Leadership Exchange

are incongruent with the values of “liberty and justice for all.” In Teaching for Social Justice (2007), Maurianne Adams and Lee Anne Bell state, “We believe social justice is both a process and a goal.” The goal of social justice is to create equal access and participation for all groups in society. This concept engages all differences, while recognizing the elements of power and privilege.

Social justice does not give one form of oppression priority over another. It acknowledges the various forms of oppression, their similarities and differences, and how they manifest. It involves moving beyond comfort zones and making decisions to change the status quo.

Creating Social Justice

Colleges and universities are prime environments for students, faculty, and staff to develop the skills necessary to create a world more congruent with the values of liberty and justice for all. Rather than simply diagnosing and analyzing the current problems of injustice, senior student affairs officers can prepare students to actually address the world’s injustices.

To achieve both the process and the goal of social justice, individuals and institutions must move through four stages: awareness, knowledge, skills, and actions. This process— familiar to those engaged in outcomes assessments, organizational change, or cultural change—requires intentional and deliberate action. It also requires an understanding of dominant and subordinated group memberships and the behaviors, attitudes, and feelings that accompany any given social identity.

Awareness: a greater consciousness of who you are and all of your social identities. Examine how your current behaviors, attitudes, feelings, and ideas align with core values. What parts of your identities place you as a member of the dominant group, affording you opportunities and privileges taken for granted? What parts of your identities make you a member of the subordinated group, leaving you feeling less than adequate and striving to fit in? How do you participate on a daily basis in keeping the status quo alive and well? What do you do on a daily basis to shift your world and the world of others to be more congruent with the values of social justice?

Knowledge: what you know and what you do not know about yourself and others. What are the missing pieces of your education? What do you know of the contributions of historically underrepresented groups? What do you know of the current struggles of these groups? What would equal access and an equitable society look like to people who are members of the subordinated group? What does privilege look like for the dominant group? What does internalized oppression look like? How do the dynamics of oppression manifest at the individual, group, and system/societal levels? Answers to these questions provide the knowledge to move toward a more socially just world.

Skills: engaging effectively across difference about difference. Many of us participate in “work or school” diversity. We go to work or school with people who are different by race, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation, ability, or nationality. Yet we grew up in and return home to monocultural experiences, leaving us unprepared to engage effectively across cultures because we lack practice. The skills needed to engage difference effectively include listening, asking, slowing down, paying attention to process, and recognizing complex human dynamics that occur at the intersections of difference.

Action: take steps to shift the status quo. A socially just world cannot be created without this step. Good people maintain the status quo by believing all they need to do is to behave as good people. Good people can consciously and unconsciously do harm if they are not clear about actions needed for change.