Emerging leadership opportunities for professional communication: Integrating social justice into research and across the curriculum

Previous research has indicated that in professional communication research, social justice principles play substantive yet often veiled, tacit roles. For instance, residing within professional communication research on matters of public policy are multiple opportunities to meaningfully engage social justice principles. Beyond research, additional engagement opportunities exist within professional communication instruction. The dearth of explicit accentuation of social justice principles in professional communication scholarship and perhaps also teaching raises important questions: How can professional communication researchers and instructors redefine and transcend the borders between their work and social justice? In what ways are professional communication scholars and practitioners uniquely situated to forge explicit connections between their work and social justice? How might professional communication faculty transcend teaching highly utilitarian courses? How might instructional content on broad social justice impacts enrich and enliven professional communication instruction? After providing social justice definitions, this paper focuses on answers to those questions. Each professional communication researcher or instructor role is buffeted by a brief explanation of specific cases in which connecting explicitly to social justice constructs would expand and enhance research or teaching. Professional risks and benefits for making such linkages are also discussed.