Tui tui tuituia - Weaving together: What can be generalized from these articles?

Abstract

As has been often acknowledged amid the articles presented in this JELPP special issue, the impetus for its focus on leadership for social justice arose out of the editors' involvement in the international research project exploring the same phenomenon. One of the key questions guiding this particular international research project is: How can an international and comparative research enhance our understanding of what social justice leadership means in different national contexts? To date, this research project has attracted the involvement of some 36 universities across 25 different countries. Indeed, there are research sites in each and every continent. It seems that the issue of social justice, and how it can be proclaimed and established through suitable leadership, has become a global concern. Arguably, there is growing scepticism about the panacean social benefits of neo-liberal economic policies. Despite the economic influence of such policies for more than 20 years, people are not witnessing the heralded social benefits of a free market. Quite the contrary, it seems that the rich are getting richer and more people are becoming disadvantaged (OECD, 2011). Now it seems that rather than leaving socially just outcomes to the insentient vagaries of national economic policies, a significant number of people around the world are striving to reclaim this perceived essential human responsibility. Thus, a laudable aim of this international research project is, first, to understand what constitutes leadership for social justice and then, provided there are discernible universal norms and principles, propose ways in which such leadership can be nurtured and enhanced. Surely any means for broadening and hastening the spread of leadership for social justice is a worthwhile achievement.