Exploring the Experience of Epistemic Injustice in the Classroom and Its Implications for Education: A Philosophy of Education Approach

Masumeh Bayat

doi:10.61838/xq89hd71

Authors

Masumeh Bayat Assistant Professor, Department of Theology, Farhangian University, Tehran, P.O. Box 889-14665, Iran https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2408-1661

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61838/xq89hd71

Keywords:

Epistemic Injustice, Philosophy of Education, Classroom Experience, Epistemic Agency, Hermeneutical Injustice, Testimonial Injustice, Educational Justice

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to explore university students’ lived experiences of epistemic injustice in classroom settings and to elucidate the educational implications of these experiences from the perspective of philosophy of education.

Methods and Materials: This qualitative study employed an interpretive phenomenological design. Participants were 20 undergraduate and postgraduate students from public universities in Tehran, Iran, selected through purposive maximum-variation sampling. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews focusing on students’ experiences of credibility, voice, classroom participation, interpretive exclusion, and educational authority. Interviews lasted approximately 45–75 minutes, were audio-recorded with participants’ consent, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Coding was primarily inductive, while concepts derived from epistemic injustice and philosophy of education served as sensitizing theoretical frameworks. MAXQDA 2024 was used to organize and analyze the data. Credibility, dependability, and confirmability were enhanced through participant reflection, peer review of coding, analytic memoing, and maintenance of an audit trail.

Findings: Analysis identified six interconnected themes: credibility injustice and devaluation of student testimony, epistemic silencing and unequal participation, hermeneutical marginalization and interpretive exclusion, hierarchical distribution of epistemic authority, consequences for epistemic agency and educational engagement, and conditions required for epistemically just education. Participants’ accounts indicated that repeated credibility deficits and dismissive classroom interactions encouraged self-silencing, reduced intellectual risk-taking, weakened academic confidence, and undermined students’ sense of belonging as legitimate knowers. Hermeneutical marginalization was reflected in difficulties naming problematic experiences and in the normalization of exclusionary practices. Participants emphasized dialogical teaching, transparent justification of judgments, epistemic pluralism, equitable opportunities for participation, and recognition of students as knowledge contributors as central requirements of educational justice.

Conclusion: Epistemic injustice in the classroom is a relational and structural educational phenomenon that affects students’ voice, interpretive agency, academic identity, and participation; therefore, epistemically just education requires pedagogical authority to be exercised through dialogue, reason-giving, recognition, and equitable participation rather than positional hierarchy alone.

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