Justice Orientation Research Articles

Supporting Teachers’ Engagement in Pedagogies of Social Justice (STEPS): A Collaborative Project Between Five Universities in Turkey and the USA

            This paper reports the findings of a research project titled Supporting Teachers’ Engagement in Pedagogies of Social Justice (STEPS), in which pre-service teachers from five universities and in-service teachers from Turkey and the US participated in a six-week-long virtual exchange project. The main objective of the study was to promote social justice-informed pedagogies in K-12 schools through professional development and conversations between pre-service and in-service teachers from two countries. The study addressed the following research question: How does a six-week virtual exchange project influence in-service and pre-service teachers’ social justice orientation? For this purpose, we collected quantitative data through a questionnaire based on social justice standards developed by a group of researchers called “Learning for Justice”. Participants completed this questionnaire before and after their participation in the project. Additionally, we asked the participants to write a reflection post at the end of the project regarding its impact, and we treated their posts as qualitative data. At the end of the analysis, we found that the mean scores of the post-test results were significantly higher than those of the pre-test results, which indicated that the project changed the perspectives of the participants in a positive way. Furthermore, analyzing the qualitative data, we found four recurring themes: a) learning through sharing and working in collaboration, b) noticing common concerns with other educators, c) self-awareness and self-evaluation, and d) promise for taking action.

Retaining Teachers: Intentional Invitational Action and Social Justice Leadership as Driving Forces

Social justice challenges and teacher retention challenges create crises in urban school districts across the United States. Moreover, despite literature linking principal leadership with school ethos known is little as to how the use of an invitational leadership style with a social justice orientation has a connection to the retention of teachers in urban settings. This study used a qualitative case study survey design conducted at two urban school district settings, one in the Western United States and the other in the Midwest. The analysis found a connection between the principal using an invitational leadership style, and the presence of a strong social orientation that helped to retain teachers. These findings present implications for scholars and practitioners.

Learning to design for social justice in community‐engaged engineering

AbstractBackgroundCommunity‐engaged learning initiatives in engineering often struggle to achieve equitable outcomes for community partners because students in such programs often possess a design‐for‐charity mindset, which is characterized by an uncritical desire to help and the design of solutions that address symptoms of inequity without meaningful community involvement. The paradigm of design‐for‐justice seeks more equitable outcomes by illuminating positions of power, leveraging community knowledge, facilitating community participation, and altering the structural causes of inequity.PurposeLittle is known about how to support students in developing a design‐for‐justice mindset. This work investigated how students in one particular community‐engaged engineering program with a social justice orientation learned to shift mindsets from charity toward justice.MethodI conducted a case study of a community‐engaged engineering learning project during a single academic term using participant observations and semi‐structured interviews of eight undergraduates with varying levels of project experience. I performed thematic analysis to identify learning processes students employed in making mindset shifts.ResultsStudents employed four primary learning processes in developing and deepening a design‐for‐justice mindset: (1) drawing upon prior experience with inequity; (2) connecting to course content; (3) imitating experienced team members; and (4) empathizing with community members. The three core elements of the program experience—introductory course, laboratory course, and field practicum—each fostered shifts along distinct mindset dimensions.ConclusionThis research offers insights into creating community‐engaged engineering learning experiences that may help students shift toward a design‐for‐justice mindset and has broader implications for how all engineering students might develop socio‐technical thinking skills.

Cultivating Powerful Participation: Reflections from a food justice and facilitation learning experience

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened awareness of systemic racism this past year, food systems practitioners are increasingly turning their attention toward the intersections of racial equity and the good food movement. Un­packing the racist history of the food system is a key step in this journey toward food justice, one that must be followed by intentional action bridg­ing diverse perspectives through skilled facilitation. Through a project called Cultivating Powerful Par­ticipation, the University of Minnesota Extension and food justice practitioners across Minnesota are working together to equip leaders with the neces­sary relationships, skills, and tools to cultivate a vision of food justice. In this reflective essay, we draw on our experiences leading this initiative to demonstrate the power and impact of approaching food justice through an action-oriented framework that equips community food justice leaders to become seasoned facilitators. Using themes and evaluation data from our program, we share prom­ising practices and specific facilitation methods that others can adapt to embrace a justice orientation in their work.

Trilogy of Strategies of Disruption in Research Methodologies: Article 3 of 3: The Evocative Power of Tourism Studies: Positive Interruption, Interdependence, and Imaging Forward Today

In this third of three cousin articles on the call for disruptive qualitative research approaches, further treatment is proffered on the concerns and irritations that "soft science"/"subtle science" social scientists (and humanists, and posthumanists) are troubled by today. While the opening article (by Hollinshead, Suleman, and Nair here in Tourism, Culture & Communication) laid out the general case for the fit of disruptive qualitative research advances cum dissident interpretive research overtures in Tourism Studies to help atone for the field's long-recognized biases towards highly economic/linear/ empirical outlooks, the second article (by Hollinshead, Suleman, and Vellah) constituted a consolidation of the advanced social justice orientations being aired across the trio of articles. In this third of the three bedfellow articles, the authors (Hollinshead, Suleman, and Lo) now provide further critique on the soft science constructions and the subtle science thinking that have been promoted within the landmark text on advanced qualitative and interpretive praxis by Brown, Carducci, and Kuby (entitled Disrupting Qualitative Inquiry). In this third article, the need for such dissident developments within Tourism Studies is provided with respect to a number (10) of common ontological issues encountered in research into tourism/travel today, such as the difficulty in researching the shadowy and indistinct "unique ways" in which foreign peoples differ from each other. At the end of this article, a further 15 terms are made manifest for the cumulative glossary being developed across the three companion articles. These terms include "critical ethnography" (vis-à-vis the revised cognitive practices of tourism) and "unsettlement" (vis-à-vis the rhetorics of futurity of tourism). This third article—like its two predecessors—is notably Deleuzian in hue, although readers should spot the conceptual mark of (Arturo) Escobar (and considerations of pluriversality that emanate from "The South") in places.

Challenging the Hegemonic Police Within

Those who benefit from privilege often fail to understand the inner workings of their privilege. If they do, they can respond in various ways: abuse their privilege, continue to ignore it, become more self-reflexive with their actions, and more. This essay engages my (in)ability to use a standpoint of privilege in challenging everyday acts of oppression. I offer a dominant group methodology that uses dominant group theory as a heuristic to practice critical self-reflexivity through autoethnography. I follow by providing autoethnographic accounts of moments when I complicitly reinforced or attempted to impede communicative behavior(s) that perpetuated prejudice and discrimination. I conclude with practical implications for readers—especially those who identify as dominant group members. More specifically, I invite readers to unlearn oppressive ways of being toward the continual development and enactment of a social justice orientation.

Taking the Teachers to School! Critical Consciousness Emerging: A Qualitative Exploration of Mexican American Youth’s Social Justice Orientation Development

Taking the Teachers to School! Critical Consciousness Emerging: A Qualitative Exploration of Mexican American Youth’s Social Justice Orientation Development

Teachers, parents, and family-school partnerships: emotions, experiences, and advocacy

ABSTRACT We wanted to know how teachers and parents perceive one another and how their perceptions could impact upon their behaviour. Qualitative research was best suited to our study. We interviewed teachers and parents repeatedly over the course of eight months, conducting 97 interviews in total. The teachers reflected stereotypical views of people living in poverty, a fact that the parents realised. Some parents responded by trying to create a good impression. Most parents reacted defensively or forcefully, upsetting the teachers. All teachers had emotionally fraught encounters with parents. Lacking in emotional training, the teachers adopted various coping strategies. A social justice orientation and training in the emotional sphere in initial teacher education may better equip teachers for family-school partnerships. We identify the implications of the study for initial teacher education and for the continuing professional development of teachers. Finally, we offer recommendations for future research in this area.

Trauma informed practices in education and social justice: towards a critical orientation

Increasingly, educational practitioners committed to social justice embrace trauma-informed practices and those who advocate for and enact trauma-informed practices are committed to social justice. However, connecting social justice to trauma-informed practice requires greater conceptual clarity than is currently found, given the malleable meanings of both 'trauma informed' and 'social justice'. Further, the complex relationship between these educational aims is under-examined. To address these issues, an analytical framework is developed that brings together a model of forms of trauma-informed practice in education with orientations to social justice. This draws on models of social justice developed in social work and teaching, and teacher education. Applying this framework to trauma-informed practice indicates that trauma- informed practice, as so far developed, generally has either a conservative or a socially liberal social justice orientation. Practices are proposed that align with a critical orientation, which attends to cultural and structural relationships implicated in trauma and adversity in childhood. A critical orientation should not only consider practice but also be informed by further theoretical, philosophical and ethical engagement as part of a project of activist professionalism across educational professions.

Moving From Multiculturalism to Critical Race Theory Within a School of Social Work

The continued presence of racism and white supremacy has risen to a crisis level as today’s global pandemic, police abuse targeting Black, Indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC) communities, and mass urban uprisings rock the nation. This article presents a case study of a West Coast school of social work that has carried out a five-year systematic campaign to move all levels of the program beyond a multicultural orientation towards critical race theory. This study reveals the results of a self-organized cross-racial committee within a school of social work, motivated by an ambitious goal to implement a racial justice orientation throughout the school’s personnel, practices, policies, and curricula. The committee has been further characterized by its commitment to engage across the power-laden divisions of field faculty, tenure track faculty, and administrative staff. The article offers documented stages of development, narratives from across differences of identity and professional role, and thick descriptions of strategies that led to the adoption and infusion of an intersectional critical race analysis throughout the school’s curricula. The organic development of the campaign and the leveraging of opportunities throughout the campus and across campuses offer important lessons for other schools of social work undergoing transformational change.

Theorizing and learning from Kenya’s evolving solar energy enterprise development

A deeper, a more nuanced examination of Kenya’s solar energy enterprise development has the potential to generate new theoretical and practice insights into energy and sustainability transition process in a developing country context. Based on a review of energy/sustainability transition articles on Kenya, East Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa published in select energy, sustainability, and management journals, this article highlights four issues and questions related to Kenya’s solar energy enterprise development that represent fertile ground for further scholarly analysis. Firstly, how can transition policies be designed and developed with strong social and gender justice orientations? Secondly, how can market development be more effectively linked to the sustainable development of local communities? Thirdly, how can politics and power dynamics be better aligned with the transition process? Fourthly, how can the private sector work with greater collaboration with the public sector to achieve more integrated policy and market outcomes?

Kamu Yönetiminde Siyasallaşma ve Kayırmacılık Sorununa Ahlak ve Adalet Eksenli Çözüm Önerileri

Siyasallaşma, yönetim ile siyaset arasındaki ilişkilerin aşırı olması ile ortaya çıkan temel yönetsel sorunlardan biridir. Siyasallaşan bir yönetimde en genel hali yönetim siyasi davranışlarda bulunmakta veya siyasi iktidarın gölgesinde faaliyet göstermektedir. Kayırmacılık ise kendi başına yönetsel bir sorun olmakla birlikte siyasallaşma ile daha da belirginleşen kamu yönetiminin önemli sorunlarından bir diğeridir. Kayırmacılığın yaşandığı bir yönetimde liyakat ilkesi başta olmak üzere birçok yönetsel değer uygulama alanı bulamamakta ve kamu yönetimi kendisinden beklenen görevleri yerine getirememektedir. Dolayısıyla siyasallaşma ve kayırmacılık, kamu yönetimi için kesinlikle giderilmesi gereken önemli bir sorundur. Bu sorunun giderilebilmesinde ahlak ve adalet oldukça etkilidir. Zira ahlak ve adalet, kamu yönetiminin verimli kılınabilmesi için gerekli olan tüm değerlerin yönetimde var olmasının sağlanmasından yönetimin amacı doğrultusunda faaliyet göstermesine kadar etkili olan temel olgulardır. Ahlak ve adaletin gözetilmediği bir kamu yönetiminde, en genel hali ile hak kavramı zayi olmakta, başta siyasallaşma ve kayırmacılık olmak üzere birçok yönetsel sorun baş göstermekte ve halkın ihtiyaçları karşılanamamaktadır. Yapılan bu çalışmada öncelikle siyasallaşma ve kayırmacılığın ne olduğu açıklanacak ve Türk kamu yönetiminde siyasallaşma ve kayırmacılığın nasıl sorun olduğu ortaya konacaktır. Çalışmanın devamında ise Türk kamu yönetiminde siyasallaşma ve kayırmacılık sorununun giderilebilmesi için ahlak ve adalet temelinde çözüm önerileri geliştirilecektir.

The Tokyo Tribunal: Precedent for Victor’s Justice II

Besides, previous publication of Nuremberg Tribunal: A Precedent for Victor’s Justice (2020), the study is named as The Tokyo Tribunal: Precedent for Victor’s Justice II. The bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were heinous crimes against humankind that caused physical, material, socio-cultural, and emotional losses. The bombings violated humanitarian law. This paper aims to find out the situations of the investigation, prosecution and punishment, and analyse the preference for justice: victor’s justice or victim’s justice. During World War II, anti-communist Emperor Hirohito actively led Japan decorated by the Army’s uniform but pretended to be a ceremonial Emperor making scapegoats to his opponents. Former Prime Ministers Konoe and Tojo were conspiratorially assassinated. Hirohito bribed callous US Army General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur ordered to gather testimonies to prove Hirohito as innocent. The Tokyo Tribunal was biased since it did not speak a word against the indiscriminate bombings and mass killings in Chinese cities, among others. The Tribunal had a pseudo justice body, highly influenced by the US military and retributive justice doctrines. Judges were appointed from each allied victor excluding from Japan. Five of the 11 Judges submitted separate opinions on their judgment. Justice had been elusive for the innocent, weak, and poor victims. Most crimes committed went unpunished. The Tribunal ironically ensured the victor’s justice, further limiting the victim’s justice. Thus, the Tribunal appeared as a sword in a judge's toupee.

The personal and the political: how a feminist standpoint theory epistemology guided an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Given the call for increased emphasis on multicultural and social justice orientations in the field of counselling psychology, this manuscript explores how the union of different knowledge traditions might offer further means of incorporating culturally sensitive and social justice perspectives into traditional knowledge discovery. We propose that afeminist standpoint theory (FST) epistemology may be a helpful guiding framework for a research method such as an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) that can potentially enrich the exploration of personal experiences and the systemic dynamics that influence them. This manuscript arose out growing awareness and understanding of the benefits and challenges faced when engaging in research that used a pluralistic approach. To illustrate one adaptive way of combining these approaches we present examples from a research study that engaged a FST epistemology with an IPA methodological approach. These examples will be used to support a discussion of the important philosophical tensions that exist between FST and IPA, and to examine the challenges and benefits that integration might bring to enhance a researcher’s ability to explore the complex nature of human experience and social relationships.

Humility in novice leaders: links to servant leadership and followers’ satisfaction with leadership

ABSTRACT Across two studies, we investigated connections between leader humility, servant leadership, and follower satisfaction. Leaders were resident and spiritual life advisors in on-campus housing at a university. In Study 1, we assessed leaders’ self-reported expressed humility, intellectual humility, and servant leadership at three times across six months. Leader humility did not change across time, but aspects of both forms of leader humility were positively associated with servant leadership. In Study 2, leaders were rated by their followers. Leaders reporting more respect for diverse viewpoints, a characteristic of intellectual humility, had followers who were more satisfied with their leaders’ interpersonal leadership and justice orientation. This research suggest potential benefits to cultivating humility among novice leaders in some contexts.

The Effect of True Self-Attributions on the Endorsement of Retributive and Restorative Justice.

We examined how the attribution of criminal behavior to an individual's "true" self influences justice preferences. In Study 1 (N = 521), the extent to which undergraduates attributed a crime to a target's true self positively predicted their endorsement of a retributive form of punishment and negatively predicted their endorsement of a restorative form of punishment. Study 2 (N = 404) was preregistered and replicated these associations, even when controlling for other perceived causes (e.g., personality, environment). In Study 3 (N = 282), undergraduates rated retributive punishment more favorably and restorative punishment less favorably when induced to think that the crime was (vs. was not) reflective of the target's true self. Study 4 (N = 935) was preregistered and replicated these experimental effects across different types of crime vignettes in an online sample. These results highlight the ways that intuitions about "true" selves shape punishment preferences.

How to fairly allocate scarce medical resources? Controversial preferences of healthcare professionals with different personal characteristics.

The scarcity of medical resources is widely recognized, and therefore priority setting is inevitable. This study examines whether Portuguese healthcare professionals (physicians vs nurses): (i) share the moral guidance proposed by ethicists and (ii) attitudes toward prioritization criteria vary among individual and professional characteristics. A sample of 254 healthcare professionals were confronted with hypothetical prioritization scenarios involving two patients distinguished by personal or health characteristics. Descriptive statistics and parametric analyses were performed to evaluate and compare the adherence of both groups of healthcare professionals regarding 10 rationing criteria: waiting time, treatment prognosis measured in life expectancy and quality of life, severity of health conditions measured in pain and immediate risk of dying, age discrimination measured in favoring the young over older and favoring the youngest over the young, merit evaluated positively or negatively, and parenthood. The findings show a slight adherence to the criteria. Waiting time and patient pain were the conditions considered fairer by respondents in contrast with the ethicists normative. Preferences for distributive justice vary by professional group and among participants with different political orientations, rationing experience, years of experience, and level of satisfaction with the NHS. Decision-makers should consider the opinion of ethicists, but also those of healthcare professionals to legitimize explicit guidelines.

Review: i used to love to dream, by A.D. Carson

Review: <i>i used to love to dream</i>, by A.D. Carson

Uskudar Democratic Leadership Scale Validity and Reliability Studies*

Background: The mightiness of the political leader, his strength, his risk-taking leadership, and his emotional contact with society plays an active role in the healthy management of society in many respects. A psychometric “democratic leadership scale” is needed to define the items to determine the limits of authoritarianism and to find the balance between using power and justice. Aims and Objectives: This research aims to conduct a validity and reliability study of a wide range of the Uskudar Democratic Leadership Scale (USDELID). Materials and Methods: Sample consists of 1010 people from Turkey. “Uskudar Political Leadership Scale-USPOLID” was used for the validity of the criteria. Results: The internal coefficient of consistency (α) of the scale was found to be .97. Analysis revealed that the scale consists of four factors. The first factor “Libertarianism/Pluralism” alone accounts for 71.81% of the variance, the second factor “Justice Orientation” accounts for 3.90% of the variance, the third factor “Participation” accounts for 3.16% of the variance, and the fourth factor “Accountability” accounts for 1.96% of the variance. These four factors, consisting of a total of 25 items, together accounted for 80.85% of the total variance. Conclusion: As a result of the studies, it was understood that the scale is valid and reliable. An item on the scale is inversely asked to ensure attention by taking part in the scale for control purposes. There has the scale emerged called the USDELID.

Are Financial Incentives Appropriate Means of Encouraging Medication Adherence Among People Living With HIV?

Financial incentives have been shown to improve antiretroviral (ARV) adherence for people living with HIV, but scholars have argued that this commodifies treatment and have debated the ethics of doing so. This article summarizes research on ethical processes and factors involved in an intervention that successfully improved ARV adherence among socially vulnerable people living with HIV. Thirty qualitative interviews were conducted with intervention participants and field notes documenting organizational processes were analyzed. The protocol utilized a preexisting framework to assess the ethics of using financial incentives to motivate adherence. Financial incentives supported an ethical service provision framework by (1) establishing and strengthening client agency, (2) revising organizational protocols to prioritize adherence, and (3) promoting resource redistribution. Financial incentives, when embedded in wrap-around services, innovative client-centered organizational processes, and a justice orientation, constitute an ethical intervention requiring ethical investigation.