Abstract:
This paper offers a critical interpretation of a number of issues linking social justice and education. This critical interpretation is based on a framework developed from the conclusions of research conducted in relation to a PhD thesis. The research was aimed at finding out how social justice is constructed in education in 'new times' and took the form of a critical case analysis in a country primary school. It concluded that social justice in education in 'new times' is aligned to an ideology of liberal democracy resulting in the emergence of a hyper individualism. This results in the language of economics dominating the social justice and educational debate. In such a situation the social whole, social identity and social cohesion are marginalised. This produces a curriculum which focusses on the education of the individual for economic imperatives. What is concluded is that the way towards a more socially just society is related to the assimilation of the hyper individual with the social group. A shift to a culture where the individual's rights and responsibilities are respected within a social whole, resulting in the emergence of the socially responsible individual. Such a cultural shift suggests the emergence of a curriculum for social responsibility in which the balance shifts away from the individual towards the social whole.