Justice in Teaching

Distributive justice encompasses the principles that ‘ought’ to regulate the distribu tion of societal resources (‘goods’ and ‘bads’) to individuals or groups in different social spheres (like, economy, health, education). Such principles derive from socie ties' moral infrastructure, whereby norms about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are set up and people are instructed to gear their behaviour accordingly. Hence, distributive justice is an embedded aspect of societal ethics. Three major, mutually exclusive, justice principles are delineated (Deutsch, 1985; Leventhal, 1980; Mikula, 1980): (1) equality — requires equal share to all in granting the resource in question, disregarding personal characteristics or performance; (2) need — demands to provide for the basic needs of people, even if this require the sacrifice of other individuals' interests; (3) equity (or meritocratic principle) — differential resource distribution based on personal effort, con tribution or ability — which maintain or reinforce status differences among recipients (Sabbagh, Dar & Resh, 1994).