Social Justice Activism

Social Justice Theory
S 2797
competencies and decrease problems in young people
in order to empower them (Wolf 2005). They strive to
give youth the knowledge and skills needed to more
effectively deal with situations of unequal social power,
as well as work to change social policies that may serve
as barriers in the promotion of social justice (Wolf
2005). Successful interventions provide adolescents,
families, and communities with the tools and motivation
needed to create change on both an individual and
systemic level and to promote social justice (Conyne
2004).
Contextual Factors for Adolescents
Well-designed preventive interventions take account of
social and contextual factors (e.g., poverty and discrimination),
and promote community-wide involvement
(Hage and Kenny 2009; Kenny et al. 2009). Ecological
theory is one useful model that is frequently utilized in
developing effective preventive interventions, as it
requires an awareness of many interacting contexts
that create adolescents’ life circumstances
(Bronfenbrenner 1979). These systems include the
social, familial, school, and community context of adolescents’
lives, all of which need to be considered in
creating, designing, and implementing effective preventive
interventions.
Guidelines for Effective Preventive
Interventions
Prevention scholars have begun to identify a set of
guidelines for effective social justice–oriented preventive
interventions that are relevant to work with
adolescents (Hage et al. 2007; Walsh et al. 2009). First,
it is imperative that prevention programs be designed
with an understanding of the social context specific to
adolescents (Walsh et al. 2009). More specifically,
programs should address both risk and protective
factors within each setting relevant to the lives of
adolescents, including the social, familial, school,
governmental, and community levels. Secondly,
programs should be created with the ultimate goal of
social justice and structural change, recognizing that
genuine change must go beyond an individual level
(Hage and Kenny 2009; Kenny et al. 2009). Thirdly,
effective preventive interventions are also geared
toward the appropriate developmental level of the target
population. For example, adolescence is characterized
by a transition from elementary school to high
school and into adulthood. With this transition come
decisions pertaining to work, school, family, and
increasing levels of responsibility both for oneself and
for one’s community. By recognizing adolescents’
unique developmental needs, preventive interventions
will more effectively support the transition from adolescence
into adulthood (Walsh et al. 2009).
In addition to attention to the unique developmental
needs of adolescents, preventive interventions
should take the cultural context of adolescents into
account in designing, implementing, and evaluating
prevention programs (Walsh et al. 2009). Multiple factors
shape the beliefs and behaviors of an individual
adolescent, including racial–cultural identity, ethnic
background, family traditions, peer behaviors, and
acculturation levels. These cultural influences create
an identity that is consistently changing and evolving.
Preventive programs that consider the cultural context
of adolescence attend to the norms, attitudes, beliefs,
and experiences of the target group of adolescents, in
their program development, implementation, and
evaluation efforts. Not attending to the context may
result in programs that inappropriately impose their
own values on the target population (Hage et al. 2007).
It is also important to note that collaboration across
a variety of disciplines, such as counseling, social work,
community psychology, and other related fields,
strengthens such programs so that individuals are able
to work toward structural change on multiple levels
(Hage et al. 2007; Walsh et al. 2009). This collaboration
is crucial because it reduces the potential for miscommunication
and allows for greater consideration of the
specific context of the target community, thereby
enhancing program relevance and likelihood of
a successful outcome. In addition, it is also imperative
that leaders evaluate the extent to which the program
meets their specific social justice goals (Walsh et al.
2009), such as a decrease in social inequities. Finally,
professionals need to carry out these programs over
time in order to reach as many individuals as possible
and sustain smaller, short-term changes that have been
made (Walsh et al. 2009).
In sum, these principles can be used to implement
prevention programs and can help program leaders
reach social justice goals by working to eliminate social
inequalities. A number of programs that work with
adolescents have used these factors to promote social
justice, and have shown promising results, as well as the
S