"Social justice is justice in relation to a fair balance in the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals's rights are recognized and protected."
The pursuit of equitable treatment and opportunities for all members of society, particularly marginalized and oppressed groups.
Oppression: This topic usually covers the various ways in which people in society experience oppression based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, and other factors that affect their social status.
Privilege: Understanding privilege usually involves exploring how certain people have access to advantages over others and how these benefits shape their daily experiences and opportunities.
Systemic inequality: This topic examines how underlying social structures and institutions produce inequalities that affect various aspects of people's lives, such as education, health, and housing.
Marginalization: This topic focuses on the exclusion or isolation experienced by people who are typically shunned or pushed to the margins of society, such as disabled people, the elderly, or people living in poverty.
Power dynamics: Power dynamics refer to the unequal distribution of power that exists between various social groups, such as those based on gender, race, or socioeconomic status.
Social justice advocacy: This topic covers the various ways that individuals and groups can work to promote social justice, such as policy advocacy, community organizing, and direct action.
Intersectionality: This concept involves understanding how multiple social identities intersect and shape people's experiences of oppression and privilege.
Cultural competence: Cultural competence involves understanding and respecting the cultural backgrounds, values, and beliefs of various communities and individuals.
Allyship: Allyship involves understanding how to be an effective ally to marginalized groups, such as learning how to listen, support, and amplify their voices.
Structural violence: Structural violence refers to the ways that social systems and institutions can harm individuals and communities and cause long-term harm, such as through poverty, discrimination, or incarceration.
Economic Justice: This type of social justice focuses on fair and equal distribution of wealth, resources, and opportunities across all economic classes, races, and genders.
Environmental Justice: This type of social justice addresses issues related to environmental degradation, climate change, and the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and hazards, especially in low-income and marginalized communities.
Racial Justice: This type of social justice aims to dismantle systemic racism, discrimination, and inequality based on race, color, ethnicity, and national origin.
Gender Justice: This type of social justice advocates for equal rights, opportunities, and treatment for all genders, including women, men, transgender, and non-binary individuals.
Disability Justice: This type of social justice promotes equal rights and access to services, resources, and opportunities for people with disabilities, challenging ableism and discrimination.
LGBTQIA+ Justice: This type of social justice addresses the discrimination, prejudice, and marginalization faced by people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, or other non-normative gender identities or sexual orientations.
Criminal Justice Reform: This type of social justice focuses on ending mass incarceration, police brutality, unjust laws, and the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on marginalized communities.
Health Justice: This type of social justice advocates for equitable access to healthcare, clean water, healthy food, and other essential services to improve health outcomes for all individuals, regardless of their socioeconomic status, race, or geographic location.
Education Justice: This type of social justice seeks to ensure that all students, regardless of their background or identity, have access to high-quality education, equitable resources, and supportive learning environments.
Housing Justice: This type of social justice aims to promote fair and affordable housing policies, eliminate housing discrimination and homelessness, and provide safe and healthy living conditions for all individuals and families.
"The concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society."
"The emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice."
"Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation."
"The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity."
"Interpretations that relate justice to a reciprocal relationship to society are mediated by differences in cultural traditions, some of which emphasize the individual responsibility toward society and others the equilibrium between access to power and its responsible use."
"Reinterpreting historical figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas."
"Gender, ethnic, and social equality, advocating justice for migrants, prisoners, the environment, and the physically and developmentally disabled."
"Classical and Christian philosophical sources, from Plato and Aristotle to Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas."
"The term social justice finds its earliest uses in the late 18th century, albeit with unclear theoretical or practical meanings."
"The term was popularized generically through the writings of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati."
"Progressive Era American legal scholars, particularly Louis Brandeis and Roscoe Pound."
"From the early 20th century it was also embedded in international law and institutions."
"John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971)."
"The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of human rights education."
"The use of the term was early on subject to accusations of redundancy and of rhetorical flourish."
"Luigi Taparelli coined and defined the term in a natural law social scientific treatise, establishing the natural law principle."
"Social justice is invoked today in efforts for gender, ethnic, and social equality, advocating justice for migrants, prisoners, the environment, and the physically and developmentally disabled."
"Social justice was made central to the philosophy of the social contract."
"Universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice."