Pedagogic Justice in Higher Education

Brenda Leibowitz issues a call for pedagogic justice in higher education and offers a conceptual model depicting the relationships between social, cognitive and pedagogic justice. Cognitive justice intersects with several important concepts in the literature on knowledge: decolonisation, decoloniality, Africanisation and indigenous knowledges. Leibowitz argues that these intersecting concepts do not take into sufficient account how the various forms of difference that exist in society influence learning. These differences include race, gender, social class, access to formal schooling and age. Nor, she asserts, does this literature consider sufficiently how people learn when the languages or discourses in which academic concepts are formulated are familiar or foreign. Pedagogic Justice in Higher Education traces the impact of social injustice and cognitive injustice in higher education. It provides a comprehensive treatment of approaches towards cognitive justice and considers the challenges and opportunities these pose for higher education and the global South. With regard to pedagogic justice, Leibowitz emphasises the significance of purpose for learning and the orientation of the learner towards knowledge within a broader frame of practice theory. She considers the role and attributes of the teaching academic, where reflexivity and engagement in a participatory form of the scholarship of teaching and learning are useful. The book raises important questions such as: given the significance of context and difference, is there one approach to pedagogic justice that can be adopted in diverse societies? How do we generate dialogue between the `scientific’ or western accounts of learning on the one hand and local, craft and indigenous accounts on the other?