Social Justice

Constructing Solidarity for a Liberative Ethic offers a critical path for all readers toward the transformation of white worldviews, theologies, ethics, and praxis. Specific guidance is directed towards white readers on working as allies in solidarity with those seeking to dismantle unjust systems; on seeking our own liberation from the oppressive aspects of whiteness; and on working toward more abundant lives for all. Scholars, activists and religious leaders of color will find a collaborative path to which they can invite colleagues and students, a path leading to concrete, productive change.

""Although critical perspective courses in criminal justice programs have grown considerably since the 1960s, the failure of contemporary public criminal justice programs to require critical perspectives in their undergraduate core curricula threatens to leave students without a framework for discussion of these issues within the greater context of their degree programs. Students must thus look to the other social sciences to further their knowledge in these areas, thereby perpetuating the neglect of criminal justice departments to present these views.

Within most academic criminal justice programs, preference is given to the administrative facets of the criminal justice system and the theories and methods of social scientific research; for this reason, even general discussions of critical topics are limited. Furthermore, because many elective courses also focus on various aspects of the administration of justice, critical perspectives are conspicuously absent overall. This paper reveals the extent to which core, cognate, and other required critical perspective courses are marginalized within public criminal justice programs, and how, on average, private institutions require more of these courses.""

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

""Syfte med denna uppsats har varit att reda ut om problemet boendesegregation finns i två europeiska medelstora städer och hur dessa problem vi sådana fall yttrar sig i de två städerna, det vill säga vilken form av boendesegregation det handlar om och i vilka områden dessa problem finns. De två städerna jag har valt är Lübeck och Malmö. Inledningsvis beskrev jag begreppet segregation och teorierna och modellerna som jag använde mig av i analysen av Malmö och Lübeck. Med utgångspunkten i statistiken tog jag reda om fenomenet boendesegregation finns i de två städerna.
Uppsatsen är baserad på litteraturstudie och jag använder mig av empiriskt material. Metodiken i uppsatsen har en hermeneutisk ansats i syftet att få en bättre förståelse för fenomenet boendesegregation. I analysen av Malmö och Lübeck utgick jag ifrån statistiken och modelleran från Andersson och Molina och modellen micro-economic models.
I de avslutande kapitlen jämför jag Malmö och Lübeck och visar på likheter och skillnaderna mellan dessa städer. Vidare sammanför jag slutsatserna från analysen och visar att det finns en pågående boendesegregation i Malmö och Lübeck, dock av olika karaktär.""

Taken together, the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault highlight an essential tension in modernity. This is the tension between the normative and the real, between what should be done and what is actually done. Understanding this tension is crucial to understanding modern democracy, what it is and what it could be. It has been argued that an effective way of making democracy stronger is to strengthen civil society. This article contains a comparative analysis of the central ideas of Habermas and Foucault as they pertain to the question of democracy and civil society. More specifically, the discourse ethics of Habermas is contrasted with the power analytics and ethics of Foucault evaluating their usefulness for those interested in understanding, and bringing about, democratic social change.

This paper will draw attention to the way by which social relations structure knowledge to privilege particular ways of knowing and silences and subjugates others, namely that of asylum seekers. It is intended to illustrate how such epistemic violence, to echo Spivak, can result in surgical interventions that violate the rights, and dignity, of female asylum seekers, and reproduce the docile body.

This paper first draws on the political philosophy of R.H. Tawney to outline some universal principles for the provision of socially just education. It then moves onto a more pragmatic approach, analysing where the injustices lie in contemporary British education and outlining policies and practices that are socially just, not in an instrumental neoliberal sense but in terms of more egalitarian social democratic and socialist traditions. The final section of the paper focuses on Finland as the closest example of a socially just education system, before arguing for a rethinking and reworking of Tawney’s educational thinking for the twenty-first century.

"Why has there been the abject failure of education to emerge as a critical and powerful personal and social agent?Is there anything that can be done about it?

This is a paper given at a conference held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Centre for Applied Research in Education at the University of East Anglia back in 1995.  I think the key themes are still relevant and its concluding questions more so:  "