UNESCO policies and conferences: Widening access to education to further social justice

Abstract

This chapter discusses the concept of social justice in education and its implications for access to education. It shows that social justice is more than simply access to an educational system. We believe that current debates about the right to participate in quality and empowering learning tend to employ a narrow concept of social justice. The debates should not be satisfied that access is the main issue but should widen their scope by considering the overarching issue of the right to quality learning and the right to participate in and contribute to the creation of a learning society. In what follows, we shall discuss critically UNESCO's activities in this field in their historical development by highlighting the Organization's central policy instruments and their theoretical, as well as practical, contributions to the widening of access to education to further social justice. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.