Tomorrow is the World Day of Social Justice
We live in an unfair world, therefore, today, Social Justice should become an absolute necessity. Education has no alternatives, if it does not advance, it goes backwards, which is something that as a society we cannot afford. Speeches about education as a tool for transforming society are on the lips of all the agents that make up the educational community. But the truth is that, on many occasions, the changes tend to be sporadic or very superficial; which generates that the school becomes one of the main agents of the reproduction of inequalities.
To begin to understand education as an engine of change, we must adopt Social Justice as a fundamental value in schools. Change and Social Justice are closely linked concepts, since it is impossible to understand one without the other. Putting Social Justice first leads to understanding that the process of change in a school has to be constant, in education we should not be conformist.
It is well known by all that on numerous occasions some terms are so misused that they even lose their meaning, as has been the case with Social Justice. Education cannot afford to lose the value of Social Justice, so, in the words of F. Javier Murillo, we must begin to think of this term as a verb, always subject to reflection and subsequent improvement. Thinking about a fair school makes us dream of a school that generates changes, because as Paulo Freire says “Education does not change the world, it changes the people who are going to change the world. must take that step forward and begin to combat inequalities and injustices, to contemplate Social Justice within their projects, to understand their students as agents of change.
For all the above, the UNESCO Chair in Education for Social Justice of the Autonomous University of Madrid has organized on February 22 a virtual round table “Claiming an Education for Social Justice” with the aim that all of the above, do not remain in speeches on the air and we can land experiences, experiences and research on this issue that is essential in the future of education.