Social justice speaks to 1) the allocation of resources within society, 2) the quality of life of various groups in society and 3) the responses of individuals and groups to the distribution of resources.

Social policy speaks to choices between competing social visions at the government, community and individual levels. Social policies are planned responses, or planned decisions not to respond, to issues that arise around the allocation of resources. Each response or lack of response can influence the direction of the choices that are made.

Historically

In the past, social justice seemed to center itself on two specific social problems: 1) poverty and 2) inequality.  At first, social policy was thus seen as a search for means to reduce social inequalities by addressing material, cultural or emotional needs. It was traditionally conceived as a field used to examine public intervention in key areas of material and social need. The focus was primarily on understanding the measurable actions of government as well as the political reasons underlying them.

Today

The scope of social policy has broadened considerably. It now encompasses not only social welfare, but a wide range of issues and government activities affecting social life. Moreover, it now includes economic policy as well as the impact of economic issues and growth on social development. Even more broadly, social justice can encompass work at the international level, such as global development and peace.

Questions of social justice and policy cover a wide range of topics such as wealth and poverty, marriage and divorce legislation, children and families, gender and sexuality, welfare and public finance, economics and taxation, transportation, democracy and governance, citizenship and immigration, corrections and justice, education, health and social care, domestic and international human rights, the environment and climate justice, housing and communities, culture and the arts.

Commonly associated with social policy are expensive functions carried out by the state in advanced capitalist societies, whether broadly distributed to the population at large or only provided to certain segments of the population. Together they comprise the dimensions of state activity, conventionally labelled the welfare state. While providing benefits for some citizens, the welfare state is also a site for differential inclusion and exclusion of various groups.

Building on existing research

Social justice and policy questions may be usefully studied from a broad variety of approaches: philosophical and practical, theoretical and applied, quantitative and qualitative. Many faculty members at Laurentian University carry on research in these areas with a focus that may be characterized as being based on social justice and social policy. The CRSJP brings together researchers from various disciplines in order to allow them to take on more complex and challenging projects.

Competing conceptions of social justice and civic virtue play a profound role in structuring human attitudes to basic social problems. The CRSJP builds on the commitment and research interests of faculty conducting projects in these areas as well as on the work of faculty members in other schools and departments with related and overlapping interests. The continuing development of the CRSJP at Laurentian University reflects a growing world-wide trend to integrate considerations of social justice into broader social policy questions.

The CRSJP thus seeks to address the various aspects of social justice

·         by examining the connection between social values and policies in an innovative manner that brings together a broad spectrum of faculty with a variety of academic perspectives,

·         by sparking creative thinking about complex social problems, and

·         by reflecting critically on the models that structure perceptions of social justice and on the norms at the origin of the policies that are constructed to act on these perceptions.