High school students perceptions of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice: an exploratory study of justice with correlates of counterproductive and withdrawal behaviors
Year: 2012
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This study explored a construct seldom acknowledged in high school contexts in the United States: organizational justice. Organizational justice is a construct that refers to perceptions of justice in the workplace. Contrary to examining the justice perceptions of employees as is customary with this construct, this study examined the three most ubiquitous dimensions of organizational justice through the lens of California Central Valley high school students. Distributive justice refers to the fairness of the distribution of resources and outcomes (e.g., grades and punishments). Procedural justice refers to the fairness of the processes that are utilized to make decisions and arrive at outcomes. Interactional justice refers to the quality of interpersonal treatment that individuals receive. This triangulation mixed methods study examined student perceptions of justice, alluding to teachers as the distributors of outcomes, decision-makers, and the persons in positions of authority who determine the quality of interpersonal treatment that students receive. This study had two main parts. Part 1 examined differences in justice perceptions in an array of group disaggregations. Part 1 also examined the effect of perceived justice on student withdrawal and counterproductive behaviors. Part 2 examined high school students' conceptualization of injustice, feelings that are triggered from perceived injustice, and reactions to perceived injustice. This study utilized a variety of newly- developed instruments. Extensive quantitative in addition to qualitative methods were used. Findings indicated that perceptions of justice varied by ethnicity, grade in high school, academic subject, and by achievement and behavior status, but not by gender. Justice perceptions were also found to be significant predictors of withdrawal behaviors: continuance commitment and intentions to drop out. Interactional justice was found to be a significant predictor of defiance as a counterproductive behavior. Findings also indicated that perceptions of injustice triggered an array of negative feelings and reactions from students.
Author: Rodriguez, Carmen
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1692759995