Social Justice And Political Orientation In Education

Abstract

Based on the model of Social Justice in Education (3-R´s): Redistribution, Recognition and Representation, some researchers have studied the student´s social justice representation. However, there are not so many empirical studies focused in the analysis of psychosocial variables that could be related with the social justice representation. In this research, we try to know how the three dimensions that form social justice are related between them and how could be explained (separately and/or jointly) the relationship among social justice dimensions and political orientation.In order to evaluate the social justice psychological representation and the political orientation, a quantitative study it was carry out with 121 undergraduate teacher training students. First, a confirmatory factor analysis shows adequate characteristics of the social justice quantitative scale used regarding the model of three correlated factors. Besides, significant correlations were found between the dimensions of social justice and the political orientation of these students: Students who choose a "left-wing" political orientation have different social justice representations than students who choose “right-wing” orientation. In addition, as other authors in previous studies shows, we found that the three dimensions of Social Justice are correlated between them. These significant correlations confirm the suitability of the three-dimensional model of Social Justice.