Social Justice

Social Justice

Social justice is a critical element in the promotion of equality. Its activation in the education sector serves multiple purposes, including promoting human rights. For students to receive a quality education, they need to learn in an environment that promotes equity and safety. Educators have the ethical and moral obligation to ensure that such an environment is available. Education provides an ideal platform for the promotion of social justice, which can end the proliferation of inequality gaps in society.

The history, progress, and future of social justice

Social justice can be viewed from two perspectives. The first is its ability to promise mobility and equality, which can be achieved through assimilation, as well as a belief that it can restore togetherness in the school environment. The second perspective of social justice is demonstrated within the school curriculum and staff members who play an active role in recognizing the cultural and linguistic diversity among students. In addition, the ability to foster the appreciation of diversity and morally utilize power to resist discrimination and inequity tendencies is critical (Williamson, Rhodes, & Dunson, 2007).

Social justice in America’s education system is connected to the initiatives that occurred during the 20^th century to improve human rights. The actions that were taken by human rights pioneers, such as authoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have influenced efforts related to social justice. Education provides a platform for the promotion of equal rights and justice to the people in various institutions (Grant & Gibson, 2013). The idea was to diminish the exploitation of the ostracized communities, which occurred because of the wealth, capital, and property gap. This situation resulted from the extreme inequality that was born of the social structures in Europe.

Social justice has gained greater emphasis as part of human rights in current times. It is viewed as an avenue for wealth distribution to ensure that the ostracized groups also have access to jobs, income, more so education. Social justice revolves around five main principles: human rights, diversity, participation, access to resources, and equity (CFI Education Inc., 2022). Today’s instructor has the potential to influence social justice in the education sector. To achieve positive influence, it is necessary to incorporate the elements of social justice in education (Autin et al., 2015). This will educate children about what matters and what their role is in pushing for change (TEDxBoston, 2022).

The Meaning of Social Justice

The inherent meaning of social justice pertains to the fair distribution of resources. In the education context, it entails equitable treatment of all students to ensure physical and psychological safety. The lack of social justice in schools has adverse effects on the learners. Social injustice bars bright students from low-income institutions from achieving their maximum potential as wealthy learners take over (Alvarez, 2019). It is common to find students in affluent institutions accessing all the relevant and recent learning materials with ease. However, those in poorly funded institutions lack such access, a factor that acts as a barrier to the realization of their potential. When bright yet needy learners do not access the required resources, opportunities, and materials, they tend to drop out of school due to the frustration associated with the shortages or inequality (Clarke, 2016). As a result, the country’s economy is affected negatively as marginalized groups of learners miss jobs. This increases the chances of poverty for these learners.

Social justice in education is not only connected to financial aspects. However, even in a free institution, discrimination based on other factors, such as race, colour, and sexual orientation, among others, may occur (Alvarez, 2019). Such subtle forms of discrimination interfere with the ability to attain social justice. However, social justice begins with the teaching fraternity. An institution that employs based on nepotism, race-based, or ability-based discrimination is likely to have a less diverse teaching workforce. This means that the student’s cultural and linguistic diversity is not reflected in the workforce. A workforce that is not diverse poses a significant hindrance to the achievement of social justice in a learning institution. In addition, it also negatively affects the exposure of learners to diverse cultures and their performance (Banerjee, 2018).

Social Justice Connection to the Educational Achievement Gap

Social justice began due to the inequities and gaps in society. Discrimination, wealth, opportunity gaps, and lack of access to income and learning opportunities by the marginalized groups reeled society. This led to the human rights activists’ revolt and press for social justice. The historical gaps that still exist in the educational setting can be sorted through social justice. Social justice offers an opportunity to make things right through students. Access to education is different for marginalized groups and majority citizens. Access to resources and learning materials has been historically unequal in the school setting.

Similarly, the achievement gap comes into existence due to unequal school attendance and access to learning materials. This gap translates into employment gaps as the ‘luckier’ students progress faster into opportunities for economic contribution (Tickle, 2015). The result is poverty-stricken groups in marginalized communities as they drop out of school at a higher rate than their counterparts and are incapable of accessing well-paying jobs. Similarly, the wealth gap widens as those in well-paying jobs earn more and secure assets, while those who missed quality education lack financial resources (The Connecticut News Project, 2010).

Considering the proliferation of these gaps in the economy, the promotion of social justice in schools is highly recommended to end the gap transition. Once students access education and receive meaningful instruction that appreciates cultural and linguistic differences, the achievement, wealth, and employment gaps end. Through social justice, the worth of every student can be ascertained regardless of their unique characteristics. Making the students feel safe to explore varying educational elements is essential for the improvement of performance. When social justice is incorporated into the schools’ policies, it reduces the rate of dropout, and these benefits trickle through the entire ecosystem (Walker, Pearce, Boe, & Lawson, 2019).

How Upholding Principles of Social Justice Relate to the Expectations of Early Childhood Professionals and Ethical Practices

Upholding the principles of social justice, namely, human rights, diversity, participation, access to resources, and equity, is directly connected to the early childhood professionals’ expectations and ethical practices (CFI Education Inc., 2022). Early childhood educators are obliged to uphold each child’s dignity and value, identify and acknowledge the strengths of each learner, provide the required support, create and maintain trusting connections with the children, promote the children’s agency actively, design learning activities that the learners comprehend, and be aware of personal implicit and explicit biases and their effects on the children (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2022).

Thus, implementing the principles of social justice enables the instructors to achieve their expected goals concerning promoting social justice in their classrooms. When an instructor is respectful in the classroom, they can advocate for each child’s rights in the learning environment. This upholds human rights, equity, and access to resources. At the same time, such an instructor can quickly appreciate diversity in the classroom and ensure the active participation of all learners. The ethical responsibilities of early childhood educators are connected to the promotion of social justice.

Conclusion

Education provides an ideal platform for the promotion of social justice, which can end the proliferation of inequality gaps in society. To bring these gaps to a halt, educators and policymakers need to play their roles. Practising social justice in schools also instructs the students about the most important things. It instils in the learner’s knowledge regarding the current inequalities, their origin, their effects, and prevention through social justice. Therefore, education is an ideal platform that can lead to positive societal effects regarding social justice.

References

Alvarez, B. (2019). Why Social Justice in School Matters. Retrieved from https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/why-social-justice-school-matters

Autin, F., Batruch, A., & Butera, F. (2015). Social justice in education: how the function of selection in educational institutions predicts support for (non)egalitarian assessment practices. Front. Psychol.,, 6. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00707

Banerjee, N. (2018). Effects of Teacher-Student Ethnoracial Matching and Overall Teacher Diversity in Elementary Schools on Educational Outcomes. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 32(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2017.1393032

CFI Education Inc. (2022). Social Justice.

Clarke, P. (2016). Social Justice in Education. Retrieved from Office for Social Justice: http://www.osjspm.org/social-justice-in-education

Grant, C. A., & Gibson, M. L. (2013). The path of social justice”: A Human Rights History of Social Justice Education. doi:10.1080/10665684.2012.750190

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2022). Recommendations for Early Childhood Educators. Retrieved from NAEYC: https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/equity/recommendations-ECE

TEDxBoston. (2022). The Future of Social Justice.

The Connecticut News Project. (2010). To close the achievement gap, focus on social justice. The CT Mirror. Retrieved from https://ctmirror.org/2010/06/16/close-achievement-gap-focus-social-justice-2/

Tickle, L. (2015). How can schools promote social justice? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/nov/03/schools-promote-social-justice

Walker, J., Pearce, C., Boe, K., & Lawson, M. (2019). The Power Of Education to fight inequality. Oxfam GB.

Williamson, J. A., Rhodes, L., & Dunson, M. (2007). A Selected History of Social Justice in Education. SAGE, 31(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X07300046195

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Social Justice

In your paper,

Discuss the history, progress, and future of the issues.
Analyze the meaning of social justice.
Share the connection your topic has on the educational achievement gap.
Explain how upholding principles of social justice relates to the expectations of early childhood professionals and ethical practices.
The Social Issue Paper

Must be four to five double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA Style (Links to an external site.) as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA Formatting for Microsoft Word (Links to an external site.)
Must include a separate title page with the following:
Title of paper in bold font
Space should appear between the title and the rest of the information on the title page.
Student’s name
Name of institution (University of Arizona Global Campus)
Course name and number
Instructor’s name
Due date
Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.

Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Writing Center for specifications.

*Chosen topic for the paper: Education*

At least eight credible sources have to be used for this paper. I have a file attached (Week 2 Journal) that has five sources that can be used, so you only have to find three more credible sources in addition to the 5 I’ve already provided in the file attached.