How can schools empower the next generation to recognize and challenge injustices?
A new book co-authored by Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development Professor Scott Seider, Lynch School alum Julia Bott, B.A. ’02, M.Ed. ’07, Ed.D. ’24 (Educational Leadership), and Harvard Graduate School of Education Lecturer Aaliyah El-Amin offers a powerful roadmap.
Educating for Justice: Schoolwide Strategies to Prepare Students to Recognize, Analyze, and Challenge Inequity, published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), is a comprehensive resource offering justice-centered strategies and schoolwide practices to help K–12 educators cultivate students’ critical consciousness. Drawing on more than a decade of research, Seider and his co-authors equip educators with the tools to prepare students to challenge injustice and build a better world.
“My research program over the past decade has focused on how young people benefit from becoming more critically conscious—that is, more aware of injustices in our society and more committed to challenging those injustices.”
“One of my most cited research papers found that young people whose critical consciousness grows over their four years of high school also report meaningful increases in their academic achievement," says Seider.
Julia Bott, B.A. ’02, M.Ed. ’07, Ed.D. ’24
Educating for Justice expands on this body of research with case studies and practical strategies for K–12 educators. This is a response, Seider notes, to many teachers and school leaders asking how to incorporate this work into their practice.
“That was a question our previous projects couldn’t fully answer,” he explains. “So Aaliyah and I teamed up with an elementary school principal—triple Eagle Julia Bott—to describe practices and professional learning that can help educators who are invested in this work bring it into their curriculum and instruction.”
Educating for Justice
The book presents research-backed strategies, concrete tools, and real-world examples from schools and classrooms. Key focus areas include:
Aaliyah el-Amin, co-author
- Centering justice in curriculum and pedagogy
- Fostering partnerships with families and community organizations to support and advance justice learning
- Engaging students in social action
- Building adult capacity to support justice-oriented education
Together, these strategies offer practical, school-based approaches and professional learning to support educators in this essential work, especially at a time when many face significant barriers to teaching about injustice.
“Our country can only develop a new generation of changemakers if our educators and schools play a meaningful role in helping young people to recognize, analyze, and challenge injustices in their local communities, nation, and the wider world,” he says. “Educating for Justice describes school-based practices and professional learning that can support educators in doing this essential work.”
Order Educating for Justice
Educating for Justice is available for purchase through ASCD and other major booksellers.