Impacts of Experiencing Social Injustice on Infusing of Social Justice in Rehabilitation Counselor Education Curriculum

Purpose: To examine the extent to which rehabilitation counselor educators understand and are committed to infusing social justice in their curricula, and impacts of personal and social injustice experience along with demographic factors on their infusion of social justice into the rehabilitation curricula. Methods: A quantitative descriptive design using multiple regression was applied. The participants included 101 rehabilitation counselor educators who completed an online survey: Social Justice and Rehabilitation Counseling Questionnaire. Results: The study revealed that the majority of participants deemed integrating of social justice as important and used various infusion strategies. In addition, the study found the impacts of social injustice experiences, along with age, significant in predicting the perception of infusing social justice into rehabilitation curricula. Conclusions: Personal experiences of social injustice of rehabilitation counselor educators along with age influenced the level of perception of importance of infusing social justice into the rehabilitation curricula. The field should focus on training on the awareness and impact of social justice for faculty to ensure students receive the education needed to effectively counsel the rehabilitation consumers