Given Australia's diverse student population, the need for pre-service teacher education to prepare what is a predominantly Anglo-Australian and middle-class profession to be effective teachers of diverse students is critical. In Lortie's (1975) classic study, however, he argues that the predispositions of teacher education students are a much more powerful socialising influence than pre-service education. This article explores dispositions towards social justice in pre-service teachers from two teacher education programs within one Australian metropolitan university. Drawing on notions of distributive, retributive and recognitive justice (Gale & Densmore, 2000) as a way of making sense of socially just dispositions, interviews with four pre-service teachers--two beginning their Graduate Diploma in Education program (a one year program) and two beginning their final year of the Bachelor of Education program (a four year program)--are analysed. Differences in the dispositions of teachers from the two cohorts are examined and implications for teacher education discussed.