Classroom justice and psychological engagement: students' and teachers' social representation

This research concern the social representations of classroom justice in a sample of Italian students and teachers. Our study carried out with the aim to: 1) analyze secondary school students’ and their teachers’ ideal representations of classroom justice, 2) deepen the topic of students’ sense of injustice, and 3) explore the links between students’ perceived injustice and their psychological engagement in school, measured on different aspects (identification with one’s own class, learning motivation, responsibility, dialogue with teachers). A questionnaire was distributed to 400 Italian secondary school students and their 79 teachers. Results show that the representations of ideal classroom justice refer to communication, principle of equality and principle of need, and that the positions of teachers and students on these conceptions differ. Moreover, students report a rather diffuse and shared feeling of being treated in an unjust manner by their teachers, and this has a strong impact on their psychological engagement in school.