Two contrasting views of “social justice” are at work in today’s debates about K–12 education. One, frequently invoked by progressives, is geared toward activism. The other, more traditional and modest, is often implicit in conservative approaches to school-reform issues. These divergent frameworks underlie the simmering tensions that beset contemporary education policy, and much else besides.
The first variety of “social justice” implies that much of society’s architecture is fundamentally flawed or even purposely unjust. It sees many relationships as premised on unfair distributions of power and holds that our economic order systematically privileges the advantaged and exploits the vulnerable. Because this worldview is so severe, it often leads to uncompromising proposals to remedy society’s ills and dramatic, militant rhetoric.
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