Social Responsibility of Education:

between dilemmas and possibilities

Abstract

The social responsibility (SR) of education is inherent to all stages of formal education, as well as to the different modalities of non-formal education. At least it should be given the importance of education for the well-being and achievement of people’s aspirations and the social, cultural, and economic development of a country. Likewise, SR is essential for understanding historical educational processes in local, regional, and international contexts. Furthermore, SR in education in the Ibero-American context must be one of the pillars for training professionals who act as agents of change and advancement in different sectors of society. That said, SR in tertiary education, including university education, has a particular relationship with society. Such a relationship is framed by the complexity of the social environment from its reflected-on historical perspective and its influence on the present and future of societies. Traditionally, three main missions of universities have been defined: teaching, research, and service. These missions pose challenges for institutions that are intertwined with preparing students for productive lives, generating new knowledge, and being active participants of society to contribute to its progress and problem-solving. In this sense, the dossier “Social Responsibility in Education: Between Dilemmas and Possibilities” aimed to bring together reflections focused on the SR of education, university SR, and the territorial aspect of SR. To this end, the call for manuscripts invited the research community to reflect, discuss, and emphasize to the challenges and practices that SR represents. The call was open to papers that addressed new educational actions, always in favor of a more just and equitable society to overcome the historical inequalities that persist today in our society. The papers received for this dossier address the monitoring of higher education graduates, artificial intelligence in education, the curricularization of university service programs, teacher responsibility and the school crisis, the state of the art of research on SR, and the construction of knowledge for social justice. All the different themes presented in this dossier contribute to the Social Responsibility of Education, which motivates us to recommend reading the articles to support and strengthen future studies on the topic, overcome the dilemmas, and build on the possibilities revealed by the studies. Enjoy reading, everyone.