‘Mama I Can’t Breathe!’: Black/African Women of Faith Groaning for Social Justice and Gender Equality

Issues of social justice have become increasingly important as an area for academic research in recent decades. This has also been the case for researchers operating in disciplines such as leisure. The purpose of this bibliometric analysis is to review, analyze and synthesize the current state of research focusing on issues of social justice in leisure studies and, in doing so, draw together a more coherent understanding of the different strands of social justice research that are currently being undertaken. Through a quantitative process of bibliometric analysis, emergent and existing trends in research patterns, authorship, and article or journal performance were analyzed to generate greater understanding of the emergence, development and intellectual structure of social justice research over time within leisure studies. A quantitative process of bibliometric analysis was therefore undertaken to generate and analyze a nascent dataset of peer reviewed journal articles that have examined issues of social justice within leisure studies. Analysis of this dataset provided opportunities to outline recommendations for future research directions and research agendas linked to issues of social justice and leisure. This includes recommendations for expansion of research agendas within leisure studies in areas linked to: (a) ‘race’, gender and human rights; (b) a ‘broadening’ of social justice research into other socio-cultural areas of investigation; (c) initiation and/or expansion of research agendas relating to the global south; (d) business, organisations and social justice within the leisure industry; (e) issues of policy, politics and social justice in leisure.

Systemic racism and tobacco-industry targeting contribute to disparities in communities of color. However, understanding tobacco as a social justice issue and the industry's role in perpetuating inequities remains limited. This study explored youth and young adult awareness of tobacco marketing and perceptions of tobacco marketing as a social justice issue. Focus groups were conducted with youth and young adults in 2020 and 2021, including individuals who used tobacco and e-cigarettes and those who did not use either. Online surveys were conducted in 2021 with youth (n = 1227) and young adults (n = 2643) using AmeriSpeak's nationally representative panel, oversampling for black and Hispanic Americans and people who smoke. Perceptions of flavor bans, social justice, and industry marketing were assessed. Most (>80%) survey respondents agreed that tobacco companies target youth. However, only 20% saw tobacco as a social justice issue. Focus group participants regardless of their tobacco or e-cigarette use, reported higher prevalence of tobacco advertising in their communities relative to survey respondents but did not view it as targeting communities of color. Black non-Hispanic (20.9%) and Hispanic (21.4%) survey respondents perceived tobacco as a social justice issue more than white non-Hispanic (16.1%) respondents. The majority (>60%) of survey respondents supported bans on menthol and flavored tobacco, regardless of race or ethnicity. Respondents broadly supported menthol and flavored tobacco bans and recognized tobacco-industry influence on youth. Low awareness of tobacco as a social justice issue highlights the need to raise awareness of the underlying factors driving tobacco-related disparities. The majority of young people see the tobacco industry as targeting them. Most young people support bans on menthol and flavored tobacco bans, with support across racial and ethnic groups. While few young respondents perceived tobacco as a social justice issue, some perceived tobacco companies as targeting low-income and communities of color. Black non-Hispanic and Hispanic respondents were more likely to perceive tobacco as a social justice issue than white non-Hispanic respondents. Efforts to raise awareness among young people of tobacco as a social justice issue may be key in addressing tobacco disparities and advancing support for flavor tobacco bans.

This article examines an ‘unstated’ belief that as the content of a given Quantitative Literacy course grows progressively more complex, the activities relating to social justice issues will surface at a higher cognitive level than those activities lacking social justice issues of social justice. Through the lens of the cognitive apprenticeship model and by means of a four-domain framework, an analysis was conducted of the contribution of the course materials to strengthening student awareness of social justice issues affecting their society. Results show that the expectation that activities relating to social justice outside the classroom would become more abundant as the course evolved over the semester did not materialise. Nonetheless, results did show that activities, which had a social justice agenda, were rated more highly on a cognitive level, than activities without social justice traits. This suggests that the course could thus still achieve its hidden aim of making students more aware of the societal issues in their communities. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p1190

Purpose This paper aims to provoke a conversation in marketing scholarship about the overlooked political nature of doing research, particularly for those who research issues of social (in)justice. It suggests a paradigmatic shift in how researchers might view and operationalise social justice work in marketing. Emancipatory praxis framework offers scholars an alternative way to think about the methodology, design and politics of researching issues of social relevance. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper drawing on critical theory to argue for a new methodological shift towards emancipatory praxis. Findings As social justice research involves a dialectical relationship between crises and critique, the concept of emancipation acts as a methodological catalyst for furthering debate about social (in)justice in marketing. This paper identifies a set of methodological troubles and challenges that may disrupt the boundaries of knowledge-making. A set of methodological responses to these issues illustrating how emancipatory research facilitates social action is outlined. Research limitations/implications Emancipatory praxis offers marketing scholars an alternative methodological direction in the hope that more impactful and useful ways of knowing can emerge. Practical implications The paper is intended to change the ways that researchers work in practical and concrete terms on issues of social (in)justice. Social implications Although this paper is theoretical, it argues for an alternative methodological approach to research that reorients researchers towards a politicised praxis with emancipatory relevancy. Originality/value Emancipatory praxis offers a new openly politicised methodological alternative for addressing problems of social relevance in marketing. As a continuous political and emancipatory task for researchers, social justice research involves empirical encounters with politics, advocacy and democratic participation, where equality is the methodological starting point for research design and decisions as much as it is the end goal.

This paper contributes to accumulating the knowledge base about prospective elementary school teachers’ (PTs’) understanding of socio-critical modeling by exploring how PTs make connections to features of mathematical modeling and social justice while posing mathematical problems and reflecting on their problem-posing. We present a conceptual framework for posing problems that connect social justice issues with the features of mathematical modeling. Drawing on the analysis of 36 individual modeling problems generated by the PTs and 36 written reflections PTs completed throughout their problem-posing activity, we illustrate various ways in which PTs connect the multi-faceted features of mathematical modeling (i.e., realistic context, model development, and shareable process) and social justice (i.e., micro – and macro – level). The PT-posed problems were categorized as (a) modeling problems presenting micro – and macro-level social justice issues (27%), (b) modeling problems presenting micro-level social justice issues (22%), (c) contextualized mathematical problems presenting micro – and macro-level social justice issues (25%), and (d) contextualized mathematical problems presenting micro-level social justice issues (17%). Our work describing the complexity of posing social justice-oriented mathematical modeling (SJMM) problems and articulating decisions PTs make while posing SJMM problems set directions for future efforts and research in teacher preparation.

Reviewed by: Transforming World Language Teaching and Teacher Education for Equity and Justice: Pushing Boundaries in US Contexts ed. by Beth Wassell and Cassandra Glynn Diana Ruggiero Wassell, Beth, and Cassandra Glynn, editors. Transforming World Language Teaching and Teacher Education for Equity and Justice: Pushing Boundaries in US Contexts. Multilingual Matters, 2022. Pp. 202. ISBN 978-1-78892-650-8. In Transforming World Language Teaching and Teacher Education, editors Beth Wassell and Cassandra Glynn alongside contributing authors to this edited volume illuminate the ways in which educators are working toward greater social equity and justice in the world language classroom. In the process, they also critically reflect on how the structural and institutional dynamics of the field as well as their own respective backgrounds are complicit in upholding and perpetuating systemic injustice and inequity in world language education. Consciously drawing on a diverse range of perspectives from scholars on the margins of the field, many of them first-time authors, the chapters provide a snapshot of world language education in a state of transformation as scholars rethink the assumptions that inform how educators think about and approach world language teaching today. Introspective, critical, and bold in its honest assessment of and efforts to reform world language education, this book and its conclusions are both timely and relevant for a field in need of such critical reassessment and transformation. The volume consists of ten chapters, including an introduction, and is divided into two main sections. The introduction provides the premise for and approach to the book as well as a brief synopsis of the book’s contents relative to the major arguments. The remainder of the chapters are divided into two equal parts, the first part addressing systemic challenges to equity and social justice in world language programs as well as responses to them by educators, presenting theoretical frameworks and curricular models based on authors experiences and [End Page 164] research along the way. The second part similarly addresses more directly ways in which world language educators on the margins of world language education are addressing curricular reform. For instance, Dorie Conlon Perugini and Manuela Wagner present a model for integrating and foregrounding intercultural citizenship in world language education as a way of moving beyond a focus on vocabulary and grammar and engaging issues of social justice in the classroom. Similarly, Mary Curan and Joan Clifford in their respective chapters discuss the significance of community engagement in redressing issues of social justice in world education; Curran through a presentation of her pre-service Urban Social Justice Teacher Education Program at Rutgers University, and Clifford through the presentation of a curricular model that blends community-based language learning and global health to likewise enact greater equity and social justice in the world language curriculum. Though there are many books and edited volumes now calling for change and transformation in world language education, this book is unique in its call for and focus on critical self-reflection. Indeed, as a framing device for the book’s contents and approach, Wassell and Glynn use the tropes of “calling out” and “calling in.” By “calling out,” they mean looking at how educators themselves may be complicit in the process of maintaining and perpetuating systemic racism and social inequities in the classroom. This could include biases and unquestioned standards and norms in teaching world languages stemming from one’s own privilege (stemming from gender, race, ethnicity, etc.). By “calling in” they mean similarly reflecting on the ways in which the field itself is likewise complicit in perpetuating systemic racism, social inequity, and injustice. This includes an assessment of the field as a whole as well as the curriculum, standards, and approaches at the local, state, and national levels of world language teaching. While this level of critical self-reflection is not new in the field, Wassell and Glynn remind us that a positive first step in redressing these problems begins with recognizing that there is indeed a problem and that we, as educators trained within a field founded and situated within a specific historical context worth examining for its shortcomings, have much to rethink in order to and as we move forward. While the book presents...

Conversation analysis (CA) is often seen as focused on the mundane and minute features of talk-in-interaction without concern for broader issues of social justice. Contrary to these preconceptions, however, CA has been exploring (in)justice, in/exclusion, and (in)equality since its inception. This article offers an overview of CA’s contributions to social justice based on a survey of 168 CA-for-social-justice studies published over the past 50 years. It provides a summary of major CA findings regarding participant orientations to (in)justice and practices for reproducing and resisting injustice in interaction. This is followed by a synthesized review of key methodological features of CA-for-social-justice studies and an illustration of how social justice issues may be explored within the CA framework. The illustration features conversations about gender (in)equality and in/exclusion video-recorded in adult second language classrooms in the U.S., and it showcases CA’s ability to illuminate tacit reproductions of injustice in institutional talk. The article concludes with a reflection on key methodological issues and pathways for future work, including in the form of multimodal, longitudinal, and reflective CA-for-social-justice research.

Based on a brief examination of private sector healthcare in Bangladesh, this article examines two questions: (a) the compatibility of social justice and the right to healthcare with the private provision of healthcare, (b) the implication of the private sector’s role in realising social justice and the right to healthcare. It is based on an extensive review of both published and unpublished documents including journal articles, government reports, policy and planning documents, as well as reports of United Nations, the World Health Organisation and the World Bank. Different search engines and databases were used to collect the documents. Thematic data analysis techniques were used in developing the text. Private provision of healthcare services raises concerns about social justice and the right to healthcare. This sector to some extent is unable to fulfil its obligation to realise social justice and the right to healthcare in the provision of healthcare. An expanding private sector role creates complexities in promoting and protecting the right to health and social justice. The study emphasised the role of the government to engage its political will and make changes in policy and governance to engage private sector in realising right to healthcare and social justice.

Exploration of social justice issues need to be integrated into a person’s life. Development in the understanding of social justice cannot be done in one course or conversation on a college campus. This article describes how one institution of higher education in the United States focused on the creation and implementation of a Social Justice Living Learning Community. In this community, students explore social justice issues through taking courses together, living on the same residence hall floor and reflecting on their own development. The words “So Just…” have become an active reference to this living learning community culture. Those two simple words capture the community’s vision to become aware and engaged in social justice issues. The use of leadership theory in program framework, practical implementation strategies of building community, education and reflection, as well as, successes, challenges and implications of this program will be explored.

The growing social inequality and justice issues in contemporary society call for a renewed understanding of social justice values from the perspective of the Qur’an. This study aims to examine Qur’anic verses on social justice through a contemporary thematic exegesis approach, with the goal of uncovering their universal values and contextualizing them within modern social realities. Employing a qualitative method through library research, the study uses primary data from Qur’anic verses, secondary data from classical and contemporary exegesis, and tertiary data from supporting literature. Data were collected through systematic literature review and thematically classified, then analyzed by integrating the meaning of the verses with both historical contexts and present-day relevance.The findings reveal that the Qur’an outlines comprehensive principles of social justice, including wealth distribution, protection of vulnerable groups, fair law enforcement, and collective responsibility. These verses, when approached thematically, form a dialectic between the Qur’anic text and social reality, where the text provides normative guidance and reality serves as the space for its actualization. Consequently, Qur’anic principles of justice are both normative and operational, providing a basis for public policy, social ethics, and community empowerment. Thematic exegesis thus proves relevant in addressing contemporary challenges such as inequality, injustice, marginalization, and the need for inclusive social ethics in plural modern societies.

Regimes for coastal protection and restoration planning in south Louisiana have shifted from local, problem-based projects to broader ecological restoration strategies at the regional level over the past 30 years. This chapter examines these shifts in environmental management planning through the lens of social justice, specifically distributive, procedural, and contextual social justice for coastal communities. Within this framework, the first half of this chapter reviews public outreach efforts by state agencies as their planning approaches have changed over time. The second half of the chapter focuses on contemporary coastal planning efforts and their implications for social justice. The authors argue that current coastal management practices in south Louisiana need to be more transparent and accountable to individuals and communities impacted by their actions. In conclusion, the authors suggest several social scientific techniques for integrating local knowledge and priorities into coastal planning processes with an eye toward cultivating social justice.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze mental health care in Australia from a social justice and human rights perspective, in order to demonstrate that social justice as a philosophical manifestation of justice and fairness, is an essential ingredient in the theory and practice of mental health care. It is contended that the needs of the mentally ill would be most appropriately answered by the utilization of a Natural Law model, based on Finnis's Natural Law theory. The Scope of the Thesis.The needs and care of the mentally ill are discussed, together with the treatment meted out to these vulnerable members of society since, approximately, the year 1800. Neither the criminally insane, nor the intellectually disabled are included in this discourse. Each group of people merits a thesis on its own: criminal insanity requires a debate to include the history, psychiatric and legal approaches to the subject, and current management of the insane. The intellectually disabled are not mentally ill; their ability to function as all round, naturally competent individuals is diminished by an inadequacy and/or impairment of their intellectual capacities. The needs of these two groups are far too broad and demanding to be included within the current thesis. Rationale for the Timeframe The timeframe, 1800 until 2004, has been established because it approximates to the transition from the end of the Classical through the Modern Age to the Post Modern Age, together with the predominance of Enlightenment philosophical theories, and the development of a scientific approach to medicine. Further, many politico-economic and social changes were taking place, associated with the Industrial Revolution. All are shown to have affected the introduction of asylumdom, and the institutionalization of those unable to participate actively in the industrial workforce.;Of significant importance to the development of institutionalization for such marginal groups is the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. Bentham espoused Classical Utilitarianism which will be shown to believe that the ultimate standard of utility is not the individual's happiness but the greatest amount of happiness altogether. The thesis will demonstrate that this philosophical view prevailed from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, with Benthamism influencing the sequestration of the unemployable into institutional life. Development of the Thesis.The thesis is developed against a background of prevailing philosophical, and other changes as stated above, including the medicalization of mental illness and the development of psychiatry as a branch of medicine. There is manifestation of many social injustices to those incarcerated in the asylum in all three countries under consideration: England, USA, and Australia. It is demonstrated that social justice and human rights of their work forces were disregarded by many employers at the time of the Industrial Revolution. Such values were, therefore, unlikely to prevail with regard to the mentally ill. Asylumdom continued with few changes in its practices until after World War II. It is shown that the predominance of post Enlightenment theories, together with further politico-economic, social and pharmaceutical revolutionary change followed the Second World War. Encouraged also by the founding of the United Nations and World Health Organizations as well as provision of the Declaration of Human Rights, circumstances led to the process of de-institutionalization of the mentally ill. The latter were decanted with apparently unseemly haste into a community ill prepared for such a change, and with little evidence of infra- structure to support the move. Need to conduct a National Inquiry. There was, then, a need to investigate what was now an overt issue of mental health care.;The two subsequent inquiries by the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council, (AHMAC) and the Burdekin Report, both focused on social justice issues, and addressed epidemiological, economic, sociological and justice considerations. Within the thesis, both investigations are critiqued against a Natural Law model, using Finnis's Natural Law theory. It is demonstrated that contrary to Enlightenment principles of social justice as described by Miller, such a theory is eminently practical, and answers the needs of all members of the community, providing not merely 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number' but the common good of all Conclusion. Evidence shows that such a Natural Law theory is required to give a firm foundation to the needs of the mentally ill, especially at a time when relativism, economic rationalism and negative aspects of globalization prevail. Without such a basis the mentally ill are left insecure, uncertain and adrift in a world uncaring of their plight, while all the earnest exhortations espoused by Reports remain platitudes, subject to the whims of whatever government is in power. Our responsibilities to all our fellow human beings demand better from us than this.

Social justice has been a topic of social change that has typically been introduced in education at the pre-teen or teenager level of development. However, recent studies have uncovered there is value in introducing social justice issues at a much younger age. The purpose of this literature review is to establish a foundation for the need to introduce social justice issues at the earliest opportunity, specifically during early childhood education. This review focuses on qualitative studies from 2019–2024 that focus on the need to incorporate social justice into early childhood education, including the challenges and successes. Key focus areas include curriculum development, supplementary materials, educator roles, and the role of school leadership. The findings show young children understand social justice issues at their developmental level, and that educators need to be equipped advocates to foster this understanding. There is also a need to focus on implementing a social justice curriculum that will have a positive influence on students and their families, as well as educators, with the goal of increasing awareness of social issues and promoting a more inclusive and equitable society.

This chapter focuses on environmental accounting on Africa, a continent with huge mineral reserves and extractive activities but with widespread pollution, social inequities and environmental degradation. It captures the centrality of natural resources to Africa and how these resources affect social, economic, environmental, political, governance, accountability, social justice and sustainability issues (e.g. climate change, deforestation and afforestation, environmental pollution, artisanal mining, accounting for water, waste management, non-degradable products, biodiversity and extinction of endangered species, erosion, drought, environmental risk, child labour, modern slavery, and social and environmental justice). We reflected on the trends and gaps in accounting research publications and captured the connections between governance, accountability, and social and environmental issues in Africa. Given the prevalence of the resource curse syndrome in Africa, this chapter reflects on and identifies the direction for future social and environmental accounting, and policy-oriented research necessary to address the urgent set of social and environmental issues if Africa is to become environmentally sustainable while meeting its Sustainable Development Goals. This chapter is a must-read for academics and students with interest in social and environmental issues in Africa.

This study focuses on social justice and how people on Twitter chose to talk about it. The rise of social media has allowed Twitter users to speak more freely in more spaces than one. The study compared two different sexual assault cases between Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Professor Christine Blasey; and Virginia’s Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax and Vanessa Tyson. Applying the social responsibility theory, which allows free press without any censorship, I then can see the tone of which Black Twitter users have when talking about two separate sexual assault cases. This study compares the use of the #BlackTwitter hashtag and #MeToo hashtag while using the social justice-related terms such as gender, race/ethnicity, credibility, sexual assault, privilege, social justice (variable combination of marginalized, equal, and rights) and lgti (variable combination of lying, guilty, truth, and innocent). Furthermore, the study also called for comparison between the Ford’s case when Ford first came forward with sexual assault accusations before the case had a hearing (pre) and after the hearing (post); and Tyson’s assault accusation surfacing (pre) and after she made her first public appearance (post). In this study, a content analysis survey method was used to assess how blacks express public opinion via twitter to find that blacks use the #BlackTwitter to discuss social justice issues. Individually, the Twitter community as a whole played it safe by only talking about social justice issues moderately on and off Twitter for the Ford case. For Tyson’s case, Black Twitter users talked about social justice more significantly. This study showed hot two different movements can work toward a similar goal. Both Ford and Tyson’s cases allowed marginalized groups and movements such as the MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter movement to create an alliance for the greater good of sexual assault victims. Additionally, there are several social media platforms this study could have used to gather results from but using Twitter as the platform has many benefits because Twitter serves as an unofficial platform for an individuals’ freedom of speech. Overall, this study looks at the bigger issue, is not just about protection, it is about the change.