Justice and Democracy in Higher Education: An Overview

Justice and injustice matter for South African higher education as it enables the expansion of critical higher education student capabilities and functionings to pursue what students have a reason to value, and in turn potentially promote social change in the university and society, thus contributing to human development. In Equality and Justice, Robeyns (2009: 102) draws our attention to the contested terrain of defining justice. She argues that there is ‘no consensus on what the appropriate subject matter of theories of justice is or should be’. Nevertheless, Sen (2009) reminds us of two lines of reasoning about justice, which are (1) transcendental institutionalism and (2) the realisation-focused understanding (to be discussed later in this section). Despite the contested nature of defining and describing justice, in this study, I draw on Sen’s (2009) conception of justice since he provides a starting point in understanding justice and democracy in higher education.