Investigating Social Justice Understanding through Student Writing Samples: an Emergent Theme Analysis Approach

This study describes student understanding of social justice. 61 students from three cross-disciplinary courses at a northwest Jesuit university were asked to respond to two social justice writing prompts. These written responses were qualitatively analyzed and interpreted using an emergent theme protocol. Five main themes emerged from the data: equality, service, action/change, ethical framework, and responsibility. These themes and an analysis of student definitions of social justice are displayed to illustrate a range of student understanding. The relationship between selected themes and components of the university‟s social justice outcomes is also described.