Social Justice in Social Studies Curriculum

Social, economic and cultural changes are happening in the 21st century. In this century some changes are happening such as coexisting of culturally diverse people, growing of the economic gaps between countries and increasing of social interactions. These changes affected educational approaches in this period. One of the aims of education is training citizens. And many new features such as respect for diversity and to be tolerant are seeming important for citizenship. In addition, social justice is also one of the major feature for citizenship. Social justice aims to provide all individuals to feel safe and meeting their all needs. Also social justice aims to eliminate economic, social and political discriminations. Thus, awareness of social justice seems to be important for a citizen. When we looking at curriculums, we can observe that Social studies course have an important role for raising a citizen who have awareness of social justice. Teachers are one of the important factor in determining the effectiveness of the Social studies course. While teachers conducting the Social studies course, they benefit from the curriculum as a guide. The aim of this study is to determine how social justice is included in the social studies curriculum. Therefore, the study was designed as a document analysis and 4th to 7th grades? social studies curriculums was examined. The concept of social justice is not given directly but it is given with related concepts such as fairness, solidarity, tolerance and social participation. These concepts are located in all themes but teaching activities for the concepts of social justice are not seem in Social studies curriculum. Considering the findings of this study, it is suggested that concept of social justice directly should be a place in Social studies curriculum. Besides, it is suggested that teaching activities about social justice should have an important place in social studies curriculum.