The student voice for social justice pedagogical method

ABSTRACT

Creating a socially just pedagogy from a grassroots level could help address issues of educational injustice. This paper focuses on the creation of the student voice for social justice (SVSJ) pedagogical method that is based on Nancy Fraser’s political social justice framework. The resulting approach, developed through participatory action research, involves students in higher education acting as co-investigators and co-constructors in pedagogical planning and implementation. The results of this study indicate that student voice is an essential component of the approach and should include diversity appreciation, student autonomy/freedom, and student identity. Student-centred learning, educators’ roles, and shared power are also important considerations to produce a framework for student empowerment. These findings expand Fraser’s framework and SVSJ provides insights for education practices at pedagogical and individual levels (such as students and lecturers) that can ensure more socially just learning experiences.

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KEYWORDS:

• Student voice
• student empowerment
• social justice
• pedagogy
• higher education

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Oktay Aktaş for giving valuable feedback and suggestions on drafts of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the FEHD Innovative Teaching (Beyond e-Learning) Grant 2019/20 from The Education University of Hong Kong and the Anti-Epidemic Fund (AEF) 2.0 (SERIAL NO. FEHD-IE-13) from the Government of Hong Kong.