Prospective teachers ’ perspectives on teaching and social justice

This article reports on a study into the ideological beliefs of first year prospective teachers. Here ideologies are understood as expressions of specific ‘world views ’ and certain collective interests. Data were drawn from tasks that attempted to get students to position themselves relative to and reflect upon questions and propositions related to social justice as it applied to education. It was found that most students work with a variant of liberal ideology, emphasising individual autonomy, a capacity for self-assertion and the fulfilment of native potentials. While expressing a concern about inequality and misrecognition, student responses also provided insights into the limits of liberal approaches to social justice, these arising from an underdeveloped sense of the dynamic tension between society and individual. Teacher perspectives, social justice in educatio