ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an ethic of social justice. The task is to develop a well-reasoned ethic that permits people to address the ethical issues of public schools regardless of their own personal moral or religious commitments. An ethic of social justice is a principle-based ethic that understands ethical action as that which is guided by a commitment to reasoned principles. The National Education Association (NEA), the largest professional organization for educators in the United States, has a code of ethics for teachers with two major principles, each having eight subprinciples. Principle-based ethics generally provide basic principles or codes that serve as warrants in normative arguments. Critical pedagogy is an educational philosophy that chooses to work for change. Critical pedagogues do so by arguing that the institutions of society work to create narratives that work in the interest of the privileged and against the interests of the less privileged. This process is called hegemony.
