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Democratic candidate Barack Obama campaigned for the office of President of the United States on a message of hope and change. Included in this message was an avowed commitment to fighting for equality and social justice. This chapter evaluates the Obama administration's record on social justice issues from a black feminist perspective. I find that although the administration has made some notable achievements, the universalist paradigm from which it operates may cause policymakers to overlook multiply oppressed groups. It might likewise blind them to the processes that generate and maintain social inequality. I argue that the results could hinder Obama from succeeding with much of his social justice agenda. I conclude by discussing how examining inequality through a black feminist prism would enable the Obama administration to speed up its program and develop and implement more effective policies. Finally, I also recommend a social justice project that might help the president create a legacy that will promote his goals long after he leaves office.

Many Black women continue to negotiate their way within higher education institutions, which are influenced by social class, race, and gender biases. Several scholars contend that Black women’s objectification as the “other” and “outsider within” (Collins, 2000; Fitzgerald, 2014; Jean-Marie, 2014) is still apparent in today’s institutions yet many persist to ascend to top leadership positions (Bates, 2007; Epps, 2008; Evans, 2007; Hamilton, 2004; Jean-Marie, 2006, 2008). In particular, the inroads made by Black women administrators in both predominantly white colleges (PWIs) as well as historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) depict a rich and enduring history of providing leadership to effect social change in the African American community (i.e., uplift the race) and at large (Bates, 2007; Dede & Poats, 2008; Evans, 2007; Hine, 1994; Miller & Vaughn, 1997). There is a growing body of literature exploring Black women’s leadership in higher education, and most research have focused on their experiences in predominantly white institutions (Bower & Wolverton, 2009; Dixon, 2005; Harris, Wright, & Msengi, 2011; Jordan, 1994; Rusher, 1996; Turner, 2008). A review of the literature points to the paucity of research on their experiences and issues of race and gender continue to have an effect on the advancement of Black women in the academy. In this chapter, we examine factors that create hindrance to the transformation of the composition, structure, and power of leadership paradigm with a particular focus on Black women administrators and those at the presidency at HBCUs. From a review of the literature, our synthesis is based on major themes and subthemes that emerged and guide our analysis in this chapter. The chapter concludes with recommendations for identifying and developing Black women leaders to diversify the leadership pipeline at HBCUs and other institutions for the future.

This chapter explores the impact of delivering culturally community family therapy with strength-based strategies, to transgenerational Black Haitian families living in Haiti and the Dominican Republic following the 2010 earthquake. A series of workshop intervention over several years, which were co-facilitated by community pastors and leaders provided a cultural-based intervention drawing on Black British and Caribbean culture, Haitian culture, Christian spiritual belief systems, in conjunction with some bi-cultural attachment and systemic methods and techniques. Community feedback through testimonies contributed to evaluation and outcomes in developing new strategies to manage stress, and family conflict and distress, together with developing new strategies in sharing a vision for the future across the community.

This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.

In recent years, both academics and institutions have acknowledged the crucial role multinational enterprises (MNEs) can play in addressing the sustainability challenges, as formalized by the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Nevertheless, because of their extensiveness and their design as country-level targets, SDGs have proven challenging to operationalize at a firm level. This problem opens new and relevant avenues for research in international business (IB). This chapter attempts to frame the topic of extended value chain sustainability in the IB literature. In particular, it addresses a specific topic, that is, how sustainability and resilience-building practices interact in global value chains (GVCs). To do so, the present study develops the case of STMicroelectronics (ST), one of the biggest semiconductor companies worldwide.

This article assesses pronatalism in the non-industrialized Caribbean in light of contributions that children make to household production. The place that the economic utility of children has in determining pronatal attitudes and behavior has been increasingly neglected by social scientists. This trend is especially unwarranted in regard to the traditional Caribbean. As an example, it is shown that the primary reason farmers in Jean Rabel, Haiti, are in favor of high birth rates and reject contraceptives is because the farmers conceptualize children as necessary to their economic survival.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

This chapter traces the history of diversity and inclusion efforts at the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland as an example of an institution that has made diversity and inclusion central to its activities.

By exploring the successes and failures of a program that identifies itself as activist in terms of diversity and inclusion, this chapter offers a portrait of the evolution of cutting edge diversity and inclusion efforts in the field.

Widespread changes to the diversity and inclusiveness of library and information science education, professions, and institutions depend on all parts of the field committing to these issues, sharing ideas and best practices, and becoming activists for equity.

This chapter focuses on the anti-European stance as it unfolds in Marine Le Pen’s and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s discourses. As most far-right parties in Europe, both politicians focus on the notion of freedom and national sovereignty, asserting a strong anti-European Union stance; however, they construct their anti-European momentum by playing on different strategies and emotions. By using corpus linguistics tools, the present study examines and analyses the discourse of both politicians in interviews and debates. It concludes that if they share most issues on which they base their political agenda such as the fear of increasing immigration because of the Schengen’s agreement, they differ as regards the ways they discursively address the same issue. Marine Le Pen relies more on a constructive/rational stance, by focusing on facts and figures as well as on solutions, while moving away from the strong and negative emotions which her father constantly used mainly as provocation strategies. This may have helped her build a favourable political momentum as witnessed in the 2014 European elections.