By: Torill Strand, University of Oslo, and author of a background paper to the GEM Report publication, Learn to build just societies On a cold morning in northern Norway, a Sámi boy sits in a classroom, looking at a map where his people’s land is not named. The teacher talks about “our” history, “our” language, “our” culture. None of them are his. He learns […] The post What does justice in, for, and through education mean for a child? appeared first on World Education Blog.
By: Torill Strand, University of Oslo, and author of a background paper to the GEM Report publication, Learn to build just societies
On a cold morning in northern Norway, a Sámi boy sits in a classroom, looking at a map where his people’s land is not named. The teacher talks about “our” history, “our” language, “our” culture. None of them are his. He learns about Norwegian history that day. He also learns something else: that his story is not part of what counts.
On another continent, a girl in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, climbs onto a bus to go to school. For her, the simple act of going to school has become dangerous. She is shot by the Taliban for insisting that girls have the same right to education as boys. Later, she stands at the UN proclaiming: “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.”
In a camp near the Sudanese border, a refugee child wakes up in a tent. School is a memory, or a promise repeatedly postponed. She has crossed lines on a map that adults drew and defended. She has lost friends, her home, and everyday routines. Her right to education is fragile.
These three children do not know each other. Their languages, landscapes, and life stories differ. Still, their realities are connected by a simple but demanding question. What does justice in, for, and through education mean for a child? Although their situations are very different, they echo realities that children face in many parts of the world.
Mind the gap
The gap between ideals and realities calls for a radical shift in how we pursue justice in education. Rather than starting from ideal theories or abstract principles, we must attend to children’s everyday experiences of injustice.
As the philosopher Nancy Fraser reminds us, “we do not need to know what justice is in order to know when something is wrong. What we need, rather, is to sharpen our sense of injustice, to cut through obfuscation and ideology”.
Read in this light, the stories above do not merely illustrate where the world falls short of predefined ideals. They reveal concrete moments when something is clearly not as it should be. Taking such moments seriously requires listening carefully to children, recognizing them as present subjects of justice, and engaging them as co-authors of the conditions that shape their lives.
The moral and political status of the child
For centuries, influential theories of justice have treated children as “not-yet” civic subjects. Because children have often been seen as not fully rational, education has been understood primarily as preparation for future participation in society. The child’s value appears mainly as a citizen-in-the-making.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child challenges this view. It recognizes children as rights holders here and now. Article 12 affirms their right to express their views and have those views taken seriously. This might sound obvious. But in practice, it is radical.
- Malala is not only a victim or symbol, but a political actor whose voice exposes injustice and mobilizes others.
- A refugee child is not just someone to be protected. She is a person who should participate in decisions about her education, even in the most precarious circumstances.
- Sámi children are not merely recipients of a national curriculum, but co-creators of more just and decolonized forms of education that respect their language, culture and knowledge traditions.
Taking children’s status and rights seriously reshapes how we understand the link between justice and education. Children are present members of society and subjects of justice. They must therefore be recognized as co-authors of the normative orders that shape their lives. As the philosopher Rainer Forst wisely argues: “the question of justification [is] ultimately a question for those who are subjected to a normative order”, including children.
This shift has profound implications. Children must be recognized and respected as active participants in shaping their own educational worlds.
Seeing justice more clearly
How do we respond to these realities? Three interconnected questions can help us see more clearly what is at stake.
What is happening in children’s lives?
Who has access to meaningful learning? Whose knowledge, language, and culture are recognized and valued? Who experiences exclusion, marginalization, or harm?
Who gets to define what counts as just?
Whose voices shape educational decisions? Do policymakers, teachers, and researchers really listen to the children? Are children respected and heard, as the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires, or are their voices filtered and softened by adult agendas?
How do we rethink justice and education in a changing world?
In a world marked by migration, climate change, digitalization and deep inequalities, how are the aims of education being reshaped? On whose terms are the interlinkages between justice and education reconsidered? Whose knowledge and worldviews are recognized in these redefinitions?
These questions are not a checklist to be ticked off. Rather, they remind us to stay attentive to the gap between normative ideals and the lived realities of children’s lives.
Why practical wisdom matters
Considering the world in transition, there can be no single blueprint for promoting justice in education. What is required is practical judgment, namely what Aristotle called phronesis: the ability to respond wisely to concrete situations. For educators, policy makers and researchers, this means repeatedly asking:
- Is this child’s inherent dignity respected here and now?
- How do power and vulnerability shape this situation?
- What needs to change?
Pedagogies, policies, and research matters. But they must be shaped and reshaped in attentive dialogue with the children and communities affected. Without such dialogue, even well-intentioned reforms risk reinforcing the very injustices they seek to address.
Yes, education is a sphere of justice. It is a site through which societies reproduce and renew themselves, a place where fairness and dignity can flourish. Every classroom, every policy document, every research project is therefore part of an ongoing communal effort to build a more just society by narrowing the gap between what is promised and what is lived in children’s everyday experiences.
The post What does justice in, for, and through education mean for a child? appeared first on World Education Blog.
