Discomforting truths : the emotional terrain of understanding social justice in education

Abstract

This paper seeks to problematise the discourse of social justice in education and engage educational practitioners in tensions that exist in understanding the theory of social justice. I argue that social justice in education is constructed in a way that seeks to disturb not only the tensions of conceptualisation but the traditional power relations present in educational practice as well. This paper is influenced by an eclectic mix of theoretical sources; I have adopted, as a critical lens, poststructuralist, postmodernist, feminist as well as postcolonial theories to interrogate the social justice discourse. While the paper argues that the concept social justice is dynamic and fluid, it attempts to draw the discomforting truths or tensions of conceptualizing social justice. The debates around the conceptualisation of social justice will enable us to better understand the theoretical position which would take us closer to understand social justice in education.