Equity, social justice and transformational giftedness: A gifted academy in a vulnerable community

Given that uncertainty has become the signe des temps for our students in the current Covid-19 climate, one can pose the question: what types of skills would be relevant for the current and the next generation of students that would help them make sense of the changing world? School curricula and testing still anchored in the traditional mode of the 3Rs has resulted in a cadre of gifted students who have performed well academically but who have not been educated to reflect on using their "gifts" to transform society in just and meaningful ways. As opposed to being purely speculative on what transformative giftedness could be, we describe the genesis of a gifted academy- a school within a school situated within an impoverished community grounded in the principles of equity, social justice, and transformational giftedness. In this academy, the curriculum based on both socio-emotional learning (SEL) and problem-based learning (PBL), in tandem with interdisciplinary projects, provides avenues for the potential to transform students into making sense of uncertainty in the changing world in meaningful ways. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. All rights reserved.

We Need More Praxis: A Case for Praxis Assignments in Psychology Courses

Introduction: This paper explores what praxis is and its importance for catalyzing social justice. Statement of the Problem: At times, psychologists have articulated the importance of bridging the researcher-activist divide via praxis, but progress in creating these bridges has been slow. Literature Review: We examine how praxis can be rooted in decolonial pedagogical approaches and a tool that can bridge scholarship and activism. Building on previous work by teachers of psychology, we review small, medium, and large-scale praxis assignments that have been used in university courses. Teaching Implications: We discuss our own versions of praxis assignments used in four different psychology courses (three of which took place during the pandemic). We reflect on the ways we see students motivated by an assignment with relevance to the real world and potential for creating social change, the ways that students are able to integrate course material more deeply through action, and some of the challenges with these assignments. Conclusion: We conclude by providing recommendations for educators interested in assigning praxis projects in their psychology courses.

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies to Restore Individual and Collective Well-Being

This essay begins with Nikole Hannah-Jones's assessment of the solidarity that has sustained African Americans' hope that our country can still make good on the promise of democracy. This social resilience has sustained BIPOC communities through the pandemic in ways that demonstrate how personal well-being is rooted in collective wellness. Research on students' understanding of social resilience has examined how feelings of dignity and self-sufficiency foster hope and enable collective agency. This dynamic is vital to culturally sustaining pedagogies that help students engage with the lifeways that help them feel connected and hopeful. We discuss critical hip hop pedagogy as an example of culturally engaged teaching that can cultivate students' social resilience by acknowledging the dignity of their communal experiences and traditions in ways that can sustain hope and enable collective action.

A promessa ou possibilidade de passar a existir uma cultura médica de vida saudável na América Latina

Os desafios enfrentados por pacientes e suas famílias para terem acesso a cuidados médicos referentes a condições de saúde crônicas fazem com que os profissionais de saúde responsáveis por seu atendimento médico se sintam, com elevada frequência, impotentes. Às vezes convém atribuir a reponsabilidade por esses desafios a um ou mais grupos específicos, tais como os formuladores de políticas ou o sistema de seguro-saúde. No entanto, as verdadeiras razões desses desafios são bem mais complexas, existindo múltiplos fatores presentes, com interrelação. Torna-se necessário realizar uma análise sistêmica mais ampla, bem como ter uma visão mais abrangente, de forma a integrar o contexto sociocultural, focando particularmente as populações vulneráveis e aquelas precariamente atendidas, incluindo-se os adultos mais idosos, a população de áreas densamente povoadas e os indivíduos com status socioeconômico de nível inferior, assim como os migrantes e as minorias1. Neste contexto, a equidade e a justiça social constituem fundamentos aplicáveis essencialmente em um estado de utopia, mas estes fundamentos são indispensáveis à implementação de mudanças futuras.A justiça social constitui um apelo bastante significativo como conceito, a ser plenamente reconhecido em todas as profissões relacionadas aos cuidados de saúde2. O conceito afirma que todos devem, independentemente das circunstâncias legais, políticas, econômicas ou outras3, ter acesso igual à riqueza, ao bem-estar, aos privilégios e às oportunidades, bem como à saúde. Além disso, esse conceito é dirigido para dimensões que vão além dos princípios do direito civil ou penal e transcendem, entre os indivíduos e a sociedade, a relação cujo propósito é ter e manter uma vida gratificante. Portanto, a justiça social é de aplicação universal, devendo ser relacionada a propósitos sociais em todas as regiões do mundo.Como região, a América Latina tem muitos países e com numerosos pontos em comum. Antes da pandemia do coronavírus de 2019 (COVID-19), existiam desafios significativos com relação à saúde na América Latina, incluindo a escassez de medicamentos, a falta de acesso a alimentos saudáveis ou a cuidados primários, seja para migrantes ou pessoas desabrigadas. De acordo com o Índice de GINI, a América Latina é a região mais injusta do planeta, com 185 milhões de pessoas auferindo uma renda abaixo do limiar de pobreza, o equivalente a 66 milhões de indivíduos em estado de pobreza extrema4. Para superar essas deficiências, as comunidades precariamente atendidas se apoiam mutuamente, trabalhando em projetos locais, bancos de alimentos e organizações religiosas, mas desafios significativos continuam existindo.A abordagem atual, com respeito aos cuidados de saúde para indivíduos fragilmente representados e que vivem em comunidades mal atendidas, não é mais sustentável. O caminho a adotar deve incluir como base a medicina para uma vida saudável (HLM, na sigla em inglês), promovendo em sua essência atividades físicas, boa alimentação, ter um peso corporal mediano e abster-se de fumar. Em nível sistêmico, essa mudança cultural diz respeito ao estabelecimento de políticas e práticas.Apromessa ou possibilidade de ter uma existência gratificante encontra-se aqui, na América Latina. Essa abordagem precisa abraçar o conceito de justiça social para que todos tenham oportunidades semelhantes com relação a ter um estilo de vida saudável, minimizando-se os efeitos deletérios das doenças crônicas.Alternate :The challenges that patients and their families experience to access care for chronic health conditions often make the health professionals responsible for their care feel powerless. At times, it may be convenient to lay the blame for these challenges on a singular group, such as policymakers or the health insurance system. However, the true reasons such challenges exist are much more complex, multifactorial, and interrelated. A broader systemic analysis and broader visio is needed to integrate the sociocultural context and place a particular focus on vulnerable, underserved populations, including older adults, people living in densely populated areas, people with lower socioeconomic status, migrants, and minorities11 Shadmi E, Chen Y, Dourado I, Faran-Perach I, Furler J, Hangoma P, Hanvoravongchai P, Obando C, Petrosyan V, Rao KD, Ruano AL, Shi L, de Souza LE, Spitzer-Shohat S, Sturgiss E, Suphanchaimat R, Uribe MV, Willems S. Health equity and COVID-19: global perspectives. Int J Equity Health 2020;19(1):104.. In this context, equity and social justice are constructs that may only feasible in a Utopia but are essential to effect change moving forward.Social justice as a concept is quite appealing and should be fully embraced by all health care professions22 Arena R, Laddu D, Severin R, Hall G, Bond S, HL-PIVOT Network. Healthy living and social justice: addressing the current syndemic in underserved communities. J Cardiopulm Rehabil Prev 2021;41(3):E5-E6.. The concept professes that all people should have equal access to wealth, well-being, privilege, opportunity, and health regardless of legal, political, economic, or other circumstances33 Braveman PA, Kumanyika S, Fielding J, Laveist T, Borrell LN., Manderscheid R, Troutman A. Health disparities and health equity: the issue is justice. Am J Public Health 2011, 101(Suppl. 1):S149-S155.. Moreover, this concept focuses on dimensions beyond civil or criminal law principles and the relationship between individuals and society to lead fulfilling lives. Therefore, social justice is relatable and universal for all regions in the world.Latin America as a region hosts many countries that share numerous commonalities. Prior to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there were significant health related challenges in Latin America, including prescription drug shortages, lack of access to healthy food or primary care for migrants, and homelessness. According to the GINI Index, Latin America is the most inequitable region globally;185 million people's income is below the poverty threshold, of whom 66 million live in extreme poverty44 Garcia PJ, Alarcón A, Bayer A, Buss P, Guerra G, Ribeiro H, Rojas K, Saenz R, Salgado de Snyder N, Solimano G, Torres R, Tobar S, Tuesca R, Vargas G, Atun R. COVID-19 response in Latin America. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2020;103(5): 1765.. While these underserved communities support each other to supplement these shortcomings by working with local movements, food banks, and religious organizations, significant challenges remain. The current approach to health care in underrepresented individuals who live in underserved communities is no longer sustainable. The way forward must include healthy living medicine (HLM) as a foundation, at its core promoting physical activity, good nutrition, average body weight, and not smoking. On a systemic level, this cultural change refers to the establishment of policies and practices. The promise or possibility of being is here in Latin America. This approach needs to embrace the concept of social justice so that all individuals in the population have similar opportunities to embrace a healthy lifestyle and minimize the deleterious effects of chronic disease.

What COVID-19 Taught Us About Pedagogy and Social Justice—Pandemic or Not

The COVID-19 pandemic (in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter Movement) exposed pervasive inequities, challenges, and opportunities to explore and implement "best” pedagogical practices to improve how we address social justice issues. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic intensified intergenerational gaps for the already vulnerable, under-resourced, and marginalized in our society. In response, we propose four "best practices” to embrace in our classrooms. These are: (a) fostering flexibility to bridge equity gaps;(b) rethinking the pedagogical panopticon;(c) emphasizing listening to and affirming students' struggles;and (d) employing student-centered accountability. The authors detail some specific inequalities that were brought to the surface during the Spring and Summer of 2020, offer "best practices” in response to such inequities, and stress the need for a student-centered pedagogy that serves to improve teaching and learning not just during a crisis, but also in semesters and years to come.

Public Health Data of the People, by the People, for the People: A Public Health of Consequence, June 2023

The author discusses a study by Krieger and colleagues, published within the issue which presents information on the alarming decreases in response rates across six national U.S. surveys in 2020 compared with those in 2019. Topics include people who were more likely to complete surveys than those who did, importance of the application of an equity-focused lens to data collection, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on response rates.

Holes at the Bottom of the Boat: Disrupting Performative Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Efforts in Libraries in the Wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic

This article seeks to understand the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has tested the effectiveness of library-based equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts. In the early days of the pandemic, libraries closed their doors and pivoted to digital services and programs, resources often inaccessible to BIPOC and low-income users. Since reopening, libraries have found that the lack of diversity in their ranks and information curation is compromising their ability to actualize the equity, diversity, and inclusion goals—objectives that are critical to closing the socioeconomic gaps that the pandemic has only widened. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Library Administration is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Black women and girls: Racism and intersectional oppression

The duel systemic societal harms of the COVID-19 pandemic and violent racial injustice have reexposed centuries-long oppression and violence that affects Black people in the United States. These systemic harms, however, are not unilaterally distributed across racial lines, as Black women and girls endure intersectional oppression, including the unique amalgamation of racism and sexism. It is within these interlocking oppressions that sexual abuse flourishes. This chapter opens with critical visioning regarding how we understand inequality in social justice movements. It introduces scholarship on anti-Black racism, intersectional oppression, and Crenshaw's (1991) theories of intersectionality to frame the contextually oppressive experiences of Black women and girls. The chapter provides an application for examining intersectionality within the field of psychology. It details what such intersectional oppression can actually look like in the lives of Black women and girls. Finally, the chapter closes with summary bullet points of the main takeaway messages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Urban Green Spaces in Brazil: Challenges and Opportunities in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, urban green spaces were considered less prone to contagion, and thus people adopted them as alternative sites for improving mental health. The One Health concept advocated by health organizations worldwide supports the idea that the well-being of urban residents is strongly linked with physical activity in green areas. As the world grapples with the physical and mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it becomes clearer that access to urban green spaces is a human rights issue. This study compared previously-mapped urban green spaces in five metropolitan regions in Brazil with the results of an extensive survey of municipal managers concerning possible increase in demand of population for green spaces. Urban green spaces of over 625 m2 were mapped in 117 municipalities, the total area of 4170 km2 representing 37.4% of the urban spaces analyzed in the five metropolitan regions. Out of these 117 municipalities, 49 had data available concerning demands of green spaces in the pandemic context. Overall, 20 municipalities (representing all five metropolitan regions) stated that there was an increase in visitation in urban green spaces, and 13 more indirectly suggested possible demands. When sustainability transitions are understood as geographical processes that happen in concrete places, urban green spaces then represent real locations where sustainable transitions can begin. The unequal distribution of these spaces also brings into consideration a social justice perspective, as well as aspects of public health that involve climate change resilience and epidemiological risk (SDG 11). © 2023, Scientific Publishing House of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University. All rights reserved.

The Role of Anti-racist Pedagogy and Practices in Professional Development Schools

The recent events of the COVID-19 pandemic, the revision of the National Association for Professional Development Schools' Nine Essentials to be more explicit in their anti-racism/social justice efforts, and the continued racially motivated attacks on Black and Indigenous People of Color, led to questioning and challenging Professional Development Schools (PDS) work because elements of social justice and equity were not always explicit. Literature supports that PDSs can be a site for helping pre-and in-service teachers develop an anti-racist stance. Embedded professional development, coursework, and field experiences in PDSs that enact culturally relevant, culturally sustaining, and equity-based pedagogies can help teachers breach the disconnect between theory and praxis, understand their own biases, disrupt deficit ways of thinking, and design learning experiences to meet the needs of P-12 learners. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Reaching city youth with an online summer arts workshop in Los Angeles

The Summer Arts Workshop (SAW) is a community-based art therapy program with a social justice focus. It has been offered through the Helen B. Landgarten (HBL) Art Therapy Clinic at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) since 2007 in partnership with Dolores Mission School in Boyle Heights, a historically under-resourced part of East Los Angeles. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles, the SAW leadership team adapted the workshop to an online format. The authors took advantage of the online format to extend the reach of the workshop to several school sites in marginalized communities in Los Angeles County, including a juvenile hall high school, which is a prison for youth in a state youth detention centre. The greatest challenge in adapting to an online format was preserving the core component of the workshop: building trust and healthy attachments through expressive art making. The authors overcame this and other challenges and succeeded in providing connecting experiences for participants and facilitators during a time of social isolation and collective anxiety. This chapter shows how teletherapy can bridge gaps of access, particularly for marginalized populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Technology-driven proctoring: Validity, social justice and ethics in higher education

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to rapid change, unprecedented in higher education. One such change has been the almost complete shift to online assessment. The simultaneous employment of online assessment and proctoring has not enjoyed the rigorous academic debate and research traditionally associated with such shifts in academia. This engagement is essential and this article aims to discuss aspects of social justice, ethics and the validity of digital proctoring to the burgeoning debate. Digital proctoring is a lucrative industry (Coghlan Miller & Paterson, 2021), notwithstanding the admitted opportunities for cheating, irrespective of the intensity of overwatch. Digital proctoring is marketed and has become entangled with issues of institutional reputation and the legitimacy of qualifications. The student seems to be a secondary consideration compared to the technocratic digital proctoring arena. However, the introduction of online assessment, specifically with digital proctoring, impacts the assessment's validity by introducing intervening variables into the process. The drive to detect and prevent online cheating has led to algorithmic proliferation. This technologically driven approach has embedded social injustice and questionable ethics and validity into the assessment systems. This article examines the social justice, ethical and validity issues around technological proctoring under the grouped themes: Emotional factors;Racial and/or skin colour;Digital literacy and Technology;and Disability. However, the COVID-19 pandemicdriven shifts have provided the unprecedented opportunity to elevate assessment from recall to critical thinking and applicationbased assessment. An opportunity to ensure that our assessment is valid, assesses higher-order learning, and truly evaluates the concepts we wish to assess.

Topic Summary: Looking Back to Envision the Future: Nursing Now USA as a Vehicle for Advocacy and Change, Part 2

[...]prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which could be described as a waning period, nurses expressed a high level of concern about safe nurse staffing levels, a shortage of nurses, and the quality and safety of patient care. The movement sought a new, more balanced view of nurses' impact on patients and healthcare by stimulating the shift to a state that considers the costs and quality of care simultaneously, and, relative to the nursing workforce, appreciates the value of nurses' contributions to and impact on healthcare and society. [...]these authors call for a realignment of systems and structures within nursing education, practice, and research to build competencies and confidence for nurses to advocate not only for patients, the profession, and the healthcare sector, but most importantly to serve as agents of change for better health of our nation and planet (Oiemeni et al„ 2023). Discussion To put the work of these commissioned papers in context, we draw on the work of Kellerman and Seligman (2023). who recently offered a new typology for creative thinking: * Integration to demonstrate the similarities of different objects or entities that appear different;* Splitting, or teasing apart objects or entities that appear similar to view the differences;* Figure-ground reversal, or appreciating that elements or components of objects or entities deemed essential actually may be hidden, or in the background, rather than superficial or in the foreground;and * Distal thinking, or the imagining of objects and entities as being very different from their present state.

Perspectives and corrective processes: Evaluating social justice in a nursing PhD program.

Efforts to integrate tenets of social justice into PhD nursing programs are long-standing but have intensified in the past few years in response to civil unrest, threats to human rights, and health inequities exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we present an overview of our School of Nursing's efforts and processes to evaluate and ensure that social justice principles were reflected throughout the PhD program. Components of this initiative included (a) forming a Social Justice Taskforce, (b) conducting listening sessions with alumni and currently enrolled PhD students to understand student experiences, (c) surveying PhD students to aid in prioritization of recommendations for improvement, and (d) convening key stakeholders to connect student priority areas to institutional programs and practices. Lessons learned through these activities highlighted the importance of gaining the perspective of diverse constituents and stakeholders, acknowledging areas for improvement, engaging students in transformative action, and partnering with faculty, staff, and leaders in solution development as we work to eliminate systemic injustices in PhD nursing education.

Performance, cultural resistance and social justice: India's creative economies since the COVID-19 pandemic

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global cultural and creative sector has experienced major transformations in the way performances are conceived of, produced, packaged, and sustained. The involuntary shift to the online (and now hybrid) models and platforms of showcasing have compelled artists not just to rethink performance itself but also to address larger global and local socio-political and economic issues. This paper aims to look at two short case studies - dance and theatre - to underscore the transformations in "performance economy" in the pandemic. It considers the adaptability of these forms to newer idioms/platforms, and the creative labour involved in their sustenance through ongoing challenges. The study focusses on interviews of performers, and self-reflexive experiences of pedagogic training as a dancer through online apps. In doing so, the paper asks how cultural resistance, social citizenship and inclusivity in performing arts address questions of labour, inequality, and creative justice.

Social work in the age of disconnection: Narrative case studies

In 2020, social workers stood out as essential, frontline workers. This edited text brings together the stories of nine clinical social workers working during COVID-19, exploring the disconnections caused by a forced use of technology as well as the disconnections apparent in a time of social injustice. In the spirit of tolerating the ambiguous spaces of unknowing, the textbook presents no right answers or specific agendas. Instead, it inspires reader engagement and connective thinking by presenting a series of explorations where writing is as much a method of inquiry as a statement about what is true. This book begins with three accounts of "Connection During Times of Disconnection" in cases that show the ways that young and old have benefited from the technology. Then, in "Ambivalence and Connection through the Screen", the book presents cases that challenge hopeful views, worrying about the unique effects of 21st-century dissociation and disembodiment. Finally, in "Bridging the Gap: Disconnection and Reconnection During Times of Social Change", it explores the disconnection between humans in an age of racial conflict and inequality. Employing narrative strategies to capture this transformative moment of our history, these chapters will explore the effects of technology and social media on psychotherapy, the delivery of services for the chronically mentally ill and elderly, as well as the consequences of recent cultural shifts on our conceptions of gender, sexuality, race, the immigrant experience, and political activism. While traditional research methodologies tend to address social problems as if they were divorced from the lives and experiences of human beings, these chapters employ phenomenological description of how the existing system functions, to identify theory-to-practice gaps and to recover the experiences of the person within the various institutional structures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Futures of Change and Futures of Uncertainty: The Impacts of COVID-19 and Movements for Racial Justice in English Football and NASCAR

The sporting world in a post COVID-19 environment will undergo meaningful changes to many aspects of its existence over the next few years. Structural changes to the sport, fan interaction, fan identity, economic impacts on the local communities, and various changes to the physical landscape, are all issues we are likely to see after sporting leagues resume "normal” operations. This chapter seeks to examine how the COVID-19 virus will impact sports from a geographic perspective. What does an overall structural change to a sport mean for local communities' economy and neighborhood identity? This project will offer a better understanding of the social, racial justice, and economic impacts felt at the local level by examining the English Premier league and NASCAR as barometers. This chapter will compare data collected prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 to data collected after, both datasets dealing with similar issues involved with the sports discussed here. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Taking Class Seriously

This article critically analyzes the human rights perspective upon what has emerged as one of the most significant socioeconomic and political challenges confronting many millions of people residing within high-income, liberal-democratic societies: rising poverty and socioeconomic inequality. This article argues that international and domestic human rights law and the social and political imaginaries of the wider human rights community largely fail to adequately diagnose and effectively respond to poverty and inequality within high-income, liberal-democratic societies. As a political and ethical doctrine founded upon a normative commitment to social justice, human rights should be taking the lead in efforts to condemn, understand, and develop responses to the poverty and inequality which blight the lives of many millions of people within many of the world's most affluent and, allegedly, most "liberal” societies. Human rights law has historically not done so. We, as a community, have not done so. This article offers a specific explanation for this continuing failure, by focusing upon the absence of any concerted recognition of or engagement with social class as it contributes to and compounds our exposure to poverty and inequality. Human rights remain largely blind to the many ways in which social class is intricately connected to poverty and inequality. The human rights community within high-income, liberal-democratic societies characteristically fails to take class seriously. Building upon previous writing in this area, this article explains why class is rarely recognized or engaged with by the human rights community. This article also sets out the basis for how we might begin the task of overcoming this highly damaging class blindness, to set the stage for what the author asserts as an urgent need if human rights is to provide the kind of political and ethical leadership required to effectively engage with poverty and inequality in affluent societies: the degentrification of human rights.