scholarly journals Great Problems of Grand Challenges: Problematizing Engineering’s Understandings of its Role in Society

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Cech ◽  
"Guest Introduction to Special Issue on NAE's Grand Challenges for Engineering"
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Professional Culture ◽  
Engineering Profession ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
New Members ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering report has received a great deal of attention from legislators, policymakers, and educators, but what does it entail for social justice considerations in engineering? This article situates the Grand Challenges report as a cultural artifact of the engineering profession—an artifact that works to reinforce engineering’s professional culture, recruit new members, and reassert engineering’s legitimacy in the 21st century. As such, the Grand Challenges report provides a unique opportunity to understand and critique the role engineering envisions for itself in society. The articles in this special issue of IJESJP identify four central critiques of Grand Challenges: authorial particularism, double standards in engineering’s contributions to these challenges, bracketing of the “social” from “technical” realms, and deterministic definitions of progress. These critiques call for increased reflexivity and broadened participation in how engineers define problems and attempt to solve them.

scholarly journals I Have Seen the Future! Ethics, Progress, and the Grand Challenges for Engineering

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Herkert ◽  
David A. Banks
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Engineering Profession ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
The U.S

This article is a critique of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering’s report, Grand Challenges for Engineering, based upon the “technocratic view” of progress as defined by historian Leo Marx and as exemplified by the public works of Robert Moses, including the 1964 World’s Fair, as well as technological determinist narratives on the digital age drawn from contemporary culture. While the so-called Grand Challenges purport to have social aims, a close reading of the document’s overview essay suggests that the technocratic view of progress—which views technology primarily as an end in itself rather than as a means to social progress and fails to explicitly account for engineers’ social and ethical responsibilities—still dominates the thinking of at least some leaders of the engineering profession. This technocratic thinking presents a critical barrier to achieving social justice both within engineering and in the larger world.

scholarly journals Overview of PROMISE

2020 ◽  
pp. 216514342098045
Author(s):  
David E. Emenheiser ◽  
Corinne Weidenthal ◽  
Selete Avoke ◽  
Marlene Simon-Burroughs
Keyword(s):  
Career Development ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Human Services ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
Social Security Administration ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Health And Human Services ◽  
The Social ◽  
The U.S

Promoting the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE), a study of 13,444 randomly assigned youth and their families, includes six model demonstration projects and a technical assistance center funded through the U.S. Department of Education and a national evaluation of the model demonstration projects funded through the Social Security Administration. The Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services and the Executive Office of the President partnered with the Department of Education and Social Security Administration to develop and monitor the PROMISE initiative. This article provides an overview of PROMISE as the introduction to this special issue of Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals.

Introduction: Moral and Market disordering in the time of Covid-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Michaeline A Crichlow ◽  
Dirk Philipsen
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
High Growth ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Market Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Triadic Relationship ◽  
The U.S

This special issue composed of essays that brainstorm the triadic relationship between Covid-19, Race and the Markets, addresses the fundamentals of a world economic system that embeds market values within social and cultural lifeways. It penetrates deep into the insecurities and inequalities that have endured for several centuries, through liberalism for sure, and compounded ineluctably into these contemporary times. Market fundamentalism is thoroughly complicit with biopolitical sovereignty-its racializing socioeconomic projects, cheapens life given its obsessive focus on high growth, by any means necessary. If such precarity seemed normal even opaque to those privileged enough to reap the largess of capitalism and its political correlates, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic with its infliction of sickness and death has exposed the social and economic dehiscence undergirding wealth in the U.S. especially, and the world at large. The essays remind us of these fissures, offering ways to unthink this devastating spiral of growth, and embrace an unadulterated care centered system; one that offers a more open and relational approach to life with the planet. Care, then becomes the pursuit of a re-existence without domination, and the general toxicity that has accompanied a regimen of high growth. The contributors to this volume, join the growing global appeal to turn back from this disaster, and rethink how we relate to ourselves, to our neighbors here and abroad, and to the non-humans in order to dwell harmoniously within socionature.

Moving Beyond Poverty: Effects of Low-Wage Work on Individual, Social, and Family Well-Being

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Shook ◽  
Sara Goodkind ◽  
Rafael J. Engel ◽  
Sandra Wexler ◽  
Kess L. Ballentine
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Wage Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
Working Families ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Low Wage Work

Social work has long been committed to eliminating poverty, which is at the root of many of the social issues and challenges we address. Over 40% of the U.S. workforce makes less than $15/hour, and the accumulating evidence suggests this is not enough to meet basic needs. In this introduction to a special issue about low-wage work, we describe what is known regarding the experiences and well-being of low-wage workers, as well as promising policy and practice ideas to better support working families. We provide an overview of the included articles and conclude with encouragement for social workers to move beyond a narrow focus on poverty and more broadly consider the struggles and well-being of low-wage workers and their families.

International perspectives on social justice: Introduction to the special issue

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Sally L. Grapin ◽  
David Shriberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
School Psychology ◽  
Educational Psychology ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
International Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Training ◽  
International Social

The concept of social justice has become increasingly prominent in school psychology practice, research, and training. While the literature in this area has burgeoned over the last decade, relatively less scholarship has synthesized global perspectives on social justice. This article provides a brief introduction to the special issue, International Perspectives on Social Justice. In particular, we describe contributions of each of the issue’s four articles to the social justice literature in school and educational psychology as well as identify prominent themes. Finally, we describe potential directions for advancing an international social justice agenda in school psychology.

scholarly journals Mapping the Social Space of Opinion: Public Sociology and the Op-Ed in Canada

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 697-728 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Kowalchuk ◽  
Neil McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Public Sociology ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Going Public ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Internal Coherence ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
The U.S

This special issue of CJS illustrates the international spread of an empassioned debate among sociologists about the future direction of their discipline ignited by Michael Burawoy’s call to elevate the presence and status of public sociology. Burawoy’s program entails a greater engagement by sociologists with civil society (non-governmental organizations, communities, movements) in the development of their research agenda, and the production of research outputs that are more accessible, relevant, and useful to non-academic audiences. Burawoy and his supporters see the emphasis on public sociology as a way to revitalize the discipline, in particular, to solve several inter-related problems that it faces, at least in the U.S: a lack of internal coherence, declining public legitimacy, public misapprehension of what sociologists do, and minimal influence on policy-making (Burawoy 2004a, Turner 2006, Boyns and Fletcher 2005). Skeptics and critics within the discipline, conversely, argue that “going public” will only hurt sociology’s public legitimacy, insofar as it constitutes a kind of left-liberal moralizing that is out of sync with majority currents of opinion.

John Rawls

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the impact of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice on the liberal audience that took it up. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls offers a defense of civil disobedience that would make politically motivated disobedience a much more acceptable part of our political life than either the U.S. Supreme Court or the English judiciary seems likely to contemplate. Furthermore, his views about the subservience of economic institutions to “social justice” place him firmly on one side of what is currently the most fiercely contested dividing line in politics in Britain today. The chapter also considers Rawls's use of the theory of the social contract to support his arguments; his principle of “the priority of liberty”; and his “difference principle.” It asserts that Rawls is safe from those critics who maintain that what purports to be a defense of liberalism actually collapses into a wholesale collectivism.

Commentary: considering the social value of IB

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-78
Author(s):  
Jonathan Doh
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
International Business ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Value Creation

Purpose In this viewpoint, the author critically aims to examine the papers by Sinkovics and Archie-Acheampong (2019, this issue) “The social value creation of MNEs – a literature review across multiple academic fields” and by Rygh (2019, this issue) “Social value creation by multinational enterprises: the next “big question” for international business research?” and offer an appraisal of the papers’ merits as well as thoughts for further development of research on social value creation, critical international business and work that can conceivably contribute to scholarship on global grand challenges. Design/methodology/approach The author’s approach is a reflexive review of two papers in the Critical Perspectives on International Business special issue “social value creation of MNEs.” The underpinning tenet is that by shifting the domain of international business (IB) research from an exclusive focus on the MNEs’ economic success or failure to the role and responsibility of MNEs in global communities, IB’s contributions can be strengthened. Findings A reorientation of the IB disciplinary focus toward global grand challenges will contribute by improving the engagement with other allied disciplines such as political science, sociology and international relations and exchanging ideas and insights with those disciplines, providing a platform to speak to not just business communities but also policy and civil society communities and bring a sophisticated knowledge base to those discussions, and connecting some of our personal interests, beliefs and values with those of our disciplinary research. Research limitations/implications The papers covered in this special issue on social value creation underscore the diversity, plurality and richness of IB. In the early days of IB, scholars such as Hymer (1960), Vernon (1971) and others naturally position IBs and MNEs within a broader societal context and were open to exploring the various interactions and cross currents between and among business, government and civil society in the global environment. Against this background, this special issue and its papers thus widen the scope of our field again. Practical implications IB scholars may be able to broaden their contributions to include values-based and even normative judgements into their research process. Social implications If assumptions and biases are made explicit, critical and normative issues may suitably be incorporated in IB work and thus contribute to tackling grand societal challenges. Originality/value The papers discussed in this viewpoint and the “social value creation” special issue more broadly offer contemporary contributions regarding the role and responsibilities of business in the global commons. This is of significant value for further conceptual and empirical work that is critically and societally engaged.

scholarly journals 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. i-v
Author(s):  
Margaret E. Adamek
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Look Ahead ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The U.S

At the dawn of a new decade, I cannot help but recall that when I started my academic career in social work in the 1990s, it was common to look ahead to how life would be in the next century. Statistical projections forecast various demographic changes, often using 2020 as the future time frame. Back then, 2020 sounded far away and almost alien. Well folks, the future is here. Now that 2020 has dawned, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Certainly, the specific issues that social workers address have changed over the decades, and our approaches have been modified to tackle the new issues, but the struggle to understand and meet emerging needs persists. I used to jokingly hear that the ultimate goal of the social work profession was to put ourselves out of business. Given the intransigence of intolerance for difference and the persistent emergence of needs arising from “advances” of modern living, it seems the social justice stance of our profession will never be fully met. Indeed, our social contract is continually expanding. In the Fall 2019 issue of Advances in Social Work we are pleased to present 14 papers--11 empirical, 3 conceptual--written by 29 authors from 12 states across the U.S., representing different regions of the country and Ghana. Each paper is briefly introduced below.

Kinesiology: Moving Toward Social Justice?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Diane L. Gill
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Racial Minorities ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Black African ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
The Social

The theme of the 2021 National Academy of Kinesiology meeting and this special issue, “Kinesiology’s Social Justice Imperative,” suggests we are moving toward social justice. In this paper, I look at kinesiology’s social justice movement over the nearly 100 years of the Academy. More specifically, I consider the representation of women and racial minorities (specifically Black/African Americans) in kinesiology and the Academy throughout our history and social factors related to the changes (or lack thereof) in representation. To move toward social justice, we must learn from that history, highlight the social, and connect with our communities and professionals.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document