Infusing Social Justice into Decision Sciences Core Courses

Abstract

ABSTRACT We measure the effectiveness of infusing social justice (SJ) issues into undergraduate business core courses in the decision sciences for promoting positive change in students’ attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors toward SJ. SJ issues are infused into the undergraduate business curriculum through five required core courses in the areas of statistics, management science, operations, and information management. Two sections of each course, taught by the same instructor, serve as the experimental (treatment) and control groups, respectively. The strategies used to infuse SJ into experimental sections depend on the subject matter. We use an established social justice scale (SJS), administered at the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the semester, to assess impact. Results reveal a significant treatment effect in the desired direction on both students’ attitudes toward and perceived norms around SJ, but not on their perceived control of, or intentions to engage in, behaviors related to SJ. This finding provides empirical evidence for opportunities to impact students’ attitudes and perceptions about SJ through integration of these issues into existing core courses. However, it indicates that a more holistic approach may be needed to alter their behaviors or actions on behalf of SJ. Our study is novel in its use of decision‐science core courses as the means to integrate SJ into an undergraduate business curriculum.

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