Baseline data on PSTs’ understandings of social justice and Development Education (DE) issues and consideration of the implications for initial teacher education programmes North and South, was presented by Bryan et al. (2011). While the study garnered data from North and South, no specific attention was paid to the teaching of social justice and the meaningful and innovative ways in which such teaching practices can encourage PSTs’ learning with and from peers in the respective jurisdictions. The aim of the project is to develop and share a teaching approach to social justice across two initial teacher education (ITE) programmes from North and South Ireland. The aim is to encourage (seven) teacher educators and (32) pre-service teachers (PSTs) to learn with and from each other, within and across their respective jurisdictions. Teacher educators and PSTs will appreciate the extent to which specific social justice issues are unique (or not) to their jurisdiction and also the school placement contexts. The research questions are; (1) In what way does ITE programmes from the North and South sharing discussions around social justice enhance PSTs’ and teacher educators’ perspectives and experiences with respect to the reality of addressing social justice in schools? and (2) What considerations need to be addressed in formalising a shared North and South ITE space to discuss and enact social justice in schools? Informed by Freire’s (1973) concept of dialogue, and underpinned by agonistic respect (Monforte & Smith, 2021), our social justice journey will involve a community of learners where PSTs and teacher educators will reflect and develop their pedagogical approach and curriculum delivery for matters relating to social justice through practitioner research. The project will extend a three-tiered teaching model that is well established in one university with respect to encouraging PSTs as practitioner researchers (Tannehill et al., 2020). This project will provide empirical data on teacher educators’ and PSTs’ experiences of sharing a social justice space across North and South and subsequent teaching practices. This will lead to capturing the teaching practice realities of striving to teach for social justice while theoretically developing a pedagogy for social justice. The social justice space captures the distribution of opportunities and privileges within a society. This provides a clear warrant for ITE to work toward the development of PSTs who are socially just in their beliefs and practices and better equipped to work in diverse and inclusive school learning environments.

Bryan, A., Clarke, M., Drudy, S., Gallagher, T., Hagan, M., & McEvoy, B. L. (2011). Social justice education in initial teacher education: A cross border perspective. School Leadership Policy and Practice North and South, p.133. Freire, P. 1973. Education for critical consciousness. New York, NY: Continuum Monforte, J. and Smith, B., 2021. Conventional and post qualitative research: An invitation to dialogue. Qualitative inquiry, 27(6), 650-660. Tannehill, D., Scanlon, D., & MacPhail, A. (2020). Applying Research to Practice in Physical Education. Physical Education Matters, 15(3), 80-84.