Education for Social Justice: Provocations and Challenges

Abstract

In this essay review of three recent edited books (Greg Dimitriadis and Dennis Carlson’s Promises to Keep: Cultural Studies, Democratic Education, and Public Life; Nadine Dolby and Greg Dimitriadis’s Learning to Labor in New Times; and Francisco Ibáñez‐Carrasco and Erica Meiner’s Disruptive Readings on Making Curriculum Public), Kathy Hytten reflects on the relation among education, democracy, and social justice. She argues that in our current climate, progressive educators need a more powerful and compelling educational discourse that foregrounds issues of social justice. The three books under review in this essay provide a number of resources for this discourse. Hytten explores these contributions in relation to the theories that animate education for social justice, in particular, critical pedagogy, globalization theory, and cultural studies. In the end, she revisits the vision and promise of education for social justice, considering what these edited collections offer, reflecting on their gaps and weaknesses, and providing some direction for what kind of work we still need to make social justice a reality.

Films and Critical Pedagogy in Management Education: A Tourism Studies Context

“…Breuing, 2011;Ruiz & Fernandez-Balboa, 2005). Its central premise revolves around transformation of society in the direction of social justice, disrupting of the status quo through a critique of what is taken for granted and practices that reproduce inequality and oppression, as well as situating students voices in these debates and being able to balance critique with imagination (Freire, 1970;Hytten, 2006;McLean, 2006).…”

Promoting Social Justice and Equity through University Education in Pakistan

“…Stressing the role of leadership in social justice and equity, Hytten (2006) pointed out, "While there have always been educators calling for a social justice approach toward education, this vision has never been a dominant one" (Hytten, 2006, p. 224). Numerous studies focusing on educational leadership for social justice such as (Brown, 2004;Cambron-McCabe & Mc-Carthy, 2005;Marshall 2004;Reihl, 2000) expressed the role of leadership for making social justice and equity in educational institutions.…”

The White Savior Industrial Complex: A Cultural Studies Analysis of a Teacher Educator, Savior Film, and Future Teachers

“…Specifically relating to education Hytten (2006) asserted, "among [cultural studies] goals are to understand the relationship between power and knowledge, to look at how power gets symbolically and representatively reproduced, to challenge disempowering social practices, and to provide resources for resistance and social transformation" (p. 234).…”