Leadership in Achieving Social Justice-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Write a Research Project on any Social issue in Australia. Answer: Introduction: Achieving social justice is the main concern for a democracy. Every citizen of a democracy should be ensured basic human rights. Basic human rights include freedom from discrimination based on culture, race, gender, and socioeconomic disparities; right to life, right to liberty, freedom to express personal beliefs and opinions, right to basic education and health and many more fundamental rights that constitute a living condition that any human being who is born into this world deserves. However, we all know that perfect democracy is not given, but it is to be achieved. Leadership programs have proliferated that aim at restoring the basic equal rights of every citizen of a democracy. The thesis statement in this essay will discuss whether leadership in social work can reverse the trend of growing inequalities in the face of neoliberal regime. The essay will argue the advantages and disadvantages of having leaders and whether the leaders can achieve the said gap existing across the co untry and promise social justice pertaining to the basic human rights for all. Discussion: Necessity of achieving social justice in todays world: The society, after revolution of information technology, has now been connected. The market is global, in the sense that substantial changes in one market affect another. With increased mobility of capital and labour across the world, and goods and services, the world has become a connected whole. Neoliberalism is the dominant political order in this world. By definition, Neoliberalism means a state of affairs where individual entrepreneurial skill development is encouraged to the highest degree, There has been considerable negative impact on social work since the advent of neoliberalism. The profession of social work has now been subjugated to managerial efficiency, to allocate resources efficiently, to ensure profitability and perform some bureaucratic tasks as speedily as possible. There has been a substantial change in terms of culture, due to the advent of neoliberalism that has led to the commoditization of certain aspects of society that were considered to be acquired by the public and hence impossible to commoditize. Basic content like clean water or pollution or social welfare were the result of post-war welfare state. However, in neoliberal society private property is considered to be of utmost priority. Owning private property is encouraged. Neoliberal state claims to protect private properties of its citizens. This led to disappearance of the social citizens who are enthusiastic about reforming their society, transforming society into a better place, as well as lo ok after other citizens problems. Neoliberal society fragments the social fabric that was once envisaged with the rise of socialism in different countries throughout the twentieth century. The society in its present shape is focusing more on individual aspirations and achievement and turning its face from the existing systemic exploitations that has blocked the path towards a just society that insists on equal distribution of wealth and resources, equality in terms of individual income, lesser degree of cultural apartheid and migration problems, discriminations based on race, class, and caste. Neoliberalism and challenges to social work: In neoliberal society, free markets and free trade is encouraged (Blackmore, 2013). Marketization of everything that is imaginable has led to sense hopelessness in terms of transforming the existent injustices in society. According to neoliberalism, human rationality is the core of decisions through social interaction. Theorists of neoliberalism have propounded that economic rationality, of maximizing the utility of and by the individual economic agent and minimization of cost incurred in making a decision is the primary constituent of social interaction. Just like the perfectly competitive market, human beings are themselves perfectly competitive in achieving the best that they may have. One of the main theorems of economics says that economic agents in a society have insatiable desire for a commodity. The more of a commodity that they can have, the more is their utility with respect to the commodity they consumed (Shields, 2014). People have immersed themselves in the sickening pra ctices of earning more, and buying more and they find this to be the best dream that can be had in the society. In the process of pursuing self-interest, they lose the human qualities like looking after poor people or concerning themselves with the more pressing problems of the society. Definition of social work has been confined to working as a bureaucrat to achieve the goals that will benefit the owner of a privatized institution. Social work training: Almost all the developed countries have masters level program in social work. Social work students follow a curricula which is evidence-based. The problems are detected in the people and then individual transformation is focused on (Ryan, 2016). However, since the social institutions under neoliberal regime are more likely to have their own structures, and functioning, and most of the functionalities are financial and production and distribution process of commodities, it is difficult to engage in social work practices that strive to locate problems in the very structure of the institutions, the hierarchical practices, and exploitative dimensions which are unquestionably practiced are instantly obstructed by the judicial regime (Comper, 2015). Social workers by profession are confined to providing social care. Mostly health councils run by state and several non governmental and non-profit organizations recruit the social workers. This has narrowed the scope of achieving social justic e that prevails in reality. Literature has proliferated around the leadership programs in educational administration. Several research have contributed to educational leadership, its necessity and its scopes, strategies and future aims. There have been several research that claims that educational curricula that focuses on issues of social justice, its vestiges and further works that needs to be done to fix the issues ensures eradication of major social injustices (Langman, 2015). It is also straightforward that if the younger generations are aware of the social inequalities and discriminations of various kinds, they will be conscious about it in their later life about considering behaviours that perpetuate such discriminations. The leadership programs should include a more feminist, anti-racist, anti-classist approach to dealing with school management program. The teacher student relationship should also undergo a reconfiguration where the old theory of subjugating students by positing the teacher at a higher place should be transformed; a new form of interaction should be envisaged where everyone learns from everyone (Bush Glover, 2014). Inclusion of more critical and socially constructivist approach ensures that there the classroom will be site of new knowledge for students and teachers alike (Shields, 2014). The new knowledge will emerge out of the daily experience of the instructor and learner and have a proper dialectical method where the old order of evaluation will be reconfigured and restructured. How can leaders change the present scenario: A leader has to be visionary and has to have a clear foresight about what are the changes that he or she wants to see in the present order of things. People from the lowest ranks, those who have no voice of their own, who are subjugated to the play of profit earning and bureaucratic hierarchy always face the worst kinds of discriminations and barriers to accessing most of the resources available (Au Ferrare, 2015). Social workers can provide help to them and understand their problems in the voice of those who are facing the issues. The neoliberal regime has its own dominant language that only encourages competition, whereas, social workers should imbibe the virtue of cooperation and free association, lead the people to a more communitarian society rather than living as self-interested misers (Capper Young, 2014). In neoliberal society, even the basic necessities like education are thoroughly privatized. Most children from underprivileged background cannot even reach higher educatio n, let alone find jobs with good amount of salary. This kind of systemic inequality in terms of access to resources has been one of the persistent reasons behind perpetual poverty in our society. Social work should thus be orientated towards developmental programs that takes into account issues like poverty, lack of education, and lack of basic necessities to live a life. This will bring leaders closer to the actual citizens of a society (Wilson, 2014). A leader should represent its mass, a leader has to become the voice of the people who have been unheard and whose voices have been silenced by the systemic repression used by the profit-mongering and power-hungry state. Conclusion: In the face of the all-encompassing market power, social work has seemingly lost its glorious days in the era of welfare state. Managerial positions are outgrowing professional social workers. Exploitations at different levels need to be critically analyzed in order to devise effective leadership programs. Leadership is never inherent in a persons abilities, but learning from the situations is the only way to acquire leadership capabilities. However, social workers are heavily supervised and their scope of work is constantly under vigilance by the state. Understanding the past social reformers and revolutionary leaders and critically evaluating their works can enhance the leadership skill of present social workers. Finally, ensuring social justice is the key to a just society and a leader with sensitive mind, integrity, vision and motivation to change the order of things can only usher in a better society. References: Au, W., Ferrare, J. J. (Eds.). (2015).Mapping corporate education reform: Power and policy networks in the neoliberal state. Routledge. Blackmore, J. (2013). A feminist critical perspective on educational leadership.International journal of leadership in education,16(2), 139-154. Bush, T., Glover, D. (2014). 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