Fight For Social Justice Research Articles

Social work, participation, and poverty

Summary Although participatory social work approaches have been considered as a fruitful strategy, critical questions are raised in relation to the social justice aspirations of participatory social work with people in poverty. Inspired by the work of Nancy Fraser, we provide an in-depth insight in the complexities of supporting participatory parity in ‘Associations where People in Poverty Raise their Voice’. Combining semi-structured interviews and focus groups with practitioners in these organisations, we shed light on the complexities of the ‘how’, the ‘who’, and the ‘what’ of social justice that arise in such participatory practice. Findings Our findings suggest that even in practices that situate the principle of participatory parity at the heart of their fight for social justice, power asymmetries and social inequalities require attention. Exclusionary mechanisms become apparent in how practitioners try to support participatory parity of people in poverty in the different components in the organisation. When practitioners try to overcome these exclusionary effects, a sheer complexity and inescapable power struggles become visible. Moreover, the ambiguity of how practitioners attempt to empower people in poverty and enhance structural change leads to tensions between affirmative and transformative strategies in the fight against poverty. Applications Practitioners should be aware that they will never be able to resolve or escape inherent complexities in their attempts to work on a par with people in poverty. Nevertheless, it remains valuable to make continuous efforts to inform the public debate about the socially unjust nature of poverty and social inequality in our societies.

Roman Catholic Church in the Fight for Social Justice during the Communist Dictatorship in Poland

The Roman Catholic Church in Poland was the main force capable to oppose the communist dictatorship. Although the state was officially œsocialist the condition of ordinary people, including workers in industry and agriculture, was deplorable. Communist regime totally neglected the principles of social justice, creating and using against society the whole apparatus of repression. The Church was only force in the society which created œspace of liberty, provided instruction in the principles of Catholic social teaching and moral strength to the fighting for peoples™ rights. In the absence of any organisation truly representing the world of work, the Roman Catholic Church often played the role of intermediation between the civil authorities and the society. All this led in many ways to the martyrdom of Church leaders and other Church representatives. Suffering with the nation and sharing its fate allowed the Church building up a unique authority, what is still fruiting nowadays when the society tries to shake off the rests of communism now disguised in the suit of liberalism. Keywords: Roman Catholic Church in Poland, Solidarity, martyrdom, communist regime, Cardinal WyszyA„ski, Jerzy PopieA‚uszko, Bishop Kaczmarek

Respecting young people’s informal learning: Circumventing strategic policy evasions

This paper explores experiences at the interface of research and policy through the lens of informal learning. The paper contends that in order to further social justice it is essential to value the informal learning that takes place outside the confines of educational institutions. However, it also demonstrates the difficulties in getting policymakers to take this issue seriously. Formal education, in its fixity around the neo-liberal human subject, will inevitably reproduce the values and assumptions that have created an unequal society in the first place. To achieve social change, what constitutes learning and where and how it happens must be rethought. The paper reflects on three research studies – two achieved, one imagined – which help to reveal the extent and nature of young white working-class informal learning. These findings challenge their positioning as abject, deficit and hating learning. It discusses the policy interest in these studies and the current move of white working-class masculinity to the centre of political debate. It argues that despite the nominal attention to such working-class lives, their informal learning was and is deflected and ignored by policymakers. It is not a question of educating policymakers better, but that policy actively chooses this blinkered stance because a shadow body of unrecognised informal learners helps to shore up the status of their privileged qualified peers. The paper concludes that rather than pursuing familiar research pathways, partnership working and micro levels of research combined with alternative forms of communication and agitation may better serve to support young people’s own fight for social justice.

Enablers and Barriers Faced by Social Workers in Undertaking Advocacy in Johannesburg, South Africa

Advocacy is one of the key roles of social workers when fighting for change in the lives of the vulnerable and marginalised groupings in society. The fight for social justice is a key feature in the mandate of social work globally, and advocacy is vital to the attainment of the social justice mission of social work. Using primary qualitative data, this article offers insights into the enablers and barriers faced by social workers in undertaking advocacy within child welfare settings in Johannesburg, South Africa. The results show that factors such as scarcity of resources and lack of partnerships and collaborative efforts hinder the practice of effective advocacy especially at macro level. Networking forums and collaborative efforts among social workers and people from other related professions are given as some of the key recommendations to strengthen advocacy efforts.

Colonialism and Imperialism: Indigenous Resistance on the us/Mexico Border

The Rio Grande River became a boundary after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), dividing families and communities living along its banks. In 2005 theusCongress began enacting legislation for the purposes of building a physical fence along theus-Mexico border. As such, this digital media project foregrounds the story of Dr. Tamez, a tribal elder and retired colonel, and her Lipan Apache Band in their fight for social justice, a fight that went to federal court, and spurred an inquiry and report by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

PENANGANAN FAKIR MISKIN DITINJAU DARI KONSEP-KONSEP PEKERJAAN SOSIAL

This paper aims to mendiskripsikan the poor (FM) handling in the perspective of social work. The perspective of the social work in the handling of the poor is described using the concepts of social work major. The concepts referred to are: self-help, human rights, social justice, needs, the source of fulfillment, person – in – the situation, social functioning and planned changed. Refer to the concepts, then the poor handling in the perspective of social work are as follows: the poor is seen as a subject who has dignity and self-respect are the same as other humans. FM understood in relation to its social environment, where he resides. FM is seen as a person who has the potential inherent in himself and in relation to the environment. Therefore, the handling capacity in addition to FM, also with self pen enhancement the capacity of the source systems and the fight for social justice in the community. Activities handling FM needs to be done programmatically and systematically involving various stakeholders, and conducted gradually from: Engagement, Assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation and Termination. Keywords: poor, perspective, social work.

How Grassroots Truth and Reconciliation Movements can Further the Fight for Social Justice in U.S. Communities

Across the United States, people in communities burdened by economic injustice and political marginalization, violence, and longstanding legacies of oppression are turning towards truth and reconciliation commissions as an innovative way to address persistent inequalities. Such commissions have been organized under government auspices in other countries dealing with the aftermath of terrible civil wars and ethnic violence. In the United States, the process is driven from the grass roots rather than by government officials. How does this mechanism actually work in American communities as a form of community organizing for social justice?

Net Neutrality and the Fight for Social Justice

Net Neutrality and the Fight for Social Justice

Fat Studies 101: Learning to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Fat Studies 101: Learning to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice

Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice

Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II. By Nancy BeckYoung. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. 376 pp.

Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World II. By Nancy Beck Young. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. 376 pp. Nancy Beck Young departs from her previous works as a biographer to pen this in-depth examination of Congress and how it operated during the Second World War--although, to be fair, the book discusses pre-1939 legislative issues, as well. Unlike the majority of the books reviewed in this journal, the author chooses to focus on the legislative branch, noting that too many books focus on the efforts of the imperial presidency and miss what is happening on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Young argues that the Good War provided the opportunity for congressional conservatives to wage a different kind of war on the New Deal. With so much of the Democratic Party's leadership made up of southern conservatives, it was only moderates of both parties who managed to protect and institutionalize the New Deal's economic agenda, as its statism fit well with winning the war. Attempts at pluralism or social justice legislation along the same lines as the New Deal, however, were lost, as moderates sided with conservatives over fears that such laws would hamper the war effort or split the unity of the nation in time of war. Congressional liberals were not helped in the fight for social justice when Dr. New Deal became Dr. Win-the-War, as President Franklin Roosevelt ignored almost all social justice questions before the legislators. This coalition of the moderates meant that welfare state liberalism turned into warfare state liberalism. Young explains in her epilogue that moderates of both parties have disappeared since 1975; this has left twenty-first century Americans with massive congressional gridlock and hyperpartisan battles fought by screaming pundits and politicians alike. The author divides the book into two main sections: the economics of war and pluralism/social justice. The former includes fights on taxation, wage and price controls, extension of some of the New Deal's alphabet soup agencies, and labor legislation. The latter section includes issues such as Jewish refugees, racial equality, and the creation and later reauthorization of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). All of these chapters are solidly researched, with amazing quotes from Time magazine reporter Frank McNaughton detailing extraordinary behind the scenes struggles within the Democratic caucus. …

Empowering The Underprivileged: The Social Justice Mission For Clinical Legal Education In India

<p>The 1960s and 1970s were an important time in the history of legal education in India, when the legal aid movement and various legal aid committees’ reports started to draw attention to the importance of experiential learning, or learning on the job, in legal education. The main aim of involving law students in the national legal aid movement was to make them feel more responsible for the considerable part of the Indian population who, because of their socio-economic status, couldn’t access justice. The history of how India’s clinical programs were introduced has a lot in common with the history of clinical programs in other parts of the world. There was a desire to create a pool of lawyers, who would serve as soldiers in the fight for social justice for underprivileged groups in the country.</p><p>While some prestigious universities started their clinical programs in the 1970s, most of the regulators of legal education took a long time to include clinical papers in the curriculum. In 1997 the Bar Council of India introduced four practical papers in the curriculum. The spirit of public service, and the widespread poverty in a country, has always been central to the push for clinical programs everywhere. But in India, the legal aid committees’ and other statutory bodies’ reports calling for clinical programs to support social justice, were always ignored. The National Knowledge Commission’s working group on legal education specifically mentioned the need to introduce students to issues relating to poverty, social change and social exclusion, through clinical legal education.</p><p>After the introductory section, the second section discusses the introduction of clinical programs with their roots in the search for social justice in the United States and India. The third section discusses the continuous deliberation by various bodies, commissions and committees about the need to introduce clinical programs with a social justice perspective in India. The fourth section discusses the social justice-based clinical programs in China and South Africa. This section tries to highlight some of the clinical models focused on serving underprivileged groups, that have been introduced and implemented in these two countries and which ~ after local modifications ~ could serve as a template for programs in Indian law schools. The fifth section tries to search for clinical models best suited to India with reference to clinical programs in China and South Africa. Several examples of clinical activities in a few Indian law schools have been highlighted in this chapter to explain these models’ effectiveness and suitability for Indian circumstances. The sixth section sets out some suggestions for law schools and stakeholders of legal education in India as to how to further the country’s social justice mission of clinical legal education.</p>

Book Review: Catherine Bliss, Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice

Book Review: Catherine Bliss, <i>Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice</i>

Corporate Social Responsibility: Issues Challenges and Strategies for Indian Firms

Today Businesses are an integral part of the society. Michael Sabia, President and Chief Executive Officer of BCE Inc., has said, Corporations are also social institutions. The role of business, according to this model, is to create value for its shareholders and also creates value for society, manifesting itself as a win-win proposition. Corporate success during these days is highly based on continued good relations with a wide range of individuals, groups and institutions. Corporate Social Responsibility plays vital role in winning the customer's confidence that will help growing the business. Many organizations actively conduct campaigns to create awareness among corporate, civic bodies, and government bodies about the importance of corporate social responsibility. The term corporate responsibility has been captioned under names including corporate citizenship, social responsibility. CSR as described by Lord Holme and Richard Watts in 'Making Good Business Sense'. Society began to expect business to voluntarily participate in solving societal problems whether they had caused those problems or not. Report on Business Magazine recently noted that many business leaders now believe that doing good for others means doing good for shareholders as well. Corporate social responsibility is a process in which all companies come together as one and take part in the welfare of the society. It is often referred to as business responsibility and an organization's action on environmental, ethical, social and economic issues. New legal mandates were imposed to ensure equal employment opportunities, product safety, worker safety, and environmental protection. Companies with high CSR standards are able to demonstrate their responsibilities to the stock holders, employees, customers, and the general public. As per United Nations and the European Commission, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) leads to triple bottom-line: profits, protection of environment and fight for social justice. Economist and philosopher Adam Smith suggested that the needs and desires of society could best be met by the free interaction of individuals and organizations in the marketplace. However, it is still in nascent stage in India. A recent survey reveals that 79 percent of Americans prefer to buy products of companies that actively engage in corporate social responsibility events. In this connection Indian business world should go beyond their economic and legal obligations to establish mutual trust and accept responsibilities related to the betterment of society. The papers discuss the role of corporate social responsibility. Paper also underlines the major issues/challenges faced by Indian firms, and suggests remedial measures for effective implementation of CSR initiatives. Important terms: Corporate social responsibility, issues, challenges, remedial measures

Vicious Circles

The narrative produced around and by the characters in Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 film The Fountain serves to expose a fruitful path for Intersectional Theory other than the fight for social justice in public policy: an analysis of the ways in which even privileged subject positions are constructed in order to constitute a wide range of integrated discourses of difference. I set out from an understanding of the essential role of the species difference (and the privilege of the human status) in the intersectional constitution of other vectors of difference, such as gender, sex, race, ethnicity, and ability. I attempt to articulate this broad form of intersectional approach with a discussion of the supposedly exclusively human relationship with death which permits the characters in The Fountain to construct humanity as opposed to animality. As long as The Fountainwants to be a narrative concerning differently-gendered stances before death, an intersectional, posthumanist deconstruction of this film can show how the discourse of gender may function as to deflect attention from (and to produce) other forms of difference, such as species.

Aspectos médicos, legales y culturales tras el trabajo industrial de obreros y obreras en un contexto de modernización. Chile (1900-1930)

Este articulo analiza la naturaleza y condiciones del trabajo industrial temprano en Chile y sus efectos fisicos y medicos en los cuerpos de obreros y obreras, en el seno de una sociedad que —en las tres primeras decadas del siglo xx— transitaba rapidamente a la urbanizacion y modernizacion economica. Sostiene que el riesgo, el morbo y la vulnerabilidad fueron los socios indeseables de las nuevas relaciones sociales de produccion. La critica obrera y la lucha por la justicia social caracteristicas del periodo, combatieron estos desenvolvimientos y fueron un factor importante tras los fenomenos de expansion del derecho laboral y el establecimiento de un sistema de salud publica con fuerte acento social

COMBING THE ARCHIVE, TRACING THE DIASPORA: THE SCHOLARSHIP OF GERALD HORNE

Previous articleNext article No AccessSYMPOSIUMCOMBING THE ARCHIVE, TRACING THE DIASPORA: THE SCHOLARSHIP OF GERALD HORNEUla TaylorUla Taylor Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 96, Number 2Spring 2011 A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.96.2.0215 Views: 26Total views on this site Copyright 2011 ASALHPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Fighting to Prevent Global Hunger

The Tikkun Community should take justified pride in twenty-five years of fighting effectively for social justice and building from Jewish traditions and teachings in waging these fights. In that spirit I wish to pose what may seem like an out-of-nowhere question: are you following the current activities of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission?My guess is that almost everyone is answering “no.” This is a serious problem. Despite its obscurity as a federal government regulatory body, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is making decisions now that could determine whether hundreds of millions of people experience malnutrition, hunger, and perhaps even starvation in the coming years.Futures markets for food, oil and other commodities have long been used by farmers and others to maintain stability in their business operations and plan for the future. For example, under a “plain vanilla” wheat futures contract, a farmer could spend $50,000 planting her crop now, and agree now with a commodities futures trader to sell the crop at a fixed price when the crop is harvested.But such simple agreements became increasingly overwhelmed by big-time market speculators in 2000 when the markets were deregulated, along with the rest of the U.S. financial system. Deregulation produced severe swings in the global prices of food and oil.The most severely impacted victims of commodity price volatility are people in developing countries, where it is common for families to spend 50 percent or more of their total income on food. The United Nations found that sharp price increases in 2008—a 40 percent average increase across a range of different food items—led to malnourishment for 130 million additional people. Low-income people in developing countries have been further hammered because, even though global food prices did fall sharply from their mid-2008 peak, they are still today, on average, about 20 percent higher than they were in 2006. Moreover, just between June and September of this year, the price of wheat rose by 72 percent, demonstrating that the extreme food price spike in 2008 was not a one-time aberration.The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that passed Congress in July does create a framework for effectively regulating commodities futures markets. However this new law is weak on details, leaving these decisions to the day-to-day regulators at the CFTC.The Dodd-Frank law includes a prohibition on any sort of agricultural swap trading—the single most active area for speculative gambling on food products. But Dodd-Frank also allows the CFTC to consider exemptions from this prohibition. Not surprisingly, large numbers of Wall Street lawyers have drafted letters explaining why these exemptions should be granted generously. Dodd-Frank will be rendered toothless if Wall Street prevails on this and related issues. Speculators will again be permitted to gamble on hunger.So let’s keep up the fight for social justice on all terrains, including the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

The media and climate change

Progressive voices in the arts and heritage sector have called for a politics of cultural democracy as a means of empowering all to participate in public life. Through a rejection of policies of 'inclusion', they have asked more searching questions about the role culture can play in the fight for social justice. At the same time the sector is preparing for a change of ideological direction, as rumours run rife about what a future Tory government, highly critical of state intervention, will do to the bodies that run the arts and heritage sector. This article looks at the prospects for a radical cultural democracy in the face of these potential political changes.

Educational leadership and social activism: a call for action

The purpose of this article is to argue for a social activist stance in educational leadership that fundamentally addresses social change and human emancipation. This call for social activism is framed within neoliberal, neoconservative, and authoritarian populist discourses in the USA, which to social justice educators and leaders had devastating effects on education. Empirical data from an activist high school principal, activist university professor, and activist priest reflects their development of political clarity, political capacity, political collaboration, and an ethic of risk. It is suggested that the work of socially active educational leaders needs to be broadened to include such things as public policy advocacy, networking, organising, community development, and scholarship. Finally, the article concludes with a variety of ways educational leaders can demonstrate their social, moral, and political activism as they challenge the status quo, fight for social justice, and come to understand the politicised notion of leadership.