Presentation made by Michalinos Zembylas in response to papers at the SOTL @ UJ mini-conference on 1 December 2015

1. Michalinos Zembylas
Open University of Cyprus
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2. Structure of my response
1.What does ‘social justice pedagogies’ mean?
2.Ten valuable lessons we learn from these
papers
3.Unanswered questions for future work
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3. Ten Lessons
Lesson number 1: If one looks for exemplar models of
what it means to engage in pedagogies for social
justice, there are no such.
Lesson number 2: There is no such thing as socially
just pedagogies that make education 100% safe or
creates safe learning spaces.
Lesson number 3: The notion of socially just
pedagogies includes a relational encounter among
teachers and students through which unpredictable
possibilities of critical knowledge and action are
created.
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4. Lesson number 4: Vulnerability, like risk, is a
fundamental component of engaging in socially just
pedagogies.
Lesson number 5: Engaging in socially just
pedagogies implies engaging with the burden of
difficult knowledge carried more or less by all
participants in struggles for social justice.
Lesson number 6: Socially just pedagogies are sites
of politics.
Lesson number 7: Socially just pedagogies provide
opportunities for educational researchers, practitioners
and activists to mobilize alternative forms of
counterhegemonic and ethical learning.
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5. Lesson number 8: Socially just pedagogies
demand not only ethical but also strategic choices
in interrupting social injustices.
Lesson number 9: Socially just pedagogies
interrupt the psychologization of students.
Lesson number 10: Finally, progress is possible;
socially just pedagogies create ‘pockets of hope’—
spaces where progressive work takes place.
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6. Unanswered Questions
How can explorations of curriculum and pedagogy
become strategic sites of ethical and political
transformation that overcome paralysis and inaction,
especially in conditions of socially unjust structures?
How can socially just pedagogies create possibilities to
resignify our ethical responsibilities as researchers,
policymakers, teachers and teacher educators in ways that
continuously rework and unsettle our attachments to
particular discourses and practices?
How do biopolitics emerge as a crucial feature of socially
just pedagogies in the making of ‘students’ imagined
through the normativity of emotional bonds and solidified
through the power and performative force of identity
work? 6

7. Unanswered Questions
How can explorations of curriculum and pedagogy
become strategic sites of ethical and political
transformation that overcome paralysis and inaction,
especially in conditions of socially unjust structures?
How can socially just pedagogies create possibilities to
resignify our ethical responsibilities as researchers,
policymakers, teachers and teacher educators in ways that
continuously rework and unsettle our attachments to
particular discourses and practices?
How do biopolitics emerge as a crucial feature of socially
just pedagogies in the making of ‘students’ imagined
through the normativity of emotional bonds and solidified
through the power and performative force of identity
work? 6