Structural educational injustice, political responsibility, and epistemic activism

• Published in: Ethics and education Vol. 20; no. 2-3; pp. 235 - 256
• Main Author: Nikolaidis, A. C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 03.07.2025
• Subjects: Educational justice; moral responsibility; political responsibility; school discipline; school punishment; structural injustice
• ISSN: 1744-9642; 1744-9650
• DOI: 10.1080/17449642.2025.2495499

Despite recent scholarship in political theory that shifts the focus of injustice from agents to social structures, educational justice scholarship in philosophy of education remains primarily individualistic as regards the causes of injustice. However, it seems that agents' actions are more constrained than individualistic accounts suggest and that educational injustice is largely the result of structural processes. Accordingly, it is argued that scholars should focus on the political instead of the moral responsibility of agents for disrupting educational injustice. This is suggestive of an epistemic activist approach to advancing educational justice that utilizes the power of social movements to disrupt the structural conditions that support educational injustice. The example of unjust school punishment in the United States is used as a case in point.