FDY3006 Examining Social Justice Essay Assignment Sample

Introduction To: Essay On Examining Social Justice

Task 1: Description of social injustice and the importance of its existence

Social injustice is the situation where privileges, welfare rights, or opportunities are unequally distributed within society, and this results in prevailing inequality and discrimination. It occurs when some communities are excluded on grounds of color, gender, class, or ethnic origin. Social justice remains a contentious problem that manifests in social, educational, and vocational, as well as healthcare domains. In response to this, race has been selected as the main theme to be pursued due to the importance of social injustice. Racial injustice therefore, refers to circumstances in which people’s rights are violated or they receive unequal treatment or are discriminated against on account of race, this being occasioned by historical antecedents, bias, and institutions. Race also interacts with other forms of privilege and oppression, whereby ‘race’ had a vivid meaning on the outcome of social justice for those groups who were somehow disadvantaged throughout their generations.

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Discussion

Racial social injustice is ingrained in historical systems, which include colonialism, the institution of slavery, and the separation of blacks and whites in food joints. An example is the Criminal Justice System where black people, who are not white, are seem to be targeted (Mathur et al. 2022). This is well illustrated in the United States where the incidence of Black Americans imprisonment per capita is over 500% that of White Americans. Based on CRT, this inequality is because race is situated in law and institutions which guarantee that authority and means are with the white race. CRT revealed that the law exists and has operated in society and that it has always been a tool for reinforcing racial superiority. All of the discriminations among them help to recognize the issue that the law has not been established neutrally and is used among the people for maintaining racial hierarchies (Byskov, 2021). The systematic nature of this racial injustice has been noticed in the cases of criminal justice such as the profiling related to race, police brutality, and discriminatory sentences.

One of the most persistent types of social injustice is still race-based, and affects education, as minority races frequently do not have equal opportunities to attend school and be provided with equal educational opportunities. In most nations, ethnic diversity students are in low-performing schools, score low in academic results, and have more dropouts than White students. This is as reason why structural functionalism claims that education agencies are lending their services to the dominant culture by supporting its beliefs and offerings while sidelining other more colored races as subordinates. This is made plausible by the theory of cultural capital, as advanced by Bourdieu that suggests students from privileged racial background are more likely to excel in a given education system given their bearing of the cultural capital that is in consonant with the dominant racial group. As a result, racial minorities can be considered as disadvantages that spread the social inequalities among the generations.

Another area of racial social injustice is economic injustice. Policies and practices that are in-built into society that work against the advantage of certain races known as structural racism act as a major determinant in maintaining economic inequity. For instance, in most of the developed nations of the West, BMEs earn less than their White counterparts, have a higher likelihood of joblessness, and have access to wealth-creation tools like home ownership (Ayala and Beeghly, 2020). The trends are not necessarily due solely to bigotry, according to sociologist William Julius Wilson, structural factors, including discrimination in housing, employment, and banking. They cannot able to properly employ the financial services for their race. It results in social injustice in the case of the economy which is extended by the institutional applications where it can favor the particular dominant group of race.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it has been noticed that there is racial social justice since systemic prerecorded prejudices at historical, institutional, and structural levels perpetuate injustice. The examples discussed in the class; criminal justice disparities, unequal education, and disparity in economic status of the Black Americans bucketed race as a factor that still determined experiences and or outcomes of people in society. Still, there is critical race theory, structural functionalism, and cultural capital by Bourdieu that show why the problem of racial social injustice concerns institutions and systems that were created to support the powerful race. These injustices are present in today’s societies to show peoples’ deficiencies to change and bring out closure in regard to racism, to help change systematic racism for every color of people. The study has efficiently described how social justice for the racial system can be impacted. The study has emphasized all of the points in this where it can properly describe how the racial system can make differences.

Task 2 Essay on the Effectiveness of Social Movements in Challenging the Issues of Social Justice

This essay will attempt to discuss how efficient social movements are in advocating concerns of social justice; with reference to feminism. Collective undertakings by various groups of people who wish to either support or oppose particular changes in society for particular purposes or interests are referred to as social movements. Feminism as a versatile and progressive campaign advocates for changes to reduce injustice and inequality that affects women and other marginalized sexes. In this essay, the terms, feminism, social justice, liberalism, radicalism, and intersectionality will be explained, as well as the subtypes of feminism, which are liberal, radical, and intersectional feminism. It will then evaluate how mainstream Feminist social movements have performed in the pursuit of changing legislation, mobilizing people, and altering culture. In the essay, a critical evaluation of the literature will be conducted based on the specifications of positivist/interpretivism studies and the types of qualitative/quantitative data applied to those studies. Lastly, understanding the impact that the different feminist movements have had on social justice will be made possible by this analysis.

Discussion

Feminism as one of the most important social movements on the globe has considerably contributed to the determination of social justice in various issues especially those to do with gender. Ever since its first waves through to the present day, Feminism has aimed at eradicating patriarchal barriers that exist and lead to inequality of opportunity, autonomy or representation between genders (Montoya, 2021). The effects are present in several spheres including; the struggle of females to get the right to vote, a fight for labor rights, and reproductive rights as well as women continuing to fight against gendered violence. However, the degree to of Feminism can be useful in order to reach the aims and objectives of sustainable social justice is quite controversial. In this paper, the theoretical background of the feminist movement and the analysis of the methods that have been employed to evaluate its effectiveness will be discussed in more detail (Borras et al. 2020).

Feminism has been divided over the course of years into several waves each of which focused on the different aspects of the subordination of women. The first feminists’ movement took place at the end of the 19th of the beginning of the 20th century and aimed at establishing women’s fundamental right such as suffrage and legal rights. They saw the success in attaining suffrage in many countries hence the success of this movement but also saw the limitations of the movement. It was most focused on the issues of middle-aged white ladies; the plight of working-class women and female minorities was not well addressed. The second wave of Feminism, from the 1960’s expanded its focus, other areas of concern included reproduction, employment discrimination, and sexuality. It engaged with intersectionality more during the later period than finally but was accused of not eradicating the voice of key minority groups (Li et al. 2021). Modern-day feminism including the fourth wave Feminism is linked with online activism including the Me Too movement among others addresses issues of intersectionality which is ways in which gender and other forms of identity relate.

Therefore, due to the intentions of this paper, the role played by Feminism to solve social justice issues could be supported by both positivists as well as the interpretivist approaches to research. Lastly, by employing strictly, quantifying methodologies positivist approaches provide tangible data in appreciation of social transformations instigated by feminist stirrings. For instance, information regarding employment gender pay gap, women’s political rights taken in parliament, or women’s: physical, sexual, and psychological assaults are factual, and offer concrete picture with clear trends either positive or negative (Kim, 2020). Several researches carried out suggest that the struggle of Feminist activism does not leave the prevailing disparities out. For instance, the problem regarding the pay gap between genders is still characteristic of the global world and women are still paid less than men for the same type of job. They are always important for policy-making as they reveal preconditions for additional action. However, such data may not accommodate the nuanced experience of people who experience gender disadvantage as lived and experienced in their everyday existence, especially for minorities.

On the other hand, interpretivism relies on quality data, it gives a deeper insight of the perceptions of women and other forms of discrimination. The feminist ethnographies, case studies, and interviews portray how people survive the processes of oppression and subvert practices of patriarchy (Simões et al. 2021). These studies are particularly useful for unraveling the extent and tenor of intersectionality within Feminism. For instance, although there may be enhanced scores in women's rights based on quantity analysis, quality analysis exposes women of color, gays, lesbians, women of low-income backgrounds, etc. Due to paying attention to people’s stories, interpretivism research acknowledges the need for examining variation within the global and multicultural movement known as the Feminist movement (Selvanathan et al. 2020). It goes further to casting light on why some of the feminist techniques may be more suitable for some groups of women than others and why feminism needs to be embraced in a more friendly approach. The use of positivist and interpretivism research to analyze Feminism is promising; however, each method has its own drawbacks. The problem, underlying social inequalities, falls short of being elucidated properly by positivist research since it offers large-scale, generalizable data as opposed to deep and wide analyses of the problem. For instance in quantitative research on political representation, we can discover that women in politics have risen over time, but quantitative research does not reveal the cultural and structural politics that roll back women from leadership positions (Gurrieri et al.2024). On the other hand, interpretivist research which uses personal stories tends to offer thick descriptions of these barriers although its generalizability might not be appealing because of the need to influence system-wide changes. Both methods are necessary for gaining a holistic view of the efficiency of Feminism as the macro and micro levels of social justice are examined throughout the given work.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay has reviewed how women formed the foundation of feminist social movements that have played big roles in times of justice for society with special emphasis on the great impact of legislation, awareness, and culture on gender equity. Having reviewed distinct types of liberal, radical, and intersectional feminism, this discussion has revealed more complexity and diversities of feminist activism and the level of success with regard to now-assigned and well-established gender roles and discriminations. Furthermore, when advancing critical considerations germane to the evaluation of relevant foundational research, it has shown how different methodological paradigms such as positivist or interpretivism, or the types of data adopted qualitative or quantitative may affect our system understanding of social justice impact of the feminist movement. The study indicates that although the feminist movements are more active in dismantling gender disparities, their efficacy depends on the context, techniques used, and the complexity of the focal issues.

Reference List

Journals

Task 1

• Ayala-López, S. and Beeghly, E., 2020. Explaining injustice: Structural analysis, bias, and individuals. In An introduction to implicit bias (pp. 211-232). Routledge.
• Byskov, M.F., 2021. What makes epistemic injustice an “injustice”?. Journal of Social Philosophy, 52(1), pp.114-131.
• Lee, T.L. and Tapia, M., 2021. Confronting race and other social identity erasures: the case for critical industrial relations theory. ILR Review, 74(3), pp.637-662.
• Mathur, V.A., Trost, Z., Ezenwa, M.O., Sturgeon, J.A. and Hood, A.M., 2022. Mechanisms of injustice: what we (do not) know about racialized disparities in pain. Pain, 163(6), pp.999-1005.

Task 2

• Borras Jr, S.M., Moreda, T., Alonso-Fradejas, A. and Brent, Z.W., 2020. Converging social justice issues and movements: implications for political actions and research. In Converging Social Justice Issues and Movements (pp. 1-20). Routledge.
• Campbell, C., 2020. Social capital, social movements and global public health: Fighting for health-enabling contexts in marginalised settings. Social Science & Medicine, 257, p.112153.
• Gurrieri, L., Prothero, A., Bettany, S., Dobscha, S., Drenten, J., Ferguson, S., Finkelstein, S., McVey, L., Ourahmoune, N., Steinfield, L. and Tuncay Zayer, L., 2024. Feminist academic organizations: Challenging sexism through collective mobilizing across research, support, and advocacy. Gender, Work & Organization, 31(5), pp.2158-2179.
• Kim, M.E., 2020. Anti-carceral feminism: The contradictions of progress and the possibilities of counter-hegemonic struggle. Affilia, 35(3), pp.309-326.
• Li, M., Turki, N., Izaguirre, C.R., DeMahy, C., Thibodeaux, B.L. and Gage, T., 2021. Twitter as a tool for social movement: An analysis of feminist activism on social media communities. Journal of community psychology, 49(3), pp.854-868.
• Montoya, C., 2021. Intersectionality and social movements: Intersectional challenges and imperatives in the study of social movements. Sociology Compass, 15(8), p.e12905.
• Selvanathan, H.P., Lickel, B. and Dasgupta, N., 2020. An integrative framework on the impact of allies: How identity‐based needs influence intergroup solidarity and social movements. European Journal of Social Psychology, 50(6), pp.1344-1361.
• Simões, R.B., Amaral, I. and José Santos, S., 2021. The new feminist frontier on community-based learning. Popular feminism, online misogyny, and toxic masculinities. European journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 12(2), pp.165-177.

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