5 Essential Components for Social Justice Education (SJE)

1. Personal Reflection

1.1. (1) Dominants are actively taught not to see their privilege (2) Dominants are taught to see their life and its privileges as the “norm’’ for society and humanity; and (3) Dominants have done nothing to earn this privilege. (6)

1.2. Self-reflection can serve as a constant motivator, to help students and teacher towards a directions of solution instead of problem.

1.3. Subordinate group members also can utilize self-reflection by examining how internalized oppression has impacted their lives and communities, and how their dominant and subordinate identities interact.

2. Action and Social Change

2.1. The third component, tools for action and social change, is critical to help move students from cynicism and despair to hope and possibility. Upon learning about issues of oppression and privilege, dominant group members may feel stuck in the reality of their privilege, and subordinate group members may re-experience the frustration of oppression. Tools can include looking at past events of social change and action. Encouraging students to use their background knowledge to create action.

3. Awareness of Multicultural Group Dynamics

3.1. Teacher must understand group dynamics of the classroom and the socially constructed identities of the teacher and students. It is each class member’s responsibility to be an agent of his or her own education and not to reproduce harmful societal dynamics within the classroom. Labels must be left outside the classroom.

4. Reading Complex texts Beyond the Textbook

4.1. Reading complex texts is essential for content mastery. Complex texts are informational and discipline specific. They also require micro to macro analysis and include measurable aspects such as text structure, patterns and characteristics that are specific to a discipline.

4.2. The 3-Part Model for Identifying Complex Text

4.2.1. Qualitative Dimensions of Text Complexity: The aspects of the text that are best measured or only measurable by an attentive human reading, such as levels of meaning or purpose, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands.

4.2.1.1. Text Structure and Patterns for Science Patterns: Classification, Process/Description, Factual/Statement, Compare/Contrast, Problem/Solution, Cause/Effect/Experiment/Instruction, Combination of all the above

4.2.1.1.1. Domain knowledge refers to the reader’s understanding of the vocabulary, concepts/ideas, process and ways of thinking that are characteristic of each discipline. It must be developed through teacher support, prompting, and peer discussion. Then teachers need to make relevant connections with personal experience and background knowledge

4.2.1.1.2. Characteristics: Use of texts, graphs, charts and mathematical symbols, Written in third person, passive voice, connections among many concepts and ideas

4.2.1.1.3. Morphemic analysis, examining the meaning of parts, prefixes suffixes and roots

4.2.2. Quantitative dimensions of text complexity: Refer to those aspects of text complexity, such as word length or frequency, sentence length, and text cohesion, that are difficult if not impossible for a human reader to evaluate efficiently, especially long texts, and are thus today typically measured by computer software.

4.2.2.1. Formulas: Flesch-Kincaid Grade level test=Word length and sentence length for semantic and syntactic complexity , Dale-Chall Readability=Substitute word frequency for word length, Lexile framework for readability= produces a single measure of text complexity called Lexile.

4.2.3. Reader and tasks Considerations: Variables specific to particular readers (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and to particular tasks (such as purpose and the complexity of the task assigned and the questions posed). Several factors need to be considered in order for the read to interact with the reading process: Cognitive Abilities (attention, memory, critical analytic, ability, inference, visualization), motivation (a purpose for reading, interest in the content, self-efficacy as a reader), knowledge and experiences.

4.2.3.1. Finding purpose, relevance, and developing confidence with reading and understanding complex text can promote motivation to read and persistence

4.2.3.2. Teachers should model how to read it and should make their thinking process visible and tangible for all to see and hear

4.2.3.3. Must grapple and struggle with text dependent questions: Questions that assess themes and central ideas. Questions that assess vocab knowledge. Questions that assess syntax and structure.

5. Content Mastery

5.1. Must include factual information, historical contextualization and a micro-to-macro content analysis.

5.2. Informational acquisition helps students to participate in positive proactive social change.

5.3. Factual information should go beyond reproducing dominant hegemonic ideas and content. It must include a range of ideas and information from marginalized non-mainstream media.

5.4. "Ahistorical information, however, leaves students with a limited understanding of the political, social, and economic forces and patterns that create and sustain the oppressive social dynamics students are contesting and transforming" (4).

5.4.1. For instance, in one of my biology textbooks, I came across the term HeLa, a line of immoral cells. HeLa cells were extracted from tumors in the cervix of Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Her cells were used without her knowledge for scientific research. The social and economic importance of Henrietta Lacks and how far ethics and polices of biospecimens have come for scientific and medical advances, is not discussed at all in the textbook.

5.5. Students need information that is connected to their lives and that helps them to understand the micro-level implications of macro issues. The article uses global warming as an example. On a micro level, students could look at their own carbon footprint. Then, as a class we could look at a country's carbon footprint. Next, we could discuss how people in other country's are affect by it.

6. Critical Thinking and Analysis of Oppression

6.1. First, the possession of information does not necessarily translate into wisdom or deep knowledge.

6.2. Second, information alone does not necessarily provide students with a pathway for action.

6.3. Third, presentation of information as truth devoid of critique runs the risk of creating a dogmatic and prescriptive classroom environment.

6.4. Fourth, information presented outside a context of power and oppression runs the risk of recreating the marginalization experienced by members of oppressed groups

6.5. Information should be used to critique and question systems of power.

6.6. Good Critical Thinking Includes:.

6.6.1. Focusing on information from multiple non-dominant perspectives and as independently valid, not as an extension of dominant ones

6.6.2. De-centering students’ analytical frame and opening their minds to a broader range of experiences

6.6.2.1. Some students may believe all sexually reproducing organisms require sexual intercourse, when teaching them about one of the characteristics of life, the ability to reproduce. Some organisms reproduce asexually, while some reproduce sexually. Their idea of what it means to sexually reproduce, must be de-centered or re-wired, for them to think beyond human reproduction. Sexual reproduction is the combination of genetic information from two different individuals, it is not defined by how that occurs. For example, some flowering plants are pollinated by bees. The pollen grains are transferred from one flower to another for fertilization, there is absolutely no sexual intercourse.

6.6.3. Analyzing the effects of power and oppression

6.6.4. Inquiring into what alternatives exist with respect to the current, dominant view of reality of this issue