Conceptualizing classroom justice in second/foreign language education: past, present, & future directions of research & practice

As a cornerstone of any effective education system, classroom justice is a neglected area of research in second/foreign language (L2) education. The current conceptual review paper was written with the prospect of familiarizing L2 teachers, practitioners, and researchers with the main tenets of classroom justice and their applications in L2 learning and teaching. To this aim, by drawing on the social psychology theories of justice, this study unfolded how the concept of organizational justice found its way into the instructional context by being renamed as classroom justice. Then the extant empirical studies on classroom justice were critically reviewed, and the gaps and limitations in the existing literature were explicated. Subsequently, the significance of theorizing and empirically testing the concept of classroom justice in L2 education research was foregrounded by taking into account the social and relational nature of L2 learning and teaching, which places the teachers’ enactment of justice as a primary concern for both L2 teachers and students. Afterward, some theoretical and pedagogical implications were recommended to inform L2 researchers, teachers, students, teacher educators, materials developers, teacher recruiters, and administrators among other L2 educational stakeholders. The paper terminated with some new avenues for future research for interested L2 researchers.