Social Issues Are the Cutting Edges of Social Change

Social issues are the cutting edge of changes that are continuously emerging within all societies. Social issues express the interests of groups competing for resources perceived to be essential to meet basic human needs. Accommodations reached among competing interest groups over social issues involve compromise and often are only partially satisfactory. The way in which social issues are negotiated often proves to be even more important than the arrangements that are produced. This means that human dignity, mutual respect, and basic trust between groups is a powerful factor in determining the degree of acceptance and satisfaction with the outcomes of new social issues arrangements.

Social issues explored in the book Journeys into Justice include those that involve basic human needs. The book explores the positive characteristics of religious collaboratives as a form of social organization for dealing with social issues. The collaboratives maximized cooperation, social inclusiveness, trust-building, and the sharing of resources in order to secure justice especially for groups that have been marginalized, oppressed, and denied justice.  The book describes collaborative work on social issues including immigration, affordable rental housing with supportive services, organizing agricultural workers, raising the minimum wage, reforming the juvenile justice system, environmental responsibility, and educating the public for effective legislative advocacy.

The ten case histories in the book tell the social issues stories of how collaborative work has enabled marginalized groups to achieve amazing success in gaining more equitable and humane goals of social transformation. Collaborative social issues movements for justice are organized to produce improved life for thousands of people.

 

Want to read more about turning social issues into social transformation? Get your copy of Journeys into Justice today!