Positioning Whitehead as a Means to Enhance Social Justice in Education

Abstract

This paper attends to a theoretical overview in process philosophy and empirical data, with the intent of providing a way forward for social justice in education. The introduction of Whitehead into the role of an educationalist questions what social justice means and how to enact it through pedagogy. The focus of thought about social justice in education is removed from a human-only activity and repositioned as a global concern that builds upon the work of the new materialisms and post humanism. In times of environmental crisis, the use of Whitehead is a means to enhance the personal, social and global aspects of educational provision, whilst retaining a focus and call to action with respect to nature and everything non-human. Whitehead was resolute that he could avoid human-nature bifurcation, and his construction of ‘process metaphysics’ was to resolve the issues created by knowledge potentially becoming abstracted and devoid of nature, process and/or context. This piece puts Whitehead to work for social justice issues, such as those caused by the injustices of and in contemporary capitalism, whilst recognizing this work must simultaneously attend to environmental and planetary concerns.