40 Questions about Social Justice and Diversities for Teacher Education

This book brings together 40 genuine questions raised by student teachers in Finnish education, sparking reflection and insight into education and wider issues amid the complexity, diversity and uncertainty of today’s classrooms and ever-changing world.

What does it mean to teach social justice in today’s complex and divided world? How can educators acknowledge and value the multiple diversities that students bring to the classroom, while also responding to conflicting expectations from curricula, colleagues and the wider community? This book offers no definitive answers. Instead, it invites readers to engage in a different kind of conversation revolving around gender, discomfort, interculturality, neutrality, intersectionality, and structural racism. Each chapter takes up ten of the 40 questions, grounding the responses in real classroom situations and drawing on critical theories and decolonial perspectives. Written collectively by five experienced teacher educators and researchers, this book moves beyond prescriptive checklists and shallow understandings of social justice, diversity and interculturality. The authors argue that meaningful change requires ongoing critical reflection, structural awareness and the courage to ask better questions.

This inspiring book will attract a wide spectrum of readers, including experienced teachers, student teachers, teacher educators and scholars interested in teacher education, diversity, social justice education and intercultural studies.