The articles in this special issue apply various lenses towards a study of the often-substantial disconnect between justice-oriented educational futures and the systems and participants responsible for producing and sustaining colonial structures in education. Authors included in this collection explore how arbitrary norms and systemic constraints frame our imagination about education in theory and practice, and how we might look towards imagining our experiences and understandings otherwise. The persistence of coloniality within educational institutions remains a critical issue, as its operating structures are variously bypassed, reinforced, challenged and reconstructed in ways that expose deep tensions and contradictions. At the heart of these dynamics is the enduring operation of power, which continues to sustain inherited discourses in Westernised educational contexts, even in the face of intentional efforts to unsettle and transform them.

How to cite: Russial, M., Hiitola, J., & Paradis, A. (2025). Un/doing justice-oriented education practice in the global landscape: Introduction to the special issue. Knowledge Cultures, 13(2), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc13220251

Received August 1, 2025 • Received in revised form August 1, 2025
Accepted August 1, 2025 • Available online September 1, 2025