A new way forward for social justice researchers: Development and validation of the social justice behavior scale

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.