A New Way Forward for Social Justice Researchers: Development and Validation of the Social Justice Behavior Scale

Year 2019, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 303 - 346, 15.11.2019

Lee D. Flood

https://doi.org/10.30828/real/2019.2.4

Cited By: 3

Abstract

Despite
social justice leadership receiving an increasing amount of attention by
researchers, a methodological imbalance with qualitative inquiries dominating
the existing empirical literature base persists. Compounding this issue is the
lack of a discipline-specific, quantitative instrument made for the exact
purpose of exploring the nature of social justice leadership. This study aimed
to answer the calls of a number of scholars (Jean-Marie, Normore, & Brooks,
2009; Nilsson, Marszalek, Linnemeyer, Bahner, & Misialek, 2011; Otunga,
2009) by developing and validating a scale. The Social Justice Behavior Scale
(SJBS) was developed through the creation of items based on a literature
review, informed directly by a meta-analysis, and refined through the Delphi Technique.
Surveys were digitally distributed to principals in the United States. The
final dataset consisted of 227 principals from 27 states. Following a principal
components analysis with oblimin rotation, the SJBS was found to have three
components made up of 23 items that accounted for 62.16% of the total variance.
Cronbach’s alpha for the entire instrument was .933. The SJBS shows promise as
a quantitative research instrument moving forward. Future recommendations
include collecting additional data for confirmatory analyses, distributing the
instrument in additional contexts, and bolstering future investigations into
social justice leadership through the use of the SJBS as a research tool.

Keywords

Social justice, quantitative, principal, leadership, principal behaviors

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