Social Justice Activism

Reisch • Defining Social Justice in a Socially Unjust World
A social justice framework …
can enable the social work
profession to develop and refine
new practice principles for the
difficult years ahead.
The second problem relates to the application of justice
concepts based largely on the expansion of individual
rights and individual shares of societal resources to the development
of policies, programs, and modes of intervention
that address group needs and concerns (Ryan, 1981).
As Caputo (2000) points out, the resolution of this problem
is critical to social work’s efforts to contribute to the
development of a truly multiracial, multicultural society.
Throughout the world, but especially in the United States,
race and racism are social constructs, deeply rooted in the
political-economic system and culture. Debates over social
justice and multiculturalism, therefore, are inextricably
linked. They reflect a broader dialogue over the nature of
social relations, the concept of community, the structure
of the economy, and definitions of what constitutes the
public good (Katz, 2001; Prigoff, 2000; Caputo, 2000;
Fraser, 1995; Gilbert, 1995).
The creation of greater social solidarity (fraternity or
humanity) implied in the goals of multiculturalism and social
justice, requires the reassertion of the ideas of collective
responsibility, a community
of need, and public virtue. It
implies the formulation of citizenship
requirements that are
“more responsive to our communitarian
and collective security
needs, without sacrificing
our commitment to liberty and
justice for all” (Smith, 1988). It
also implies the establishment
of a societal imperative that promotes
full participation of each
member of the community in
the community’s activities
(Warren, 1983). In the social welfare field, this participation
would include the determination of what constitutes
individual and social need, the development of alternative
conceptions of helping, and the creation of new criteria for
evaluating the effectiveness of various modes of intervention
(Green, 1999). A social justice framework, therefore,
can enable the social work profession to develop and refine
new practice principles for the difficult years ahead.
In recent decades, postmodern theorists have complicated
this picture further through the presentation of
powerful challenges to prevailing metanarratives at all ends
of the ideological spectrum because of what and whom
they exclude (Leonard, 1995). A positive contribution of
the postmodernist critique is the expansion of the concept
of justice to include other groups long denied the benefits
of justice and of other goals of justice, beyond the achievement
of economic and social equality. In addition, strongly
influenced by feminist theory, postmodernism has defined
justice as a process as well as an outcome (Mullaly,
1997; Leonard, 1995; Dean & Rhodes, 1998). It remains
to be seen, however, whether the postmodern emphasis
on identity can provide the conceptual basis for the formation
of powerful social justice-oriented coalitions.
Social Justice and the
Emergence of U.S. Social Work
Since the early twentieth century, the pursuit of social
justice has been a core value of the social work profession
in the United States, providing an alternative to the concept
of social welfare as charity (Hunter, 1904; Woods,
1905). For a century, the conflict between justice and
charitable perspectives was not merely the focus of academic
debate. It shaped the evolution of U.S. social policy
by forging an awkward synthesis of individualistic and
collectivist orientations to society and its problems
(George & Wilding, 1994).
In the Progressive Era, the
concept of social justice among
social workers emerged through
a synthesis of religious ideals
(such as the Social Gospel,
Quakerism, or Christian socialism),
the work of secular
philosophers such as Marx,
Dewey, and William James, and
the political activities of leaders
such as Jane Addams, Florence
Kelley, Ellen Gates Starr, and
Lillian Wald on behalf of workers’
rights, women’s suffrage, racial justice, and peace
(Reisch & Andrews, 2001; Elshtain, 2002; Carson, 1990).
Settlement workers, in particular, regarded the pursuit of
social justice as a necessary response to growing economic
inequality and the breakdown of community (Tucker,
1903; Sklar, 1995, 1998; Daniels, 1989). Their pursuit of
social justice led them to forge alliances with feminist organizations,
trade unions, neighborhood-based community
associations, civil rights groups, and radicals outside of the
social work field, and to advocate for social reforms in areas
as diverse as child welfare, housing, and public health
(Holder, 1922; Reisch & Andrews, 2001; Fisher, 1994;
Davis, 1967).
A generation later, at the height of the Great Depression
of the 1930s, the Rank and File Movement in social
work articulated “five simple principles” as the basis for
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