The theme of social justice demands popular education - of, by, and for the people. Some of the principles of Social Justice Pedagogy are:

• Democracy: Social Justice Pedagogy is founded on the notion that social justice lies at the heart of education in a democracy, toward a more vital, more dynamic democratic society. Democracy is not a frozen monument but an ongoing project, requiring participation and creative input from all.

• Theory: Social Justice Pedagogy requires that we understand and evaluate how societies are constructed and the ideals these structures seek to fulfill. Students examine questions of human nature and the relative values of different societies throughout history.

• History: Social Justice Pedagogy reminds us of the powerful commitment, persistence, bravery, and triumphs of our justice-seeking forbears - women and men who sought to build a world that worked for us all - abolitionists, suffragettes, labor organizers, civil rights activists. Without the sweat and blood of countless individuals fighting countless fights, liberty today would be slighter, poorer, weaker.

• Public space: Social Justice Pedagogy recognizes that the quest for equality and social justice, over many centuries, is worked out in the open spaces, in the concrete struggles of human beings constructing and contesting all kinds of potential meanings within that ideal.

• Self-awareness: Social Justice Pedagogy emphasizes awareness of our identity and how we construct "the in group" and "the other." Who should be included? What do we owe one another? What is fair and unfair?

• Social literacy: Social Justice Pedagogy resists flattening effects of consumerism and the power of familiar social evils, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

• Collective action: Social Justice Pedagogy moves away from complacency, passivity, cynicism, despair; reach beyond superficial barriers that wall us off from one another; it moves towards action to create kind of world we want to leave to our children.

• Democratic education: Social Justice Pedagogy opposes authoritarian education, official voices, received knowledge; it advocates education that opens up possibilities, that depends on and encourages student ownership. Education is a field of struggle and hope.

• Imagination: Social Justice Pedagogy calls on us to release our imagination to act on behalf of a more just society.