This article introduces this Special Issue of "FORUM" with a discussion of freedom and autonomy and considers the ways in which alternative approaches to pedagogy might provide opportunities to address inequalities in the context of education and in society beyond education. The article draws on work carried out in a project funded by an ESRC seminar series grant entitled "Thinking the 'Yet to be Thought': an international cross-sector seminar series exploring socially just education and inequalities in education". Underpinning the article is a belief in the intrinsic power of pedagogy to interrupt dominant paradigms and the article acknowledges the importance of surfacing the role of pedagogic discourse in intensifying existing inequalities. Despite the rising tide of neo-liberalism in education across the world, this article and the special issue that follows provide examples of positive educational practice and spaces of resistance where schools, colleges and other educational institutions are doing things differently.