Social Justice Education

Overview

About this Degree

The Social Justice Education program at the University of Toronto is offered by the Department of Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), providing students with critical understandings of the social, historical, cultural, political, economic, and ethical contexts of education, broadly conceived. Based on the diverse intellectual traditions of the humanities and social sciences, the department is committed to multi- and interdisciplinary studies in education, with a focus on equity and social justice in educational studies from a variety of perspectives including history, philosophy, sociology, and social justice education.

Through humanities, social sciences, and/or social justice education, faculty and students may pursue studies including anti-racism, critical race theory, and Indigenous studies; aesthetics, media, and communication; feminist and gender studies; class and poverty studies; francophone studies; post-colonial, diaspora, and transnational studies; queer and disability studies; cultural and philosophical contexts in education; and democracy, ethics, and social class and/or may follow traditional disciplinary inquiry.

The department’s vision is to enable students to explore such questions as “What was, what is, and what should be the relationship between education and society?” and “What kinds of knowledge do educators need to answer those questions?” The department aims to provide graduate students and initial teacher education students with the disciplinary background, substantive knowledge, and theoretical language necessary to raise questions of critical importance to educational theory, practices, and society.