Social Development, Social Inequalities, and Social Justice

This volume considers previously separate bodies of research on social justice, social equality, and social development. Eminent scholars from a variety of disciplines discuss the latest research to help us understand the relation between social inequalities and social development. In so doing, the book documents the powerful ways that social inequalities frame development and explores the conflicts that arise in the context of these inequalities. It illustrates how people around the world make judgments about these conditions and how they resist or change the practices they deem unjust. By bringing together these perspectives, the editors hope to demonstrate how understanding social development carries with it the possibility of change and social justice.

The book considers processes of social development. It examines Piaget’s ideas about morality and relates them to children’s thinking about social rights. An interdisciplinary review of research from developmental, social, and health psychology, social policy, anthropology, and philosophy, follows this introduction. Each contributor examines the historical, developmental, and social processes that influence beliefs regarding social justice and equality and the consequences of living in conditions of injustice. The book considers:

• Inequalities in educational and health care opportunities.
• Unequal rights and harassment and their effects on minorities.
• The hardships and inequalities encountered by women.

Intended for researchers and advanced students in developmental, social, cultural, and health psychology, policy, anthropology, and philosophy interested in a world that is socially just.

Cecilia Wainryb is Professor of Psychology at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on children’s understandings of moral conflicts in interpersonal and political contexts.

Judith Smetana is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Developmental Psychology Ph.D. Program at the University of Rochester. Her research focuses on adolescent-parent relationships in ethnic and cultural contexts, children’s moral development, and parenting beliefs and practices.

Elliot Turiel is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley as well as an Affiliate in the Department of Psychology and a member of the Institute of Human Development. His research focuses on social cognitive development and relations of social development and culture.