Social Justice Commons^™

Los Problemas De Las Fronteras Humanitarias, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

Resumen:

Este texto plantea un análisis crítico del papel de los discursos y prácticas humanitaristas en nuestra concepción de la migración y en las políticas públicas desarrolladas en relación a la movilidad poblacional a través de las fronteras internacionales. Se parte de la premisa de que el humanitarismo, aunque fuera bien intencionado, puede tener efectos perniciosos sobre la situación que se vive en las fronteras, especialmente si acaba por sustituir a la justicia y a los derechos que tienen los emigrantes. Para estudiar esta paradoja, el texto analiza, sucesivamente, varios problemas asociados a la acción humanitaria: el problema con la …

We Don’T Always Mean What We Say: Attitudes Toward Statutory Exclusion Of Juvenile Offenders From Juvenile Court Jurisdiction, Tina Zotolli, Tarika Daftary Kapur, Patricia A. Zapf

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In the United States, juvenile offenders are often excluded from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court on the basis of age and crime type alone. Data from national surveys and data from psycholegal research on support for adult sanction of juvenile offenders are often at odds. The ways in which questions are asked and the level of detail provided to respondents and research participants may influence expressed opinions. Respondents may also be more likely to agree with harsh sanctions when they have fewer offender- and case-specific details to consider. Here, we test the hypothesis that attitudes supporting statutory exclusion laws …

Civic Play And Civic Gaps: Can Life Simulation Games Advance Educational Equity?, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos, Chad Raphael, Amanda Waldron

Communication

Digital games and simulations (DG&S) could help mitigate inequities in civic education and participation, which are found in many contemporary democracies. Yet incorporating DG&S into the curriculum may reinforce or introduce inequities for students who are less engaged by game-based learning. A quasi-experimental study of 301 U.S. high school students in social studies classes examined whether prior academic performance, civic engagement, civic game play experience and gender affected how (and which) students benefit from playing a life simulation game. Dependent variables included several civic dispositions: justice-oriented citizenship norms and interest in politics, news, and global issues. The simulation game especially …

Homophobia And Heterosexism, Barry D. Adam

Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology Publications

“Homophobia” is a widely understood term referring to antihomosexual attitudes and practices, but terms such as “homophobia,” “heterosexism,” and “heteronormativity” point to different ideas of what “homosexual” means, and where opposition to same-sex relations originates. Gayle Rubin, relying on structural anthropology, proposes that it arises as a disciplinary mechanism used by men to exercise control over women’s reproductive power in families. Gender panic theory focuses particularly on how defensiveness against losing male status and privilege generates homophobia. Sociohistorical theories examine how homophobia increases or decreases according to the symbolic placement of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the social …

Imagining The Unimaginable: Torture And The Criminal Law, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article examines the use of torture by the U.S. government in the context of the late 20th-century preventive turn in criminal justice. Challenging the assumption that the use of “enhanced interrogation tactics” in the war on terror was an exceptional deviation from accepted norms, this article suggests that this deviation began decades before the terror attacks, in the context of conventional criminal procedure. I point to the use of the “ticking time bomb hypothetical,” and its connection to criminal procedure’s “kidnapping hypothetical.” Using case law and criminal procedure textbooks I trace the employment of that narrative over several decades, …

Reducing Poverty In California…Permanently, Conway Collis, David Grusky, Sara Kimberlin, Courtney Powers, Sandra Sanchez, Marion Coddou, Erin Cumberworth, Jonathan Fisher, Jared Furuta, Jasmine Hill, Molly M. King, Yana Kucheva, Ryan Leupp, Ana Matosantos, Natassia Rodriguez, Rachel Wright

Sociology

If California were to seriously commit to equalizing opportunity and reducing poverty, how might that commitment best be realized?

This is of course a hypothetical question, as there is no evidence that California is poised to make such a serious commitment, nor have many other states gone much beyond the usual lip-service proclamations. There are many reasons for California’s complacency, but an important one is that most people think that poverty is intractable and that viable solutions to it simply don’t exist.

When Californians know what needs to be done, they tend to go forward and get it done. When, …

Creating Knowledge, Volume 8, 2015

Creating Knowledge

Dear reader,

I am delighted to introduce this eighth volume of Creating Knowledge: The LAS Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship. This volume features 19 essays and 14 art works, representing advanced coursework produced in twenty different departments and programs during the 2014-2015 academic year. Several of the essays have been honored with department awards and several draw on research supported by undergraduate research grants. Many were originally written in senior capstone seminars, research-intensive seminars, and independent studies, and many were presented in some form at one of the numerous conferences and showcases sponsored by departments and programs throughout the year. All …

Moishe Postone And The Critique Of Traditional Marxism: Helplessness And The Present Moment Of The Great Acceleration, Alexander M. Stoner, Andony Melathopoulos

Book Sections/Chapters

This chapter situates Moishe Postone's critique of traditional Marxism in relation to the present moment of the Great Acceleration. We engage a close reading of Postone reinterpretation of Marx's mature theory of capital with specific focus on the linkage between economic growth and ecological degradation, and how this linkage is necessary connected to social domination in modern capitalist society. Postone's Marxian theory is significant because, as we demonstrate, it allows one to grasp societally induced environmental degradation following WWII in a critical and reflexive manner. The chapter concludes by discussing the growing sense of helplessness that defines the present moment …

Georg Lukács (1885-1971) And The Critique Of Reification: On The Dialectical Genesis Of The Great Acceleration, Alexander M. Stoner, Andony Melathopoulos

Book Sections/Chapters

This chapter situates Lukács' critique of reification (1923) in relation to the emergence of the Great Acceleration. We develop Lukács' critique through the issue of the increasing rationalization of industrial and administrative work in the early twentieth century. In do so, we show how Lukács is able to relocate the continued relevance of Marx's insights with respect to the deeper structure of capitalist society in his consideration of the differential manner in which proletariat and bourgeois class consciousness approach the problem of social contradictions. We then discuss how, for Lukács, the overcoming of reification (or the failure to do so) …

Excusing Murder? Conservative Jurors’ Acceptance Of The Gay Panic Defense, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jessica Salerno, Bette L. Bottoms, B. L. Harrington, Dave Kemner

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We conducted a simulated trial study to investigate the effectiveness of a “gay-panic” provocation defense as a function of jurors’ political orientation. Mock jurors read about a murder case in which a male defendant claimed a victim provoked the killing by starting a fight, which either included or did not include the male victim making an unwanted sexual advance that triggered a state of panic in the defendant. Conservative jurors were significantly less punitive when the defendant claimed to have acted out of gay panic as compared to when this element was not part of the defense. In contrast, liberal …

Bridging The Gap Between Unmet Legal Needs And An Oversupply Of Lawyers: Creating Neighborhood Law Offices - The Philadelphia Experiment, Jules Lobel, Matthew Chapman

Articles

In the United States there is, simultaneously, an abundance of unemployed lawyers and a significant unmet need for legal care among middle-class households. This unfortunate paradox is protected by ideological, cultural, and practical paradigms both inside the legal community and out. These paradigms include the legal chase for prestige, the consumer’s inability to recognize a legal need, and the growing mountain of debt new lawyers enter the profession with. This article will discuss a very successful National Lawyers Guild experiment from 1930s-era Philadelphia that addressed a similar situation, in a time with similar paradigms, by emphasizing community-connected lawyering. That is, …

Why Is There So Much Poverty In California? The Causes Of California’S Sky-High Poverty And The Evidence Behind The Equal Opportunity Plan For Reducing It, David Grusky, Marion Coddou, Erin Cumberworth, Jonathan Fisher, Jared Furuta, Jasmine Hill, Sara Kimberlin, Molly M. King, Yana Kucheva, Ryan Leupp, Marybeth Mattingly, Natassia Rodriguez, Charles Varner, Rachel Wright

Sociology

The purpose of this report is to describe the current state of poverty in California, to discuss concrete steps that could be taken to reduce poverty in California, and to present the best available evidence on the likely effects of those steps. We take on an important but infrequently-posed question: If California were to seriously commit to reducing poverty, how might that commitment best be realized?

This is of course a hypothetical question, as there is no evidence that California is poised to make such a serious commitment, nor have many other states gone much beyond the usual lip service …

Stereotype Threat And Racial Differences In Citizens’ Experiences Of Police Encounters, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms, Phillip Atiba Goff

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We conducted 2 studies to investigate how cultural stereotypes that depict Blacks as criminals affect the way Blacks experience encounters with police officers, expecting that such encounters induce Blacks to feel stereotype threat (i.e., concern about being judged and treated unfairly by police because of the stereotype). In Study 1, we asked Black and White participants to report how they feel when interacting with police officers in general. As predicted, Blacks, but not Whites, reported concern that police officers stereotype them as criminals simply because of their race. In addition, this effect was found for Black men but not Black …