Social Justice as a Link between Sustainability and Educational Sciences

This position paper defines and substantiates the relevance of educational sciences as design elements of socially sustainable development in economics and society. Therefore, a theoretical-normative link of the fields of social sustainability, social justice, and educational sciences is discussed to build a foundation for further concepts that may synergistically address social sustainability and education. Because social sustainability currently seems to be the least addressed dimension of sustainability research and practice, this paper might provide a new impulse in this field. The linkage of the three fields will be accomplished with a hermeneutic-analytical approach, identifying possible interdependencies in the relevant theories and concepts of the disciplines and suggesting necessary modifications. Based on this foundation, a theoretical-normative construct will be designed that describes the link and may be used to deduct practice-related concepts in order to construct related measures.