ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some of the core issues and proposes ways forward to infuse educational change policy, practice, and research with a deliberate focus on social justice and the pursuit of human freedom. It starts with a recount of research as praxis as an attempt to explore what it means to do empirical research in an unjust world and discuss some of the implications of searching for an emancipatory approach to research in the human sciences. The chapter offers a window into key questions and issues related to social justice that the educational change field can and should examine and pursue more deliberately. But educational change has touched upon social justice superficially in at least two crucial ways. First, when present in educational change work, the dominant discourse around educational equity has focused on closing achievement gaps and enhancing opportunities for students who are less privileged.
