Beyond remembrance: a community-engaged framework for education for disaster justice after the Grenfell Tower Fire

Disasters expose deep-seated social inequalities and injustices, producing impacts that extend far beyond the immediate event. Although education is central to collective memory and learning from disasters, how recent tragedies might be taught meaningfully to younger generations remains underexplored. This paper examines how education can contribute to disaster justice, particularly following disasters rooted in human error and structural injustice. It draws on a two-year community-engaged study with people affected by the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington, London, which claimed 72 lives and continues to affect survivors and bereaved families. The study involved ethnographic fieldwork, including in-depth interviews with community members, educators and trusted service workers, participatory workshops, informal conversations and engagement with community-produced materials. From this sustained collaboration, we developed a framework for justice-focused disaster education across different subjects and settings. The framework identifies three interconnected domains: the human story, systemic failures, and learners’ capacity to act for justice. The study demonstrates how disaster-affected communities’ situated and experiential knowledge can provide a foundation for educational recommendations. We argue that centring community knowledge in disaster education can preserve memory, support the repair of injustice and enable younger generations to understand and challenge the conditions through which preventable disasters occur.