Rutilio Grande, S.J. was the first priest assassinated in El Salvador on March 12, 1977. He was targeted for his work with the poor as he applied Vatican II and the Medellín conference to his own reality in El Salvador. Grande’s progressive, creative and ultimately transformative ministry with the rural poor was aided by the UCA Jesuits with whom he partnered. Through his pastoral strategy of listening to communities, using the social sciences to understand their reality and embracing a pedagogy of conscientization, Grande challenged traditional pastoral strategies in El Salvador by collaborating with the UCA Jesuits. Ultimately, these commitments to helping Grande organize and educate rural agricultural workers contributed to government persecution and their eventual death at the hands of the Salvadoran military.

This article analyzes the movement seeking to improve labor and human rights protections for domestic workers in the U.S. Drawing on theoretical formulations from the social movement literature, the article develops a theoretically informed account of the ways in which the movement was effective in engaging domestic workers and securing a number of political and legislative victories in recent years. I argue that organizing efforts that provide members of marginalized groups, such as domestic workers, opportunities to meet and interact and that focus on leadership development and empowerment can help create an oppositional consciousness and a group perspective among group members and increase their level of political engagement. I demonstrate that this was the case for the domestic worker movement in the U.S. This case study provides an example of how social movements can provide representation to marginalized groups and bring about progressive change in social policy.

This paper presents qualitative data gleaned from four New York City elementary classrooms and focuses on how teachers attempt, each in their own distinct way, to create educational cultures of peace. Here, classroom vignettes are reconstructed from two months of observational and interview data with attention to how teacher beliefs on peaceful co-existence manifest in the playing field of a child’s subject formation. Drawing from Judith Butler’s concept of subjectification, this study asks: what conditions of possibility do teachers conceive of when thinking about peace in their classrooms? Findings show that teachers create conditions that emerge from their particular theories about children and understandings of peace. The four classrooms presented in this paper suggest to students in four different ways that peace is emergent from and located within specific relationships: namely that between the self and others; the self and law; the self and society; and, finally, within oneself.

This article attempts to articulate an understanding of the Augustinian value of Caritas as a call for Augustinian Institutions of Higher Education to promote justice and equity in the world. The author grounds this definition of Caritas by incorporating three primary concepts of Catholic Social Teaching: the dignity of the human person, concern for the common good and a preferential option for the poor and marginalized in society. The article attempts to apply this definition of the value of Augustinian Caritas to the ways in which a concern for social justice and equity is promoted and practiced in an undergraduate teacher preparation program in an Augustinian educational institution.

This article provides a review of sociology student’s reflection papers discussing their service-learning hours with the College Brides Walk (CBW). CBW is a campus-community collaboration in its fifth year. Based in South Florida, the initiative is intended to help raise awareness about domestic and dating violence and to inspire a community response. It is designed as a form of Human Rights Education (HRE). Student papers show that most gained knowledge of sociological concepts and theories as well as personal insights through their participation. Many also expressed desire for continued effort with this or related initiatives. Despite these positive findings, the paper shows that there are significant differences in how students connect their service to course material and gaps in students’ ability to articulate what has been learned. Recommendations for organizers and others involved in similar campaigns are provided.

Joel Spring’s proposal, for a human rights education and an education in human rights, based on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, assumes an autonomous, rational subject that is endowed with rights; which owns rights. We can think of two standpoints that are unsatisfied or offended by this construction of justice around individual humans: poststructuralists and deep ecologists. Inspired by Spring’s project, we have been considering a mindful education and an education in mindfulness as a “universally applicable” education that does not require a rational subject.