Abstract

Social justice does not feature among the themes listed by the new civic education law. This omission is surprising, given that this topic was central to the debate surrounding the forms of government and the structure of society already at the times of Ancient Greece. Indeed it emerges as a key point in the first part of our Constitution, which is one of the three cornerstones of civic education, according to to the Ministerial Guidelines. However, when teaching, the Constitution remains detached from both its historical-philosophical background and the empirical evidence produced by the social sciences. Students are therefore unable to fully understand its significance and the ethical-political choices made by the constituents. For this reason, our focus has been centred on some significant historical phases when different and often conflicting principles of justice in both theory and public discourse were proposed and discussed. This narrative has been accompanied by some quick reference to the distance occurring between the ‘de facto justice’ and the ‘models of justice’ wished for by philosophers. Lastly, reflecting on the didactical transposition of this theme, the necessity of developing students’ competences in contextualising criteria of justice, as well as their abilities in managing the relative controversies in form and through procedures compatible with the values of a liberal democracy, have been underlined.