کیانا ژاله

Classroom justice, an under-investigated topic in language education, has been brought under focus in this study. Employing a qualitative research design, we took conceptual metaphor as both the theoretical framework and data analysis tool. Accordingly, 51 Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers were selected via snowball sampling to express their beliefs about (in)justice by creating a metaphor/simile. The aim was to discover EFL teachers’ conceptualization of metaphors of classroom (in)justice. The participants took a metaphor completion task (e.g., classroom justice is like …… because ……). Data analysis involved gathering, inductively coding, and classifying linguistic metaphors. Three elements were identified for each response, namely, the topic, vehicle, and ground. Then, conceptual categories were formed based on thematically grouping vehicles. Findings indicated reflection of the multidimensional conceptualization of classroom justice based on the organizational justice theory in many created metaphors; reference to emotional, psychological, and learning consequences of (in)justice in many other metaphors; and many pairs of opposite metaphors. These findings have implications for teacher education programs to employ metaphor as a useful tool to promote teachers’ reflection about classroom (in)justice; raise awareness of second/foreign language (L2) teachers about both issues of justice and injustice and their potential consequences for students’ wellbeing and educational outcomes; and train teachers for practical strategies of implementing justice principles in the instructional context as a way to address their professional development needs for becoming a quality L2 teacher and acting fairly in classroom. 

In any education context, teachers are mainly responsible for enacting the core values of classroom justice and equality. To address this notion, this qualitative study went through the exploration of the perceptions that Iranian EFL teachers had of classroom justice and its main dimensions. To this end, 31 EFL teachers, chosen through purposive sampling, filled out an open-ended questionnaire, and a sub-group of them participated in a semi-structured interview. The major findings, resulting from the content and thematic analyses of the data done both manually and through the MAXQDA software (Version 2020), revealed that first, all the participants, except one, regarded classroom justice as a crucial element of their instructional practice; second, interactional, procedural, and distributive dimensions of justice were reflected in the definitions that the teachers provided for classroom justice; and third, in line with the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the study, the teachers conceptualized the classroom justice dimensions through their unique principles in relation to the various domains of classroom learning, teaching, assessment, and interactions. A pedagogical implication based on the findings is that by becoming aware of how they perceive justice in their instructional practice, teachers may take the initial strides toward enhancing their just treatment of students, and consequently, increase their professional effectiveness.