Analysing Secondary School Students’ Social Justice Beliefs through Ethical Dilemma Scenarios

Abstract

This study, aiming to determine secondary school students’ social justice beliefs, employs the design of case study- which is one of qualitative research approaches.  The study was conducted with the participation of 61 students who were the seventh graders. The research data were collected through ethical dilemma scenarios. The students were given ethical dilemma situations about the themes of gender discrimination, racism, respect for rights and freedoms, being fair, helpfulness and intercultural sensitivity- which were thought to be reflective of belief in social justice. The students’ actions as response to the dilemma given to them and their reasons for their actions provided the source of data for this study. The data collected were put to descriptive analysis. It was found that the participants mostly gave moral laws as justification for their actions reflecting their social justice beliefs and that all the actions associated with moral laws resulted in behaviours consistent with conception of social justice. It was also found that associating with feelings, concrete realities/phenomena and probable outcomes result in behaviours sometimes consistent with conception of social justice and sometimes conflicting with conception of social justice. It was another finding that associating with moral perfection and conscience was the moral justification strategy used relatively less by the participants and that all of the actions matched with these two justification strategies served to social justice beliefs. According to these results; students should be able to question the morality of their actions within the scope of social justice education, they should be taught how to behave in moral/non-moral situations and critically examine these situations.