Responsibility for Educational Justice

• In Event: Philosophical Examinations of Educational Responsibility, Indoctrination, and Educational Justice

Abstract

This paper extends AERA’s call for “accepting educational responsibility” to everyone in their capacity as educators. The author argues that educational injustice is structural in nature and best conceptualized in formative and epistemic terms. This reconceptualization of educational injustice demonstrates that we all, intentionally and unintentionally, contribute to educational injustice by perpetuating epistemic injustice and epistemic oppression with the potential to harm the formative capacities of students who suffer these injustices. Given the structural nature of educational injustice the author suggests that we move away from individualized conceptions of educational responsibility and toward what Iris Marion Young calls a “social connection model” of educational responsibility. Under this model we must all do our part to disrupt educational injustice.

Author

• A. C. Nikolaidis, The Ohio State University - Columbus