Epistemic injustices and curriculum: Strategizing for justice

Abstract

Epistemic injustice is a concept popularised by Miranda Fricker. This concept pertains to the broader production, creation, sharing, and recognition of knowledge by both individuals and groups. This concept also signifies that people who have dominant and crucial positions in social hierarchies are considered competent, listened to, and recognized. This clarifies that they are seldom questioned and said that they are wrong. Consequently, they hold a very usual relationship with knowledge. Knowledge and curriculum are complementary to each other. Curriculum involves the contestation of power in classroom conversations and dialogues. During the teaching-learning process, both the teacher and the students cocreate knowledge by sharing their ideas and socially verifying their viewpoints. They also learn social skills, values, and attitudes that will determine their future paths in life. This paper builds upon the theory of epistemic injustice, including its different types, and the idea that curriculum includes the experiences of knowledge creation, verification, and dissemination in the classroom. Teachers and students participate communicatively in the process of knowledge creation, verification, and dissemination. In this study, the mutual interface of epistemic injustice theory and curricular experiences is explored to strategize an inclusive paradigm for more equitable and just curricular experiences.

Keywords

• Epistemic injustice
• Testimonial injustice
• Contributory injustice
• Distributive injustice
• Hermeneutic injustice
• Curriculum