Diversity and Social Justice: A Personal Critical Reflection

This essay presents a critical personal reflection on the importance of implementing social justice perspectives in teaching practice. The author discusses how sociological theories influence and enhance learning and teaching experiences, including structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and conflict theory, with an emphasis on addressing issues related to low socioeconomic status and its impact on students. The reflection highlights the significance of equity and diversity in the classroom, emphasizing the use of group assignments and fair treatment to foster an inclusive learning environment. The author references relevant literature throughout the essay to support their perspectives on creating a classroom that values diverse perspectives and promotes collaboration among students.

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Critical Personal Reflection
I believe that teaching practice is considered as one of the integral components of the teacher
training as it allows the student teachers to experience majorly in the actual teaching as well as
the learning environment. According to me, it is important to implement the social justice
perspective in my teaching practice as it teaches about the positive change across the world by
connecting with the discussing the real-world problems with the different perspectives, creating
community classroom and including authentic assessment. Good teaching practice is one of the
key influences on the learning of the student for their desired outcomes as the primary goal of the
higher educational institutions.
Social justice is recognizing as well as acting upon the power to bring positive change. I agree
that today the teacher apply this social perspective to take the idea of the students to the next
level and makes the classroom practice level high (Leibowitz, & Bozalek, 2016). According to
my understanding of social justice, perspective is considered as one of the best practice in
teaching as it reduces the diversity barrier among the students with the outside world. The
students will be able to understand that they are living in a diverse culture in which different
people might have different perspectives (Sleeter, Montecinos & Jimenez, 2016). I believe that
social justice perspectives importance in teaching is that it fosters the ability of the students to
bring the course content related to the social problems with the views of the social justice in any
kind of work performed by them.
In addition to this, it develops the mind of the students to bring the openness to the new
perspective through the repeated exposure of the various views in the reading as well as in the
class discussion that leads to the rise in the engagement incrementally. I found that many people

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can share and accept the different views on the same concern topic that is possible because of the
effective learning given to them at the phrase of teaching about the social justice perspective.
Also, I observed that the social perspective is important in teaching-learning because this ensures
that the work will be done in partnership by the student at the current state and the near future.
I observed that in recent decades, the calls for the improvement of the undergraduate experience
have acknowledged that acknowledge the necessity for attending to what best it fosters the
student learning at the college campuses. I gained the knowledge that different sociological
theories would influence and improve the learning as well as teaching and experience of the
student. These theories include structural functionalism, Symbolic Interactionism, and conflict
Theory (Woods & Pollard, 2017). I gained the knowledge about the conflict theory that talks
about the macro-level approach that shows the different social classes of the people that include
food, housing, income, inequality and many other factors.
In the teaching practice, the student gains the learning about the sociology theories in the college
communities as they create an impact on the experience. I believe that while talking about the
classrooms of college the social status majorly include gender, race, age, gender and social class
of the student or the instructor. For instance, I found that the students with the lower social status
backgrounds might have the experience more difficulty in adjusting to the higher status peers in
the classroom. For instance, the low socioeconomic status any student will create an impact on
the physical health, food, education and many other factors (Eggleston, 2018).
I believe that these factors might make the teacher conduct their teaching practice in a manner
that they can focus on a particular student. Further, I found that the student understands the value
of the social status they learn about the condition of the people who face the issues because of

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the low economic status. I found that low socioeconomic status influences the interactions of the
poor economy as well as social standing in the society with the other people who are high in the
social status because the group of people is not able to maintain the more valuable aspects of life.
I gained the understanding that teaching practices promote the coordination among all the
students with the diverse cultures for using Bourdieu theory of the sociology. This enhances the
learning of students and add-on to their social experience about the sociology theories in
teaching (Woods & Hammersley, 2017).
I believe that teaching practice contributes effectively in addressing the issues related to diversity
as well as equity. My teaching practice will include the encouragement of the different
perspective of the student which can be done by providing them group assignment so that they
need to work together to solve the issues related to the diversity that is faced by them. This
teaching practice provides the student with the lesson that they can work with the diverse
students for accomplishing the goals (Rodriguez, 2015). The issues of equity and diversity have
been increasing among the students and I think that the teacher teaching practice contributes
effectively in teaching to the student about offering the equity and maintaining the diversity.
My teaching practice will include the fair treatment with every student either it can be in terms of
the student learning or their engagement in the class with the other students. I listen to every
student equally to provide effective learning to the student by sharing their experience with the
students. In my teaching practice, I will apply the ideas given by the diverse students within the
classroom so that this can be a benchmark for the other students who are present in the class.
This will make the other student to respect the students and to engage in their group.

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References
Eggleston, J. (2018). Teacher decision-making in the classroom: a collection of papers. New
York: Routledge.
Leibowitz, B., & Bozalek, V. (2016). The scholarship of teaching and learning from a social
justice perspective. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(2), 109-122.
Rodriguez, A. J. (2015). What about a dimension of engagement, equity, and diversity practices?
A critique of the next generation science standards. Journal of Research in Science
Teaching, 52(7), 1031-1051.
Sleeter, C., Montecinos, C., & Jimenez, F. (2016). Preparing teachers for social justice in the
context of education policies that deepen class segregation in schools: The case of Chile.
In Teacher education for high poverty schools (pp. 171-191). Springer, Cham.
Woods, P., & Hammersley, M. (Eds.). (2017). School experience: Explorations in the sociology
of education (Vol. 60). New York: Routledge.
Woods, P., & Pollard, A. (2017). Sociology and teaching: a new challenge for the sociology of
education. New York: Routledge.