Designing for Social Justice: People, Technology, Learning

Rosemary Luckin, Ann Light

01 January 2008

This review provides an introduction to the concept of social justice and the practices of user-centred design (UCD), looking at how theories for changing the world marry up with methods to implement these changes. It then explores the potential role of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) within this framework.

The core of this review is divided into sections on social justice, the act of designing and the nature of user-centred design, wrapping up with a discussion of how this applies in the field of technology-enhanced learning. Throughout, we make the argument that user-centred design can be a particularly apt form of designing to apply to social justice projects, and also that the more participative forms of UCD offer the most educative potential and are often also the best fit for social change projects.