differences within student groups, pretending that they are not there or do not have an impact on students or their lives; the goal is to acknowledge those differences and create a classroom community that works with those differences so that every student has a sense of connection and belonging while participating equitably within the learning activities.^[40]

Culturally responsive instruction is one strategy teachers employ to create inclusive classroom communities. Gay defines culturally responsive teaching as using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and performance styles of diverse students to make learning more appropriate and effective for them; it teaches to and through the strengths of these students^[41]

Using these characteristics to improve culturally responsive teaching would involve considerations to the classroom environment. Teachers view diverse cultural groups as unique and become sensitive to the unique communication, and relationship styles these cultural groups promote. The classroom literature reflects multiple ethnic perspectives and literary genres. Through this multicultural curriculum students from diverse backgrounds are supported to express and grow into their own unique indentity. Beyond just language arts curriculum, math and science instruction incorporates everyday-life concepts, such as economics, employment, consumer habits, of various ethnic groups. A teacher implementing culturally responsive curriculum, is keenly aware that students from different ethnic groups have a wide variety of learning styles. In order to teach to the different learning styles of students, the teacher must plan activities that reflect a variety of sensory opportunities-visual, auditory, and tactile^[42].

Culturally responsive teaching does not incorporate traditional educational practices with respect to students of color^[43]. It means respecting the cultures and experiences of various groups and then uses these as resources for teaching and learning. It appreciates the existing strengths and accomplishments of all students and develops them further in instruction. For example, the verbal creativity and story-telling that is unique among some African Americans in informal social interactions is acknowledged as a gift and contribution and used to teach writing skills.

Other ethnic groups of students prefer to study together in small groups. More opportunities for them and other students to participate in cooperative learning can be provided in the classroom. Banks^[44]asserts that if education is to empower marginalized groups, it must be transformative. Being transformative involves helping "students to develop the knowledge, skills, and values needed to become social critics who can make reflective decisions and implement their decisions in effective personal, social, political, and economic action"^[45].

Research ^[46], and intuition, tell us that the more family and community involvement there is in a school the better the chances for academic success are. In fact, there is research ^[47] that indicates that family/community involvement is a better indicator of educational success than family academic history and economic level. That being said, economic levels of the parents can play a big role in whether a parent can become easily involved in their child’s education. Looking at this issue from a social justice viewpoint we must examine why parental involvement is not equal and what can be done to improve it in all environments. Scheduling and language are two major roadblocks that can stand in the way of parental involvement. For example, from 1979 to 2004 the percentage of students that speak a language other than English at home has increased from 9 to 19 %^[48]. When English is the dominant language at schools that dichotomy becomes a roadblock to parental involvement.

When considering how to aide parents' efforts in providing support for their children, an important place to begin is to consider how teachers approach this issue and from which lens they are viewing their role. Inequality in education, specifically gaps in achievement are often viewed by teachers as a problem within the students' communities. These teachers conceive that the problem lies with the values, peer relations, or identity of the students. Typically these teachers approach the parent/teacher relationship from a position of superiority and condescension.

We love the romantic image of the special teacher who turns an entire failing class around year after year or, by her lone effort, miraculously turns her school’s failing, dysfunctional image into one of a successful, well-run institution. These images often are based upon real teachers that made a difference; Jaime Escalante, Marva Collins, Erin Gruwell. It is tempting to focus on these exceptions and try to imitate their pedagogical styles and avoid more systemic problems within public schools; problems such as inequality in funding and discipline, racism, and segregation through ability grouping. But, a few exceptional teachers cannot address and overcome all of the problems and obstacles public schools face. Rather, teachers, as professionals dedicated to teaching for social justice, must work together. They must form collaborative relationships with other teachers and school staff in order to effect broader change that reaches all students.

In order for teachers to effect social change in their schools and the larger society, they need to work together. No historical movement for change was made in isolation. The myth of the teacher as the lone miracle worker who toils under extremely difficult working conditions hampers collaboration between teachers and portrays teachers as divorced from the historical and social/political context. Teachers must "talk with, learn from, and challenge their colleagues in a consistent and constructive manner that reinforces their dual roles as teachers and learners"^[49].

Teachers can be activists in their own classrooms by explicitly teaching about similarities and differences among human beings, about racism, discrimination, stereotypes, and heterosexism. Teachers can use the current curriculum to help students develop a critical perspective about what they read, asking questions such as: why is only this viewpoint reflected?

Service learning and including social action components to units are powerful ways of teaching students to be activists in their communities. In addition, bringing parents and community members into the classroom to teach about specific jobs or talents increases the strength of school-community relationships and enriches the classroom environment.

Teachers can lobby collectively to hire a gender-balanced, racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse staff. They can influence job descriptions so that diversity is an important criterion and also push for aggressive outreach efforts to find diverse staff members, using measures such as postings in local papers, community centers, and businesses.

Teachers can join professional organizations committed to equity in public schools. They can subscribe to publications interested in effecting change in education such as Rethinking Schools, and can write articles for Rethinking Schools on their specific pedagogical practices which have been successful. They can request or purchase teaching materials from groups such as Teaching for Tolerance and Teaching for Change. They can continue to educate themselves on issues of equity in education by reading research publications.

John Dewey 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, as well as his seminal works on democracy in education. Following him were George Counts, who focused on a democratically-inclusive, socialistic educational model, while Charles Beard and Myles Horton both provided more individualistic lenses which emphasized teaching for social justice. More recently, bell hooks pioneered a culturally-relevant, critical classroom theory strongly informing teaching for social justice. Ira Shor, Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux and Stanley Arnowitz 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 and Lisa Delpit are among the growing body of modern educational theorists who have also contributed greatly to this practice.

Many universities and colleges have programs focused on teaching for social justice, including The Evergreen State College, Penn State University, UCLA and the University of Washington. A number of nonprofit organizations also support the practice in schools, including Mosaic, the Institute for Community Leadership and The Freechild Project.

• Critical pedagogy
• Anti-Oppressive Education
• Student voice
• Student activism
• Intergenerational equity
• Youth empowerment
• Youth/adult partnerships
• Service learning
• Reflection
• Critical thinking
• Radical Teacher

• The Evergreen State College Master in Teaching Program
• The Freechild Project - Connecting young people and social change
• New Horizons for Learning
• The National Center for Fair & Open Testing
• The National Center for Family Literacy
• One Tough Job
• Rethinking Schools
• Teaching for Change
• SoundOut - Promoting student voice throughout education