Search results

I present the findings of a study with course developers, principals, teachers, and community members in British Columbia (BC), Canada, regarding their views of the course Social Justice 12. Introduced in 2008, the senior, elective course involves students in exploring a number of contemporary issues in society and aims to develop citizens who actively work to address social injustices. The course includes some potentially controversial content, such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) materials, which has been actively opposed by some community members. This negative reaction has had some damaging effects on teachers who teach the course. After describing the course and the study’s research methodology, the findings are presented. These findings include a review of the relations between course implementation and school contexts and a discussion of the complexity of issues-based instruction in relation to varied ideological positionings between teachers, principals, and community members. I conclude with recommendations that aim to strengthen education in and for a democracy.

Justice rules are standards that serve as criteria for formulating fairness judgments. Though justice rules play a role in the organizational justice literature, they have seldom been the subject of analysis in their own right. To address this limitation, we first consider three meta-theoretical dualities that are highlighted by justice rules – the distinction between justice versus fairness, indirect versus direct measurement, and normative versus descriptive paradigms. Second, we review existing justice rules and organize them into four types of justice: distributive (e.g., equity, equality), procedural (e.g., voice, consistent treatment), interpersonal (e.g., politeness, respectfulness), and informational (e.g., candor, timeliness). We also emphasize emergent rules that have not received sufficient research attention. Third, we consider various computation models purporting to explain how justice rules are assessed and aggregated to form fairness judgments. Fourth and last, we conclude by reviewing research that enriches our understanding of justice rules by showing how they are cognitively processed. We observe that there are a number of influences on fairness judgments, and situations exist in which individuals do not systematically consider justice rules.

This chapter provides a theoretical and empirical examination of young people’s role in identifying and solving problems in their communities from a social justice perspective. The complex political processes in South Africa stymie a top-down approach for advancing social justice. Therefore, this study focuses on a bottom-up stance to nurture social justice efforts by concentrating on the role of the youth, younger than 18 years, in initiating change in their communities. Such engagement aligns with the principles outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted in 1989 that aims to enrich both the individual and the community (Dirsuweit & Mohamed, 2016; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1989). The University of South Africa is involved in a community outreach program of this nature, commissioned by Empowervate Trust, a South African non-profit organization that manages the Youth Citizen’s Action Campaign (Y-CAP), which equips learners with the skills to solve societal issues in their respective communities. This chapter thus attempts to clarify what active citizenship means to the youth, by focusing on the findings from focus-group interviews with South African learners who are involved with community development projects that advance social justice initiatives in their communities through the Y-CAP endeavor.

This study used a scenario design to examine whether there are different reactions among whites based on how a diversity program is justified by an organization. A reactive justification (affirmative action) was proposed to result in greater backlash than a competitive advantage justification (diversity management). In addition, this study examined the effects of personal and group outcomes on backlash and explored two individual difference variables, gender and orientation toward other ethnic groups, as potential moderators of the proposed relationships. Backlash was operationalized in four ways: an affect‐based measure (negative emotions), two cognitive‐based measures (attitude toward the diversity program, perceptions of unfairness of promotion procedures), and a behavioral‐intentions‐based measure (organizational commitment). Results indicated that the diversity management justification was associated with more favorable support of the diversity initiative, and that unfavorable personal and group outcomes adversely affected backlash reactions. There was no empirical support for the influence of the moderator variables on the proposed relationships, however, a main effect for gender was found. Implications of the study's findings and future research directions are discussed.

The focus of this article is on gender justice with respect to opportunities (educational) and outcome (earnings). The main research question is whether educational opportunities are positively converted into fairness of income, and for whom and where this is the case. The importance of this study lies in the understanding that the subjective feeling of justice is a significant measure of quality of life, of the individual's subjective feeling of happiness and of the fulfilment of the goals people have reason to value.

The study takes a micro-macro approach, combining macro-level data taken from official statistics and micro-data from the 2018 European Social Survey for 25 European countries; the authors also apply multilevel modelling to the data analysis.

At individual level the authors found gender differences in the associations between education and fairness of educational opportunities. With regard to the scope of fairness, the authors emphasise that fairness of educational opportunities and net pay in European countries is less likely to be felt by someone who has a lower educational level. Higher educational expenditures are positively correlated with fairness of educational opportunities but not with fairness of net pay.

This article contributes to theoretical, empirical and policy-relevant gender justice research on the link between inequalities and justice perceptions. The authors have expanded the theoretical understanding of the concept of gender justice by taking into account the role of a specific gender norm on fairness perceptions. The norm, when asked about in a gender-neutral way, is not associated with fairness of pay, but when posed as a question specifically to women, has a negative relationship with perceptions of fair pay. The empirical contribution consists in the evaluation of individual and country mechanisms from a gender justice perspective. The policy contribution consists in questioning the belief that longer paid maternity leave is beneficial for women. In countries with long paid leave available to mothers, women reported even lower levels of fairness of net pay than men.