Clara Sabbagh

The structure of social justice judgments: a facet approach

This study examines the structure of social justice judgments (SJJ) on the basis of a conceptual mapping of two major facets of SJJ: distributive rules and social resources. We distinguish irreducible classes of rules (e.g., arithmetic equality, effort) and resources (e.g., money, prestige) and examine their affinities and contrasts in an effort to unveil the patterns of relations among them. A similarity space analysis (SSA) reveals that the predicted distinctions and relations among SJJ correspond to actual judgments made by adolescents regarding the relative importance of distributive rules in allocating different social resources

Exploring the Structure of Positive and Negative Justice Judgments

The study challenges the commonly assumed symmetry between justice judgments that refer to the distribution of positive and negative outcomes. Based on equity and multiprinciple approaches, and particularly on the theory of framing choices, we propose a conceptual framework for analyzing the dynamics of relations between positive and negative justice judgments. According to this framework, negative judgments are more generalized (simple) and more emphatic than are positive judgments. Data analysis was based on responses of 240 German adults to 39 justice judgment items that were subjected to a Similarity Space Analysis (SSA). The analysis corroborated the hypothesis when the type of resource to be distributed was held constant. Thus, the findings may reflect the primacy and high emotional intensity of negative experiences. They also suggest that, without specification of the distributed resource, this facet of justice judgments (sign of outcome distribution) is devoid of content.

Environmentalism, right‐wing extremism, and social justice beliefs among East German adolescents

This study uses a representative population (N = 3331) of East German mainstream adolescents to examine how the competing worldviews of environmentalism and right‐wing extremism differently structure social justice beliefs. Integrating three theoretical considerations (object of worry, scope of justice, and underlying values) it suggests that these two worldviews have implicit assumptions that associate them in subtler ways with some specific conceptions of justice. The environmentalist worldview was found to be associated with egalitarianism, which may be explained by environmentalisms concern with societal and global problems, its broad inclusionary scope of justice, and the self‐transcendent values it advocates. In contrast, right‐wing extremism was found to be associated with anti‐egalitarianism, which can be attributed to its concern with the welfare of the in‐group, its relative narrow exclusionary scope of justice, and its self‐interest values of competition and individualism. After controlling fo...

Evaluating society's spheres of justice: The Israeli case

Using accumulated knowledge of Israeli social structure and culture, justice research, and a structural approach to social justice judgments, this study examines perceptions of social justice in Israel regarding the distribution of various classes of resources. The analysis yields a set of hypotheses about the degree to which individuals-within and across status groups of ethnicity and gender-favor more differentiating rules in resource distribution over less differentiating rules. Empirical testing is based on a national sample of Jewish students in State junior high schools. Findings revealed that preference for differentiation varies with the resources degree of particularism (non-convertibility). Despite differences between status groups, an overall uniform pattern was discerned. Findings are discussed from a comparative perspective and on the basis of justice theory.

Styles of Social Justice Judgments as Portrayed by Partial-Order Scalogram Analysis A Cross-Cultural Example

This study proposes a typology of adolescents’ social justice judgments (SJJs) as assessed by their attribution of importance to various distribution rules representing two generic principles of justice (egalitarian and equitarian). Four basic styles of SJJ are identified: I. Ecumenical (emphasis on both egalitarian and equitarian justice); II. Pure Egalitarian (emphasis on egalitarian justice); III. Pure Equitarian (emphasis on equity rules); and IV. Withdrawn (emphasis on neither). This proposed typology is empirically supported by POSAC (Partial-Order Scalogram Analysis with base Coordinates), which is used to analyse SJJs among adolescents in Israeli and East German samples. The typology is also found useful in discriminating between adolescents in these two countries: the proportion of the Ecumenical and Pure Egalitarian styles is higher among East Germans than among Israelis, while the proportion of the Pure Equitarian and Withdrawn styles is higher among Israelis.

Justice and Education

Resting on Walzer’s distinction of Spheres of Justice that defines education as a specific justice sphere, we discuss in this chapter five educational subspheres where resources and rewards (or sanctions) are being constantly distributed and their “fairness” is evaluated by its main beneficiaries—the students. The five spheres that we discuss are: access to education (and resource allocation to realize the access), allocation of learning places, allocation of teaching methods and pedagogy, grading, and teacher–student relations. Although education is a major domain of societal action in the modern world and “equality of educational opportunity,” which is clearly a justice slogan, leads the public interest and academic research, the clear approach to education as a distinct sphere of justice, much of the educational and academic discussions focused on “inequality” or “gaps,” and the investigation of sense of justice among students, teachers, and parents, is a relatively new field of study that is growing considerably in recent decades. Following Jasso’s definition of the central questions that guide investigation in the justice domain, our discussion in each of these subspheres is structured to deal with the “just,” the “actual,” and the “consequences” of injustice in their distribution, summarizing the theoretical discussion and empirical findings to best of our knowledge.

Toward a Multifaceted Model of the Structure of Social Justice Judgments Initial Explorations in Israel and Germany

This study explores the potential cross-cultural generalizability of a conceptual framework for understanding the multifaceted universe of contents and structure of human social justice judgments (SJJ). The hypothesized framework identifies four elemental facets needed to define SJJ and specifies the types of justice contents people are likely to distinguish when evaluating the justness of a distribution—principles and distributive rules, social resources, sign of the outcome distribution (positive or negative), and the type of social context in which resources are distributed. To empirically verify the fit between the hypothesized structure, smallest space analysis was applied, and earlier findings obtained in an Israeli sample were compared to findings obtained in East and West German samples. Separate replications conducted in the East and West German samples revealed that the multidimensional configurations of SJJ intercorrelations could be partitioned into distinct regions of items that correspond to the facets’ hypothesized elements and their expected arrangements

Intergenerational Justice Perceptions and the Role of Welfare Regimes

This study analyzes intergenerational justice perceptions among 2,075 undergraduate students in 1996-1998 across eight democracies spanning four welfare regime types. It examined how different regimes structure perceptions of (a) justness in principle of young-to-old public resource transfers and (b) actual contributions to and rewards from society of various age groups. Support in principle of young-to-old transfers is higher in social democratic and conservative than in liberal and radical welfare regimes and correlates positively with a welfare-statist ideological frame and negatively with a market-based frame. Regarding actual contributions to society, the following ordering of age groups was obtained: adults > youth > elderly. Regarding actual rewards, the ranking was adults > elderly ≥ youth. But in the conservative regime, the youngest age group ranked lowest in perceived rewards and highest in perceived contributions. It was concluded that there is a distinct perception of intergenerational injustice among these populations of highly educated young citizens.

An Integrative Etic-Emic Approach to Portraying the Halutziut System of Societal Equity Comparing Israeli Jew and Israeli Arab Perceptions of Justice

Based on equity theory and sociocultural conditions, this study depicts the Israeli system of societal equity from the perspective of the ethos of halutziut (Jewish pioneering).This ethos, which under scores the individual’s contribution to the enhancement of collective goals, has created a correspondence between hierarchically valued signifiers of societal contribution (e.g., military service) and social groupings defined along gender, ethnic, age, and professional lines. This study used multivariate analysis, and Powell’s technique for measuring and spatially portraying respondents’ perceptions of societal equity. Results supported the expected pioneering hierarchy of groupings, mainly among Jewish respondents. Arab respondents differed in their perceptions of groupings associated with Jewish pioneering but were similar regarding other groupings. There is some evidence that perceptions of the contribution and rewards of several groupings, such as social class and gender, may converge across different sociocultural contexts.

Merging dollars with values: Rights and resources in education worldwide

The Costs and Financing of Education: trends and policy implications, MARK BRAY, 2002 Manila/Hong Kong: Asian Development Bank/Comparative Education Research Centre, 77 pp., ISBN 9 71561 405 1 (paperback) Education and Social Change, AMANDA COFFEY, 2001, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 142 pp., ISBN 0 33520 069 9 (paperback), £18.99 Education in the Twenty‐First Century, EDWARD LAZEAR (Ed.), 2002, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 192 pp., ISBN 0 81792 892 8 (paperback), £8.46 Education Denied: costs and remedies, KATARINA TOMASEVSKI, 2003, London and New York: Zed Books, 205 pp., ISBN 1 84277 250 3 (hardback), £49.95, 1 84277 251 1(paperback), £14.95 The International Handbook on the Sociology of Education: an international assessment of new research and theory CARLOS ALBERTO TORRES & ARI ANTIKAINEN (Eds), 2003, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 415 pp., ISBN 0 74251 769 1 (hardback), £65.00, 0 74251 770 5 (paperback), £27.95