The Jesuit Social Justice Dialectic within the Cristo Rey School Model

This article reports findings from a qualitative case study of a Cristo Rey Jesuit high school. The Jesuit social justice dialectic strives to maintain a balance between the preservation of the virtue of the Jesuit mission and the selling of the Jesuit brand. The Jesuit mission consists of Catholic evangelization through cultural immersion and social justice. The Jesuit brand consists of the accumulation of financial wealth and political influence essential to the ambitions of the Jesuit mission coming to fruition. This journal article explores this Jesuit social justice dialectic in action looking at the corporate work-study program utilized in the sustainability of the Cristo Rey school model. This innovative student work program ensures the political, economic sustainability of the Cristo Rey model (the Jesuit brand) so that it can provide accessibility to a population severely underrepresented in traditional US Jesuit education (the Jesuit mission). This article explores the complexity of this Jesuit social justice dialectic through the corporate work-study program in Cristo Rey education that include the benefits of collaboration and the challenges of parochialism