Social justice has become a concept that is critically discussed in political, economic, social and legal areas in our global world. Educational organizations as being actors at the center of social and political changes are imminently influenced from social justice debates and practices (Birkenmaier, 2003). The concept of social justice has been a key concept in the discussion of the impacts of capitalism, neoliberalism and globalism since 20^th century. Explaining the concepts democracy and pluralism is also benefited from social justice as well. Social justice expresses maintenance of public and social goods, capture of the common good, balanced distribution of economic, social and cultural capital forms between social classes. In fact, social justice aims to maintain balance of power in favor of the oppressed social classes, to reduce imbalances in income distribution and to raise living standards of people in the society. In terms of legal aspect, Miller (1999) describes social justice as maintenance of the rights, assurance of basic community needs and expectations, life safety, fair distribution of the resources, and accessibility. Specifically, fundamental principles of social justice are citizenship that does not compromise cultural, racial, ethnic, economic, linguistic, religious discrimination. On the other hand, it involves legal protection of the citizenship model, opportunities to equal access for all kind of resources, and fair distribution of resources (Miller, 1999). Social justice in education refers to the role of schools in equal distribution of resources with their institutional and democratic endeavors in recognition of the rights, freedom, demands, identity and culture (Apple & Beane, 2009; Bates, 2005).

Social justice in education is essential to be explained by existence of democracy. Social justice in schools is also a struggle for democracy. Indeed, democracy is the transformation of power areas in favor of society and the public benefit, ensuring participation in decision making, and the recognition of rights, freedom and autonomy. Democracy provides individuals the ability to solve problems about equality and justice in schools with creating an active citizenship model. Since social justice and democracy are related constructs, and social justice is associated with access to democratic rights, social rights and social justice are believed to strengthen democracy (Toens, 2007). Consequently, it is necessary to transform democratic attitudes and competencies, democratic society structure, hierarchical power and authorities in order to manage social justice. Therefore, it is essential to propose social justice and democracy components into teacher education agenda to give a political vision for teacher education programs (Hyten, 2015). It is also asserted that the content of teacher education is required to be designed with pluralistic perspective and academic development of prospective teachers needs to be proposed by democratic values within the framework of critical pedagogy (Gunzenhauser, 2015). Furthermore, it is believed that prospective teachers should experience democracy culture, social justice and multiculturalism principles in educational practices in order to develop a particular point of view (Juarez & Hayes, 2010; Ritchie, 2012; Warren, 2002). Therefore, main focus of today’s educational practices is to ensure prospective teachers to get social justice and democracy perceptions. In this context, the purpose of this study is to scrutinize social justice perceptions and democratic attitudes of prospective teachers. It is also aimed to determine the relationship between social justice and democratic attitudes from prospective teachers’ point of view.

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