Social Justice Themes Research Articles

Exploring the Affective and Spatial Politics of Choral Music Performance through Focus Groups with Singers

This paper builds on focus groups with singers from a chamber choir that rehearses and performs in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. It explores the spatial politics of performance and singers’ understandings of the impact of choral music, in particular in music with social justice themes. Discussion centers on two compositions about forced migration. Singers reflected on their experiences rehearsing and performing these and other works, exploring the function of choral music, the politics of performance, and race and whiteness in choral singing. We argue that focusing on singers’ experiences allows musical geographies to further explore an affective politics of performance. Participants described singing as a form of political engagement—though one different from electoral or activist politics—but one that they navigate ambivalently, through affects that include hopefulness and (sometimes productive) forms of anxiety and discomfort. We contribute to discussions in cultural geographies and geohumanities around race and musical geographies, the affective (geo)politics of performance, and art-geography collaboration.

The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Practices

The effects of climate change on human societies are widespread, especially for indigenous populations who depend on ecosystems and natural resources for their survival and cultural traditions. In this paper, the effect of climate change on indigenous knowledge and cultural practices is examined, with particular attention paid to how shifting climatic conditions and other environmental factors are influencing accumulated ecological wisdom and indigenous cultural practices. The study highlights the varied ways that climate change is affecting indigenous peoples by utilizing ethnographic data from numerous indigenous communities around the world. The study highlights the ways that indigenous tribes are adapting to climate change, including by changing their traditional beliefs and behaviors. Additionally, it looks at the difficulties indigenous peoples experience as a result of climate change, such as biodiversity loss, the deterioration of cultural legacy, and the danger to their social and economic well-being. The study also investigates how themes of social justice and human rights, such as the right to self-determination and the preservation of cultural legacy, intersect with the impact of climate change on indigenous knowledge and practices. According to the study, there are both advantages and disadvantages to how climate change will affect indigenous knowledge and traditional traditions. One the one hand, indigenous peoples are becoming more innovative and creative as a result of climate change, adjusting to the changing environment and creating fresh approaches to resource management and conservation. The resilience of indigenous people is also being weakened by climate change, endangering their cultural legacy and social well-being. Overall, this work highlights the urgent need for greater research into how climate change is affecting indigenous knowledge and cultural practices, as well as for practices and policies that promote indigenous communities' ability for adaptation and protect their cultural heritage and human rights.

Implementing youth participatory action research at a continuation high school.

To describe the process of implementing a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project at a continuation high school (CHS) and share the results of a youth-designed research project that explores barriers to high school completion. YPAR was implemented across three cohorts at a CHS in the central coast of California from 2019 to 2022. Student survey respondents were enrolled CHS students between March and April 2021. A modified YPAR curriculum integrating research methodology and social justice topics was used to guide student-led research that resulted in a cross-sectional survey. Field notes maintained by the first author documented the process of implementing YPAR including the curriculum, conversations, and research decisions and procedures. A student-designed survey disseminated to all enrolled students resulted in 76 (66%) participant responses. The survey included 18 close-ended questions and three narrative responses. This study details how YPAR methodologies can be translated to a high school credit recovery program. For example, student cohorts were needed to maintain continuity over time. A student-designed survey revealed that 72% of student respondents reported taking care of family members and illuminated high rates of depression symptoms. This study offers a detailed description of how we implemented YPAR at a credit recovery program and provides student-driven perspectives on educational reform and evaluation. This project addresses the implementation and challenges of using YPAR to engage youth in transformational resistance to rapidly study and improve CHS' policy and practice.

Communities of practice as a launchpad for social justice planning in early childhood education

This qualitative case study aims to explore the ways in which communities of practice support teacher learning, decision-making, and the purposeful infusion of social justice topics that are important to children within project work. The authors draw from transformative learning theory and critical pedagogy to guide their work in supporting early childhood education teachers in how social justice issues are connected to diversity, equity, advocacy, and liberation. The preliminary findings indicate the ways the communities of practice provided a safe space for the teachers to support one another regarding tensions of practice, and a space to center the knowledge and truth of children when integrating social justice topics in project work.

Social justice in the language classroom: a roadmap for lower-division Spanish curricula

ABSTRACT This study investigates 70 university participants’ selection of topic and acceptability relating to the explicit inclusion of social justice topics in intermediate language courses in universities in the United States. This study draws from the Critical Pedagogy and Task-Based Language Teaching as frameworks in the second language (L2) classroom. Participants enrolled in intermediate-level Spanish courses completed a series of projects in which tasks centered on social justice topics of their choosing. Qualitative data analysis revealed that language learners perceived the projects as opportunities to use real world, authentic language with the purpose of communicating in the target language. Learners reported that the incorporation of social justice in the L2 classroom provided new, meaningful learning while they developed greater awareness of issues affecting the world and acquired vocabulary and speaking skills. As a result of this study, findings support inclusion of social justice topics, even in lower-division courses.

Digital Exhibits for Justice: Analyzing Public Library Digital Exhibits with Diversity and Social Justice Themes

ABSTRACT Public libraries are increasingly addressing issues of diversity and social justice through a variety of avenues, including digital exhibits. This study analyzed digital exhibits offered by large public libraries, identifying a total of 27 exhibits that had diversity and/or social justice themes from eight library systems. The exhibits covered a range of topics but tended to focus more on historical oppression or discrimination (81%) rather than on modern inequities (30%). The majority of exhibits (56%) demonstrated collaboration between libraries and the local community, but only 19% provided users with a mechanism for providing feedback. The study developed a framework for evaluating digital exhibits that can serve as a guide for public librarians seeking to curate digital exhibits involving diversity or social justice topics.

Conscious Capitalism: An Emerging Economic Philosophy for Higher Purpose in Business

An enhanced economic philosophy, conscious capitalism, is ascending in the United States and gaining traction in helping corporations redefine their approach to business. This article analyzes and evaluates conscious capitalism, integrates it with biblical economics and the social justice faith tradition, and explores its relationship to business education. Business education researchers have the opportunity to integrate conscious capitalism ideas into business curriculum to give students ideas that broaden their understanding of an enhanced model of capitalism and the ways capitalism can do good. Additionally, there is opportunity for Christian business professors to integrate the social justice themes of mishpat, hesed, and shalom into business and economics curriculum and teach about stakeholder integration, higher purpose and values, leadership, culture, and management. Conscious capitalism is not perfectly aligned with a Christian worldview, nor has it sought to be, and as it emerges, more research can help confirm its efficacy.

Red

Red Vivian Li (bio) Keywords poetry, Vivian, Li, Chinese characters, communism, Cultural Revolution, pollution 紫薯, a mother's boiling incense, herbal ginger tea山峰, summit of skies, an unwrapped shin almost fire-scalded redtobacco, whistling grey pipe of meshed 廣州 air and 1970s pollutionmy father dodging into villages with naked children, small mounds of dirt baked with stolen potatoes, red snakes threading my mother's inky bathleft-over stump of a pianist's right hand, devoured by red termites,civilization-stamped billets for a pound of salmon, a withering line of men stooped under the edge of something sweet called rebirth of our nation嫲嫲 four years of sharp calligraphy for four months of 團圓 soup flows through two bowls chipped, the third unuseda red mountain over soldiers shouting red slogans my ancestor teaching unpolished men to bomb flesh of young childrenMinisters once visited factories and called them vivacious productive movingtoo many mouths to feed, 婆婆 swaddles her baby in weightless blue, delivery to a red brick home, hoping to try for a boy this time [End Page 617] Vivian Li vivian (xiao wen) li is a queer writer, editor, musician, director, and interdisciplinary artist. Her poetry, fiction, and/or creative nonfiction can be found in League of Canadian Poets Anthology: In the Storm/Struggle, The Fiddlehead, filling station, CV2, and Vallum, among others. She was long-listed for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, received honorable mentions from Muriel's Journey Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the Vancouver City Poems Contest. She is an editor for PRISM international. Her creative works engage with themes of Chinese-Canadian identity, mental health, and social justice. Copyright © 2022 The Massachusetts Review, Inc.

Social media enables people-centric climate action in the hard-to-decarbonise building sector

The building and construction sector accounts for around 39% of global carbon dioxide emissions and remains a hard-to-abate sector. We use a data-driven analysis of global high-level climate action on emissions reduction in the building sector using 256,717 English-language tweets across a 13-year time frame (2009–2021). Using natural language processing and network analysis, we show that public sentiments and emotions on social media are reactive to these climate policy actions. Between 2009–2012, discussions around green building-led emission reduction efforts were highly influential in shaping the online public perceptions of climate action. From 2013 to 2016, communication around low-carbon construction and energy efficiency significantly influenced the online narrative. More significant interactions on net-zero transition, climate tech, circular economy, mass timber housing and climate justice in 2017–2021 shaped the online climate action discourse. We find positive sentiments are more prominent and recurrent and comprise a larger share of the social media conversation. However, we also see a rise in negative sentiment by 30–40% following popular policy events like the IPCC report launches, the Paris Agreement and the EU Green Deal. With greater online engagement and information diffusion, social and environmental justice topics emerge in the online discourse. Continuing such shifts in online climate discourse is pivotal to a more just and people-centric transition in such hard-to-decarbonise sectors.

Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones: Understanding and Integrating Social Justice in Chinese Language Class

AbstractRecent global social unrest—anti‐Asian violence in particular—was a wake‐up call compelling Chinese language teachers to not only reflect on their emotions but also actively incorporate social justice in their curriculum and instruction. Yet, research on social justice in Chinese language classrooms is scarce. Building on recent work on teacher agency, this study investigated 10 Chinese language teachers, originally from mainland China and Taiwan, about their understandings and practices of social justice in their teaching. Findings identified 3 major dimensions that influenced their understandings and practices—namely, community, curriculum, and, more importantly, culture. (Re)shaping their understandings and adapting pedagogical skills were ongoing processes through which the teachers experienced complex feelings, support, and challenges; nonetheless, they drew on their agency to embed social justice in their teaching, manifested through (a) centering social justice topics in curriculum and instruction, and (b) creating a justice‐oriented environment. This study explored social justice in the landscape of Chinese language education and provides implications for teaching and teacher education.

Social Justice Storytelling: A Pedagogical Imperative

Librarians and information professionals need to be reflective practitioners who can analyze, understand, and communicate in culturally competent ways about social justice. This study analyzes the output of student responses to the assignment to record a video social justice story in four graduate library and information science (LIS) courses. Qualitative analysis reveals patterns of “calling out injustice” and “calling in the audience” that reflect students’ social justice storytelling and that demonstrate abilities to engage and provoke audiences. The findings show that social justice topics in LIS are amenable to a variety of narrative strategies. Future LIS research should look more deeply at what students learn through assignments like these and how this pedagogy should affect ongoing social justice storytelling by library professionals. Teaching LIS students to be social justice storytellers is an important way of continuing to push the field to “walk the talk” of diversity and inclusion.

Decolonising the curriculum: A survey of current practice in a modern UK university

ABSTRACT Decolonisation is a socio-political movement which challenges Eurocentrism and post-colonial notions of power. This has numerous implications for higher education institutions (HEIs), where the content and delivery of curricula may be seen as products of colonial legacy. The decolonisation agenda has increasing support from students, the academy, and regulatory bodies, which together are invoking HEIs to act. This paper reports on research undertaken within a UK HEI, which benchmarked the extent to which programmes followed characteristics of (de)colonised curricula. A survey, based on existing open access resources, was completed by 99 staff and 290 students across four schools. Findings suggest differences in how curricula are perceived by staff and students, and between white and minority ethnic student groups. Given growing global interest in decolonisation and associated social justice themes, this research has important applications for other HEIs.

Caste, Environment Justice, and Intersectionality of Dalit–Black Ecologies

Caste and race, Dalits and Black people, and the common ground between them have been analyzed in many areas, but their conjunction in the environmental field has been neglected. This article locates Dalit ecologies by examining the close connection between caste and nature. Drawing from a plural framework of environmental justice and histories of environmental struggles among African Americans, it focuses on historical and contemporary ecological struggles of Dalits. It contemplates how their initial articulations under the rubric of civil rights developed into significant struggles over issues of Dalit access, ownership, rights, and partnership regarding natural resources, where themes of environmental and social justice appeared at the forefront. The intersections between Dalit and Black ecologies, the rich legacies of Black Panthers and Dalit Panthers, and their overlaps in environmental struggles open for us a new historical archive, where Dalit and Black power can talk to each other in the environmental present.

Themes in Academic Literature: Prejudice and Social Justice

Despite a marked decline in prejudicial attitudes among the public at large, a survey of 175 million scholarly articles published over the last five decades has found a sharp spike in words denoting prejudice and social justice themes beginning in 2010 and lasting at least through the first few months of 2020, a pattern observed within news media content as well.

Hospitality and Amnesty: Aravind Adiga’s Narrative of Legal Liminality

Amnesty continues several of the social justice themes of precarity and subalternity (at times, a violent subaltern agency) of Aravind Adiga’s fiction, and its literary narrative centres again on criminal acts and the moral dilemma the protagonist faces over whether to report a murder and expose his illegality to do “the right thing.” Offering a postcolonial reading of Amnesty supported by concepts from migration, citizenship, and human rights studies, this essay discusses the novel’s representation of the inhospitable conditions experienced by migrants victimized by the precarity of their status, whether discursively categorized as illegal, irregular, undocumented, unauthorized, or unlawful; by the consequent exploitations and abuse without recourse to justice; and by the suspension of their human rights. The theme of illegality is approached in Adiga’s narrative from a more radical perspective of liminality – the state of “legal liminality” in which irregular migrants find themselves when longing to belong in the host country, or at least be legalized, while gripped and besieged by myriad daily fears and anxieties that their legal status will be discovered, compounded by a resolute refusal to leave the host country. Adiga forces this theoretical question of legal liminality to an extreme by presenting a protagonist who, as an irregular migrant, has committed the political crime of illegally overstaying in the host country. The central question of amnesty is raised when the protagonist faces the dilemma of stepping up to civic responsibilities without having been conceded participatory rights.

Reconfiguring music education for future-making: how?

ABSTRACT Global and societal changes present profound challenges and complexities for the future of music education practice and research. In these times of rapid change, four members of the MER editorial board reflect on the need to challenge normalising discourses of music education and encourage new understandings and/or territories within the field. In this viewpoint paper, we proffer four provocations on the themes of music(s) and social justice, climate change and sustainability, peace and democracy and enduring impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and ask how music education can play a central role in future-making. The paper concludes with an invitation to consider special issue proposals that advance similar or new themes.

Art of (Data) Storytelling

The extent to which data visualizations are used, and the quality of these visualizations, has consistently been shown to influence human decision-making relative to static (non-visual) presentations of findings or ideas (Boldosova & Luoto, 2019; El-Wakeel et al., 2020; Liem et al., 2020). Why are visualizations so impactful? Likely because most decision-makers do not want to sort through spreadsheets or read a novel-length narrative to understand what is important—they want it straight and quick. They want color, novelty, storytelling, and interactivity (Dykes, 2020; Kostelnick, 2016; Kosara & MacKinley, 2013). This is the purpose of data storytelling: to literally tell a story about the data analyses to, in some way, impart knowledge or affect change among the audience. Data and data analysis are never neutral—they are always political–and storytelling is how the data analyst can attempt to influence how data findings are perceived by the audience. This paper discusses the basis of data storytelling and why it is important for creating a narrative around data visualizations that compels readers and viewers to act upon findings. It then discusses (in the form of a reflective discussion) how the art of data storytelling may be improved and activated to promote social justice themes by reflecting on the effectiveness of storytelling in hip hop music.

Securing Smokefree Laws Covering Casinos and Bars in Louisiana via Messaging, Continuous Campaigning and Health Coalitions.

In this paper, we examine efforts by health organizations seeking comprehensive smokefree ordinances over Louisiana casinos and bars between 2010 and 2020 to determine best practices for increasing coverage. Bars and casinos remain less protected from secondhand smoke compared to other workplaces in the United States. Casino behavior is compared to the Policy Dystopia Model (PDM), a tobacco industry strategy framework. We performed a historical case study using snowball searches for news on the Access World News Database and the internet. We performed web searches using the names of key actors, organizations, and locations and interviewed nine participants. Starting in 2010, the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living ran ordinance campaigns supplemented by an ongoing statewide smokefree media initiative. Utilizing consistent strategies, including promoting performers as cultural emblems deserving protection, health organizations coalesced in New Orleans during 2014 and Baton Rouge in 2016 and 2017 to pursue ordinances. The coalitions secured ordinances in Louisiana’s population and tourism centers despite business resistance. Organizations obtained 30 smokefree laws across Louisiana by 2021. Casinos used PDM strategies to resist ordinances, indicating the framework may predict strategies by non-tobacco entities resisting tobacco control. Louisiana shows that ongoing local campaigns, social justice themes and cultural messaging with coalitions in cities can secure smokefree laws covering casinos and bars and that local ordinance campaigns are a viable method for advancing smokefree protections over those venues in states where the state legislatures are resistant to action.

Supporting Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Focus on Teaching for Social Justice

This paper reports on how 10 middle and high school preservice teachers (PSTs) designed a social justice focused lesson using the culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT) tool. Results from our analysis indicate that most of the PSTs were able to select appropriate social justice topics, though not all the PSTs integrated mathematics and social justice throughout their lessons. The results show that most of the PSTs need more experience with mathematization, handling controversial discussions, and developing transformative student action. Our work also led to a modification of the tool (CRMT-M). We discuss the implications of the study for mathematics teacher preparation.

LivingTestimonios: How Latinx Graduate Students Persist and Enact Social Justice Within Higher Education

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">About the case:</b> First-generation Latinx students in technical and professional communication (TPC) and other graduate programs represent a growing percentage of students, yet stories of their experiences within higher education remain muted. We analyzed 10 Latinx <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">testimonios</i> (culturally situated narratives) wherein they voice their experiences as first-generation students in US graduate programs. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Testimonialistas</i> expressed how they navigate the complexities of being first-generation students and described how they persist and enact social justice. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Situating the case:</b> TPC programs may examine the relationship between social injustices and student retention and recruitment efforts, yet there is a dearth of literature regarding specific obstacles that Latinx students face. We examined how they build success through coalitional action and culturally informed tactical decision-making. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methods:</b> We recruited participants who self-identified as first-generation Latinx students in TPC and other graduate programs. We conducted and recorded semistructured interview sessions based in <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">testimonio</i> and intersectional feminist methodologies. We used qualitative data coding and MAXQDA coding software to assemble and map social justice themes at work across the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">testimonios</i> . <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</b> Analysis suggests that first-generation Latinx graduate students draw on complex informal and formal networks to aid their success, desire more effective culturally responsive mentorship, and develop tactical decision-making skills to circumvent oppressive behaviors. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusions:</b> We suggest that directors, mentors, administrators, faculty, and Latinx students begin with a social justice framework to better listen to, understand, and address first-generation Latinx college experiences and build cohort-based support mechanisms into programmatic objectives and professional development sessions.