Chapter 5: Creating Socially Equitable Middle Grades Schools

Education for social justice is a noble and ambitious agenda for middle schools. It includes a vision for an inclusive school in which the distribution of opportunity is genuinely equitable, where all individuals are able to develop their full capacities, where young people are able to be both selfdetermining and interdependent, and can learn to live in and value a diverse, socially just, democratic community. A truly just middle school is an ideal bent on ultimately creating citizens who will perpetuate and extend social equity in their lives and in the world. It constitutes more than a hope for decent schools; it constitutes a hope for a better, more just world.