Recently, social justice is gaining greater attention in social spaces, notably because it echoes movements from civil societies that condemn racism, sexism and other forms of injustices. This concept allows us to question our world, individual interactions, intergroup interactions and interdependencies that structure our environment. Education is also a crucial topic in regard to social justice, since many children are still facing inequalities. 

Developed through Rawls’s work (1972) and through the critical social theory  (Fraser, 1995; 2007; 2008), social justice needs to be understood as a process but also as the result of this process (Bell, 2007). This means that social justice is a paradigm in which one can anchor his/her action as well as the goal to be achieved. In this regard, this concept highlights the crucial issue of groups’ participation and mostly of minority groups participation. Social justice is not only about access to resources it is also a matter of redistribution, recognition and empowerment (Fraser, 2007; 2008).

In education, social justice can be a tool in order to analyze oppressions that lie within education systems. It can also be operationalized as a teaching theory such as “culturally relevant teaching” (Ladson-Billings, 1995). In this regard social justice can be translated as teaching practices or attitudes toward children, it can also foster critical thinking skills and motivation to promote social change. Nevertheless, it is a concept that is not free of ambiguity (see: Boylan & Woolsey, 2015; McDonald & Zeichner, 2009). 

In regard to this description, our symposium offers three different perspectives about social justice in education. This first one will focus on theoretical issues regarding the concept (definition, epistemology and frameworks). The second one will focus on the operationalization of social justice within education policies. And the last one, will question how teachers implement social justice in their practices.

In the light of the contributions of this symposium, we will be able to observe different implementations, different uses and different theoretical analyses of the concept of social justice within a broad range of education contexts (higher education, primary education, pre-school), countries (Switzerland, Georgia, Canada) and levels of an education system (policy , school...). 

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