The Dialogue of Social Justice

Critical Social Justice according to Gustavo Pereira in “What do we Need to be Part of Dialogue? From Discursive Ethics to Critical Social Justice” I learned that “critical social justice is to ensure the agency of citizens, which enables them to take part, not only in public discussions about how resources are distributed, but also about matters such as what should be produced, how to do it and through what kind of production” (280). Basically, what this translates for me is that to have the discussions that we have about education or our laws we first need to understand the world that we live in and the implications behind what is being asked. Pereira goes on to argue that without a “normative criterion for moral validity” we also must understand “justifications carried out by discursive ethics” (281). Pereira argues that to understand where social justice comes from and where it leads we first must understand the dialogue of how ethics play a role in decision making or in a sense “rational binding force of moral judgments” (281).

We all have a moral obligation to the world and people around us. What teachers need to show the students in their classrooms is that we all have a moral obligation to be involved in what goes on in our country and our state. Students can learn about social justice or moral obligations if they are pressed into situations that force them to make decisions; however, as teachers we have a moral obligation to introduce our students to the social justices before they reach that point. One way I can see teaching social justice is by having the students read a bill that is up for vote and then have them do research into it as if they were going to vote for it or against it. This brings the conversation of the real world right into the classroom and allows students to understand important issues that affect them.

Pereira, Gustavo. “What do we Need to be Part of Dialogue? From Discursive Ethics to Critical Social Justice.” Critical Horizons, vol. 16, no. 3, Aug. 2015, pp. 280-298.