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14 August 2026

14 Pages

Plural Social Justice in the Graduation Profiles of Social Work Programs at Chilean State Universities

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Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Education and Humanities, Universidad del Bío-Bío, Avenida Collao 1202, Concepción 3349001, Bío-Bío, Chile
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Department of Education, Universidad de Los Lagos, Ubaldo Mansilla 131, Castro 5700000, Los Lagos, Chile
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Soc. Sci.2026, 15(8), 548;https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci15080548
This article belongs to the Topic Constructing and (Re)constructing Social Identities in Educational Contexts: Power, Norms, and Resistance
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Abstract

This article analyzes the explicit and implicit presence of social justice in the graduation profiles of Social Work programs at Chilean state universities, as well as the way in which its distributive, recognition, and participatory dimensions are articulated within the declarative curriculum. An exploratory qualitative design was developed based on a comparative documentary analysis of twelve official graduation profiles, retrieved from institutional sources and analyzed through a matrix grounded in a plural conception of social justice. The results show that explicit references to social justice are exceptional and that, more frequently, it is expressed indirectly through references to human rights, public policies, diversity, human development, citizenship, or territory. The distributive dimension shows the greatest operational development, especially through public policies, program management, state action, social equality, and intervention in vulnerable contexts. The recognition dimension appears mainly at a declarative level, linked to diversity, pluralism, interculturality, and gender. The participatory dimension is the least operationalized, with limited references to deliberation, democratic governance, or shared decision-making. The study identifies three profile typologies: distributive-institutional; rights-, diversity-, and recognition-oriented; and relatively integrated profiles of plural social justice. The findings suggest that strengthening curricular coherence may require moving from general normative statements toward competencies, learning outcomes, and assessment criteria capable of integrating redistribution, recognition, and participation in professional education.

1. Introduction

Social Work intervention is closely linked to social justice, as the profession addresses social inequalities, promotes equitable conditions, and seeks to transform the structures that produce exclusion and disadvantage (Atteberry-Ash 2023; Gabel and Mapp 2021; Mulvale 2021; Ruz 2020). In this regard, the International Federation of Social Workers (2018) identifies social justice as a fundamental principle of the profession and situates Social Work practice within the defense and promotion of human rights. However, social justice is not a self-evident or univocal concept. Its meaning varies across theoretical traditions and professional contexts, which makes it necessary to examine how it is translated into curricular and professional training frameworks.
In the Chilean context, Law No. 21,094 establishes a public mandate for state universities and reinforces their role in contributing to the social, cultural, economic, and territorial development of the country (Chile 2018, art. 5). This mandate is particularly relevant for Social Work programs, given their direct relationship with inequality, social intervention, public policies, and the protection of rights. It is also consistent with the ethical principles established by the professional association, which situate Social Work within a normative horizon of human dignity, rights, and social responsibility (Colegio de Trabajadores Sociales de Chile 2014). Nevertheless, Social Work education has also been affected by neoliberal and managerial logics that tend to emphasize technical, administrative, and task-oriented training, which may weaken critical approaches, field education, and the explicit centrality of social justice (Bhuyan et al. 2017; Fenton 2021; Newcomb 2019; Morley et al. 2023).
Although commitment to social justice is widely accepted in Social Work education, persistent discrepancies remain regarding its meaning, scope, and dimensions in higher education (Atteberry-Ash 2023; Bentley et al. 2019; Nicotera 2019). In addition, distributive and capability-based approaches tend to predominate in the conceptualization of social justice (Atteberry-Ash 2023), even though plural approaches emphasize that justice also involves cultural recognition and participation in collective decision-making (Gewirtz and Cribb 2002). This conceptual plurality is especially relevant for the analysis of graduation profiles, since these documents define the expected competencies, ethical orientations, and professional horizons that guide undergraduate training.
Although social justice constitutes a central normative principle in Social Work, its translation into professional analysis, education, and practice remains complex. Conceptually, this requires broadening the frameworks through which justice is understood in Social Work beyond narrow or purely distributive approaches (Banks 2012; Mulvale 2021). In educational terms, contemporary international standards (Council on Social Work Education 2022; Australian Association of Social Workers 2023) have tended to frame social justice and human rights not only as declarative principles, but as orientations that should be translated into competencies, learning outcomes, and assessable forms of professional practice. This requires examining how social justice is incorporated into training processes, since its formal inclusion in curricula may coexist with the reproduction or invisibilization of structural inequalities (Bhuyan et al. 2017; Thyberg 2023).
Recent reviews on social justice teaching in Social Work are particularly relevant because they show that the main challenge is not only to recognize social justice as a professional value, but to translate it into teachable curricula, pedagogical strategies, and assessable competencies. These studies identify active and experiential approaches—such as intergroup dialog, simulation, written reflection, community-engaged learning, and social action-oriented learning—while also noting that the evidence tends to emphasize awareness and knowledge more than applied skill development (Lee et al. 2022, 2024). In Chile, Sanhueza et al. (2024) analyzed graduation profiles in Social Work programs and identified common and differentiating elements, including principles related to human rights and social transformation. However, their study did not examine these profiles through a multidimensional social justice framework or analyze how distributive, recognition, and participatory dimensions are articulated within the declarative curriculum.
Based on this gap, the research problem addressed in this article lies in the limited explicit articulation of social justice in Social Work graduation profiles, which may constrain curricular coherence and hinder the translation of social justice principles into assessable professional competencies. This problem has socio-educational relevance, since Social Work graduates are expected to intervene in contexts marked by inequality, exclusion, diversity, and demands for participation. Accordingly, the study was guided by the following research question: How is social justice incorporated into the graduation profiles of Social Work programs at Chilean state universities, considering its distributive, recognition, and participatory dimensions? The objective of the study was to analyze the explicit and implicit presence of social justice in these profiles and to examine how its dimensions are articulated within the declarative curriculum, using the plural framework proposed by Gewirtz and Cribb (2002).

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1. Social Justice in Social Work Education

Social work aims to empower individuals and communities facing exclusion and vulnerability, addressing inequalities in social, economic, and political spheres and contributing to a more equitable society (Nicotera 2019; Teater and Hannan 2021). This requires highly skilled professionals, not only in technical competencies but also in a deep and committed understanding of the principles of social justice that guide the profession (Bhuyan et al. 2017).
In this context, the field of social justice has expanded and become increasingly complex, particularly through debates on human rights, equity, and diversity. Accordingly, it is essential to strengthen curricular and pedagogical strategies that integrate these issues into social work education (Breen et al. 2023). In particular, education for social justice requires critical reflection and praxis, avoiding the reduction of learning to technical competencies shaped by managerial logics (Bhuyan et al. 2017). Such approaches can also support the linkage between social justice principles and situated intervention decisions, through active and participatory pedagogies such as field education, experiential learning, and collaborative processes (Chen and Tang 2021; Newcomb 2019). Recent reviews indicate that social justice teaching in social work relies primarily on active and experiential strategies—such as case-based learning, community-based learning, intergroup dialog, and simulations—although the evidence more frequently reports gains in awareness and knowledge than in applied skills. This highlights the need to further strengthen evaluation processes and the transfer of learning into practice (Lee et al. 2022, 2024).
The curriculum should therefore incorporate a rights-based approach that fosters critical reflection on power, oppression, and inequalities, and situates these issues within practice contexts to support social justice education (Chen and Tang 2021). In this regard, the need for formative frameworks that address these contents in a transversal manner has been emphasized, ensuring that human rights and social justice are integrated in a planned and coherent way across both the explicit and implicit curriculum, thereby supporting their understanding and application (Cox et al. 2021). In addition, there is a need to incorporate diversity and intersectionality while strengthening critical reflexivity in relation to biases and cultural worldviews, in order to sustain anti-oppressive approaches in practice (Bhuyan et al. 2017). At the same time, to guide ethical decision-making and practices consistent with the mission of social work, training must enhance capacities for critical analysis of the sociopolitical context, taking into account the implications of dominant narratives and institutional frameworks that place pressure on professional values (Fenton 2021).

2.2. Social Justice: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations

In social work, the notion of social justice is grounded in diverse theoretical traditions. From a Rawlsian perspective, distributive justice is guided by the difference principle, which permits inequalities only if they benefit those most disadvantaged, alongside the requirement of equal opportunity. This framework provides a normative basis for understanding distribution, redistribution, and policies aimed at reducing well-being gaps (Mulvale 2021; Ruz 2020). The capability approach, developed by Sen and Nussbaum, shifts the focus of justice from the mere availability of goods or resources to individuals’ real capabilities and opportunities to lead dignified lives and participate fully in society, emphasizing the removal of barriers that constrain these possibilities (Atteberry-Ash 2023).
From gender studies, intersectionality posits that inequalities are produced through the interrelation of multiple social divisions, such as class, ethnicity, and gender, which complicates dynamics of belonging in culturally diverse contexts (Yuval-Davis 2011). The theory of recognition emphasizes the need to articulate redistribution and recognition in order to address economic, cultural, and symbolic injustices (Fraser 2008). In dialog with these perspectives, the structural approach locates injustice within macro-level processes, including the effects of capitalism and neoliberal policies, and guides professional action toward transformative responses that go beyond individualizing interventions (Mulvale 2021). This field is further complemented by a human rights perspective, which links social justice to dignity and the realization of rights, highlighting the equitable distribution of resources and power, as well as participatory processes aimed at claiming them (Mapp et al. 2019). It is also enriched by approaches centered on active participation and empowerment, which emphasize the involvement of individuals and communities in decision-making processes that affect their lives and the development of capabilities to influence collective outcomes (Casquilho-Martins et al. 2020).
Finally, Gewirtz and Cribb (2002) conceptualize social justice as a plural and multidimensional construct. They argue that the distribution of resources alone is insufficient, and that cultural recognition and participation in collective decision-making are also essential. These authors propose three interrelated dimensions: (a) distributive, referring to the fair allocation of resources and opportunities; (b) recognition, concerning the valuation and respect of identities, cultures, and ways of life; and (c) participatory (or associative), involving full participation in decisions that affect people’s lives.

2.3. Graduation Profiles and Social Justice in Professional Education

In higher education, particularly in social work, graduation profiles constitute a central component of the declarative curriculum, as they explicitly define the competencies, knowledge, and ethical-professional orientations that students are expected to develop by the end of their training (Comisión Nacional de Acreditación 2008; Sanhueza et al. 2024). From a social justice perspective, these curricular devices are not neutral, as they shape particular ways of understanding professional intervention and positioning oneself in relation to social inequalities (Apple 2019; Dominelli 2010; Ferguson 2008). In this sense, graduation profiles not only guide the organization of training processes but also delimit the frameworks through which the dimensions of redistribution, recognition, and participation are articulated within professional education.

3. Materials and Methods

This study followed an exploratory qualitative design (Castellví et al. 2023; Creswell and Creswell 2022), based on documentary analysis (Bowen 2009). Documentary analysis was considered appropriate because the object of study was not classroom practices or students’ experiences, but rather the declarative curriculum expressed in institutional graduation profiles. These profiles are official curricular documents that define the expected competencies, knowledge, skills, and ethical-professional orientations that students should develop by the end of their undergraduate training (Comisión Nacional de Acreditación 2008; Sanhueza et al. 2024).
The corpus consisted of the graduation profiles available at the time of corpus construction for Social Work programs offered by Chilean state universities. The study was deliberately limited to the state-university subsystem. This decision was based on the fact that Chilean state universities share a specific public mandate under Law No. 21,094 and form part of a legally and institutionally defined sector of higher education. Therefore, the study does not seek to represent the entire Chilean university system, which also includes private universities, but rather to analyze how social justice is articulated within the declarative curriculum of Social Work programs located in public state institutions. At the time of corpus construction, twelve state universities offered Social Work programs with publicly available graduation profiles that met the inclusion criteria.
The inclusion criteria were the following: (a) the institution had to be a Chilean state university; (b) the institution had to offer an undergraduate Social Work program; (c) the graduation profile had to be available through an official institutional source, such as the university website, a faculty or school website, the undergraduate program page, or an institutional admission platform; and (d) the document had to contain a textual description of the graduation profile or equivalent expected graduate attributes. The exclusion criteria were: (a) institutions outside the state-university subsystem; (b) programs not corresponding to undergraduate Social Work training; (c) non-official promotional materials without a graduation profile; and (d) documents that only described admission requirements, employability, or general program information without specifying expected graduate competencies or orientations.
The final corpus included twelve documents, one for each Social Work program analyzed. In all cases, the documents corresponded to official institutional descriptions of the graduation profile, understood as curricular texts that define the expected attributes of graduates. To increase transparency and reproducibility, the corpus was systematized in a documentary record that included the institutional code, university name, source type, document or web section consulted, URL, and retrieval date. In the Section 4, universities were coded from 01 to 12 in order to ensure analytical prudence and avoid unnecessary institutional exposure in comparative interpretations.
The analysis was organized using a matrix derived from the theoretical framework, particularly from the plural conception of social justice proposed by Gewirtz and Cribb (2002). This framework distinguishes three interrelated dimensions: distributive justice, recognition, and participatory or associative justice. The matrix made it possible to identify explicit references to social justice, implicit references associated with related concepts, and the specific ways in which each dimension was expressed in the graduation profiles. In addition, cross-cutting emphases were recorded when they operated as normative or contextual frameworks for social justice, such as human rights, ethical-political commitment, and territorial engagement.
The analytical process was developed in four stages, as presented in Table 1. First, all documents were read in full to identify the general structure, institutional language, and main professional orientations of each graduation profile. Second, units of meaning were identified in each text. These units corresponded to phrases, sentences, or fragments referring to social justice, human rights, equity, diversity, public policy, participation, democracy, citizenship, territory, ethical commitment, or related professional orientations. Third, the units of meaning were coded according to the categories and subcategories defined in the analytical matrix. This stage followed a predominantly deductive logic, since the main categories were derived from the theoretical framework, but it also incorporated an inductive component to capture variations, emphases, and emergent formulations in the profiles (Hsieh and Shannon 2005; Krippendorff 2019). During this stage, coded units and category boundaries were iteratively reviewed to strengthen analytical coherence among the analytical matrix, selected excerpts, and the subsequent typological classification. Fourth, a cross-case comparison was conducted to identify patterns of presence, density, and articulation among the dimensions of social justice.
Table 1. Analytical Matrix.
The full documentary corpus is provided as Supplementary Table S1. University names are included in the Supplementary Material only for documentary traceability, while the Section 4 uses case codes to avoid unnecessary evaluative exposure of individual institutions.
Since the study analyzed publicly available institutional documents and did not involve interaction with individuals or the processing of personal or sensitive data, no relevant ethical risks were identified.

4. Results

4.1. Direct and Indirect Presence of Social Justice

The explicit mention of social justice in the graduation profiles is exceptional. Only two profiles refer directly to the concept. Case 04 states that the graduate “promotes social justice, equity and human rights” in diverse sociocultural contexts. Case 10, for its part, declares an “option for social justice as an ethical-political horizon” of professional intervention. In both cases, social justice appears associated with broader normative frameworks, especially equity, human rights, and ethical-political commitment.
In the remaining profiles, social justice is not named directly, but is expressed through associated dimensions and conceptual frameworks. These include public and social policies, equality, redistribution, human development, diversity, interculturality, gender, human rights, citizenship, democracy, community agency, territorial engagement, and social transformation. Thus, social justice operates more frequently as an implicit curricular horizon than as an explicitly defined professional principle.

4.2. Relative Presence of Social Justice Dimensions

The distributive dimension shows the strongest relative presence in the profiles analyzed. It is expressed mainly through references to public policies, program management, social equality, redistribution, human development, and intervention in vulnerable contexts. This is observed in formulations such as “know, implement and evaluate public and social policy” and “thus promoting social equality” (01), “recognizing the socio-historical processes that influence inequalities” (03), “management and evaluation of social programs and projects” (05), “engage with the State through social policies” and “systematically address socially vulnerable scenarios” (06), “social redistribution” and institutions that “design, evaluate and implement public policies” (09), and “design and implementation of public policies at local, regional and national levels” (11).
The recognition dimension shows a relevant presence at the declarative level. It is expressed through references to diversity, pluralism, interculturality, gender, subjects, and contexts. Among the most relevant formulations are “valuing social and cultural diversity” (01), “subjects and their contexts” (03), “valuation and intercultural integration” (04), “gender perspective” and “diversity” (07), “context of interculturality” (08), “recognition of all its citizens” (09), “respect for diversity” (11), and “respect for diversity” and “pluralism” (12).
The participatory or associative dimension appears less developed and less operationalized than the distributive and recognition dimensions. It is expressed through references to autonomy, protagonism, community agency, substantive democracy, civil society, social movements, citizenship, and civic education. Examples include “autonomy and protagonism of people” (03), “training in community agency” (06), “substantive democracy” (09), “civil society and social movements” (10), “democracy, citizenship” and “strengthens civic education processes” (11), and “participation and civic education” (12).
In addition, three cross-cutting frameworks were identified that are articulated with these dimensions and support the profiles: human rights, the ethical-political horizon, and territorial engagement. Human rights appear in profiles that mention the “promotion of human rights” (02), a “rights-based perspective” (03), “social justice, equity and human rights” (04), “human rights” (07), the “defense of human rights” (10), and “human rights” in connection with democracy and citizenship (11). The ethical-political horizon appears in cases 09 and 10, through references to “ethical and political commitment” and to social justice as an “ethical-political horizon”. Territorial engagement is observed in references to “local and regional development” (01), the “regional and national level” emphasis (02), “urban and rural communities” (05), and public policies at “local, regional and national levels” (11).
The findings suggest an asymmetrical articulation of social justice. The distributive dimension is the most developed. Recognition is visible, but remains mainly at a declarative level. Participation is observed in several profiles, although with limited procedural development.

4.3. Composition of the Dimensions

The internal composition of the dimensions shows relevant differences. In the distributive dimension, references to public policies and management predominate, such as “design, evaluate and implement public policies” (09), “management and evaluation of social programs and projects” (05), and “engage with the State through social policies” (06). References to equity, equality, redistribution, and human development are also present, as in “thus promoting social equality” (01), “social justice, equity” (04), “human development” (08), and “social redistribution” (09). In contrast, the structural emphasis appears more limited and is concentrated especially in references to “social transformation” and to “socio-historical processes that influence inequalities” (03).
In the recognition dimension, a language of openness and respect for diversity predominates, expressed in statements such as “valuing social and cultural diversity” (01) and “subjects and their contexts” (03). References to interculturality, such as “valuation and intercultural integration” (04) and work in a “context of interculturality” (08), and to gender, such as “gender perspective” (07), are present but remain limited. No explicit formulations of anti-racism were identified, and references to discrimination do not constitute an operational anti-discrimination approach in the graduation profiles.
In the participatory or associative dimension, aspirational references to citizenship and democracy predominate, such as “substantive democracy” (09) and “participation and civic education” (12). Mentions of social agency are also observed, such as “autonomy and protagonism” (03) and the reference to “formulating and implementing proposals for their confrontation from the field of social policies, civil society and social movements” (10). Community participation appears in references such as “training in community agency” (06). However, there is no evidence of binding deliberation, shared decision-making, or democratic governance, which shows that participation is present but weakly operationalized. Participation is usually formulated as a value, orientation, or field of action, rather than as an explicit professional competency of deliberation, influence, or shared decision-making.
The cross-cutting frameworks reinforce the normative and situated character of the profiles. Human rights provide a normative basis in several cases; the ethical-political horizon gives greater normative density in cases 09 and 10; and territorial engagement operates as contextual anchoring in cases 01, 02, 05 and 11. These frameworks do not replace the distributive, recognition, and participatory dimensions, but rather support or qualify the ways in which social justice is articulated within the declarative curriculum.

4.4. Typologies in the Articulation of Social Justice

Based on the cross-case comparison, three typologies of graduation profiles were identified according to the predominant configuration of social justice in each profile (Table 2). These typologies should not be understood as closed or mutually exclusive categories, since several profiles include references to more than one dimension. Rather, they identify the main way in which social justice is organized in each graduation profile. The distribution reported below is descriptive and qualitative; its purpose is to clarify the configuration of the corpus, not to establish statistical generalization.
Table 2. Distribution of Profile Typologies.
(a)
Distributive-institutional profiles: Distributive-institutional profiles were identified in three cases (01, 05 and 06). In these profiles, the main emphasis is placed on public policies, program management, state action, social equality, human development, and intervention in vulnerable contexts. Case 01 combines the capacity to “know, implement and evaluate public and social policy” with an orientation toward “social equality” and “local and regional development”. Case 05 emphasizes “human development”, intervention with “family, groups and urban and rural communities”, and the “management and evaluation of social programs and projects”. Case 06 centers professional action on “engage with the State through social policies” and “systematically address socially vulnerable scenarios”. Although this latter case includes “community agency”, its main configuration remains distributive-institutional, because the participatory reference appears subordinated to social intervention linked to the State and social policies.
(b)
Rights-, diversity-, and recognition-oriented profiles: Rights-, diversity-, and recognition-oriented profiles were identified in four cases (02, 04, 07 and 08). These profiles are organized mainly around normative and recognition-related frameworks. Case 02 emphasizes the “promotion of human rights” and the “regional and national level” emphasis, although it does not develop distributive, recognition, or participatory dimensions in detail. Case 04 explicitly links “social justice, equity and human rights” with “valuation and intercultural integration”. Case 07 emphasizes “gender perspective”, “diversity”, and “human rights”. Case 08 combines “human development” with a “context of interculturality”. In this typology, social justice is expressed mainly as a horizon based on rights, sensitivity to diversity, or recognition, while participation remains absent or weakly developed.
(c)
Relatively integrated profiles of plural social justice: Relatively integrated profiles of plural social justice were identified in five cases (03, 09, 10, 11 and 12). These profiles articulate several dimensions or frameworks of social justice with greater density. Case 03 combines “social transformation”, “socio-historical processes that influence inequalities”, “subjects and contexts”, “autonomy and protagonism”, and a “rights-based perspective”. Case 09 is one of the clearest examples of integration, as it includes “social redistribution”, public policies, “recognition of all its citizens”, “substantive democracy”, and “ethical and political commitment”. Case 10 integrates social policies, “civil society and social movements”, “defense of human rights”, and social justice as an “ethical-political horizon”. Although it does not include a clear recognition code, it articulates distributive, participatory, rights-based, and ethical-political components. Case 11 combines public policies, “respect for diversity”, “democracy, citizenship”, “human rights”, civic education, territorial development, and community strengthening. Case 12, although more concise, brings together “social intervention in dialog with public policies”, “participation and civic education”, “respect for diversity”, solidarity, and “pluralism”.
Overall, the typologies confirm that social justice is not incorporated homogeneously in the graduation profiles. The distributive-institutional configuration maintains a relevant presence, especially through public policies, program management, and intervention linked to the State. Rights-, diversity-, and recognition-oriented formulations provide a normative and cultural horizon in several profiles. Relatively integrated profiles show more complex articulations among dimensions, but even in these cases participation tends to be less operationalized than redistribution and recognition. In particular, the absence of explicit references to deliberation, governance, or shared decision-making indicates that the participatory dimension remains the weakest component of plural social justice in the declarative curriculum.

5. Discussion

The low explicit mention of “social justice” and its displacement toward references such as human rights, public policies, or diversity is consistent with the literature, which highlights persistent discrepancies regarding its meaning and dimensions in higher education, even when commitment to it is widely declared (Atteberry-Ash 2023; Bentley et al. 2019; Nicotera 2019). This suggests that social justice operates more as a general horizon than as a clearly delimited construct within the declarative curriculum. In this sense, the findings underscore the importance of not only considering its explicit mention, but also examining how its dimensions—redistribution, recognition, and participation—are articulated within the curriculum, as noted by Gewirtz and Cribb (2002) and Walker (2010). This reading becomes more relevant in light of contemporary international competency-based training frameworks, which situate social justice and human rights not only as declarative principles, but as orientations that should be translated into learning outcomes, competencies, and assessable forms of professional practice (Council on Social Work Education 2022; Australian Association of Social Workers 2023). In this framework, the results also link with Sanhueza et al. (2024), who identify the presence of principles linked to human rights, professional ethics, and social transformation in Social Work graduation profiles in Chile, although without analyzing them through a multidimensional social justice matrix.
The greater operational presence of the distributive dimension, expressed mainly through the management, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies, is related to the centrality that distributive and capability-based approaches have had in the conceptualization of social justice (Atteberry-Ash 2023), as well as to traditions centered on resources, opportunities, and the reduction in inequalities (Mulvale 2021; Ruz 2020). This emphasis reflects the weight of a programmatic and institutional logic that situates professional intervention in relation to the State, public policies, and social intervention devices. In this context, distributive-institutional profiles reinforce an understanding of professional action associated with the management of policies and programs, while the dimensions of recognition and participation tend to appear with lower operational development. Nevertheless, this programmatic orientation may also intensify the tension identified in the literature between critical training and technocratic or task-oriented frameworks, limiting the capacity to sustain professional values in demanding institutional contexts (Bhuyan et al. 2017; Fenton 2021; Newcomb 2019; Morley et al. 2023).
Regarding the recognition dimension, the findings show a relevant declarative presence of references to diversity, respect, interculturality, and gender, although with uneven development. These references remain mainly at the level of openness and respect for diversity, with less explicitness of frameworks oriented toward confronting processes of devaluation, discrimination, racism, or symbolic inequality. This is relevant because a plural conception of social justice requires articulating redistribution and recognition (Fraser 2008), understanding inequalities from an intersectional perspective (Yuval-Davis 2011), and sustaining anti-oppressive approaches through critical reflexivity in professional education (Bhuyan et al. 2017). Along these lines, recent discussions on anti-oppressive education in Social Work warn that diversity should not remain merely as cultural sensitivity or a declarative value, but should be linked to power analysis, institutional critique, and professional capacities to identify and challenge oppressive social and institutional arrangements (Thyberg 2023). From this perspective, the limited operationalization of anti-discrimination, anti-racism, and intersectionality in the profiles analyzed evidences a gap between the declarative recognition of diversity and the development of competencies oriented toward anti-oppressive practice.
Participation emerges as the least operationalized dimension in the profiles analyzed. The evidence shows references to values or orientations such as citizenship, democracy, autonomy, community agency, civil society, and social movements, but with less development of mechanisms associated with deliberation, influence, or shared decision-making. In this sense, the absence of mentions of binding deliberative processes or democratic governance indicates a limited operationalization of this dimension in the graduation profiles. This situation is particularly problematic for a plural conception of social justice, which requires active participation in collective decisions as a constitutive component (Gewirtz and Cribb 2002). Within this framework, social justice is linked to empowerment, collective agency, and social influence (Mapp et al. 2019; Casquilho-Martins et al. 2020). In addition, this finding links with recent reviews on the teaching of social justice in Social Work, which show that pedagogical strategies tend to report greater advances in awareness and knowledge than in applied skills (Lee et al. 2022, 2024). Therefore, when participation remains formulated mainly as a value, orientation, or aspiration, the risk of a gap between normative commitment and competencies transferable to practice is reinforced, such as deliberation, influence, community co-production, or shared decision-making.
Taken together, the discussion shows that the graduation profiles analyzed incorporate social justice in a partial and asymmetrical manner. The distributive dimension shows greater operational development, that recognition appears with strong declarative presence but with less critical specification, and that participation constitutes the least proceduralized component. This configuration strains the possibility of understanding social justice as a plural construct fully integrated into the declarative curriculum. From a curricular perspective, the challenge is not only to mention social justice or associate it with human rights, diversity, or public policies, but to translate its dimensions into professional competencies, learning outcomes, and assessment criteria capable of guiding training and its transfer to practice.

6. Conclusions

This study shows that social justice is incorporated partially and asymmetrically in the graduation profiles of Social Work programs at Chilean state universities. Its explicit mention is exceptional and, in most cases, it appears displaced toward associated frameworks, such as human rights, public policies, diversity, human development, citizenship, or territory. This configuration confirms that social justice operates mainly as an implicit normative horizon, rather than as a clearly defined and operationalized curricular principle.
The findings allow the identification of three modes of articulation of social justice in the declarative curriculum. First, distributive-institutional profiles express social justice mainly through public policies, program management, state action, social equality, and intervention in vulnerable contexts. Second, rights-, diversity-, and recognition-oriented profiles emphasize human rights, interculturality, gender, diversity, and human development, although with less development of participatory mechanisms. Third, relatively integrated profiles of plural social justice articulate distributive, recognition, participatory, ethical-political, and territorial components with greater density. However, even in these cases, participation appears less operationalized than redistribution and recognition.
The main contribution of the study is to show that the presence of social justice in graduation profiles cannot be evaluated only by its explicit mention. It also requires examining how its distributive, recognition, and participatory dimensions are articulated in the declarative curriculum. From the plural framework of Gewirtz and Cribb (2002), the results show that Social Work education faces the challenge of moving from general normative statements toward assessable professional competencies capable of integrating redistribution, recognition, and participation in intervention contexts marked by inequality, exclusion, and diversity.
In curricular terms, these findings suggest the need to review the coherence among graduation profiles, learning outcomes, undergraduate courses or modules, and assessment criteria. This review should especially consider courses linked to social policies, social and community intervention, professional ethics, human rights, diversity, interculturality, gender, citizenship, participation, and professional practice. In these formative spaces, social justice should not be limited to a declarative value, but should be translated into concrete capacities to analyze inequalities, recognize forms of cultural and symbolic exclusion, promote substantive participation, influence collective processes, and sustain professional practices consistent with a horizon of plural social justice.
The study presents limitations that must be considered. Because it is based exclusively on graduation profiles available from public institutional sources, the results allow the analysis of the declarative curriculum, but do not allow establishing how social justice is taught, experienced, assessed, or effectively translated into formative practice. Nor is it possible, based on these documents, to determine the degree of coherence among profiles, study plans, course syllabi, professional placements, and the experiences of students and faculty.
Therefore, future research should triangulate the analysis of graduation profiles with study plans, course syllabi, professional placement devices, assessment instruments, and the perspectives of program directors or heads, faculty, students, placement supervisors, and graduates. This line of inquiry would make it possible to understand in greater depth how the distributive, recognition, and participatory dimensions of social justice materialize in curricular decisions, formative experiences, pedagogical processes, and professional practices within Social Work education.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/socsci15080548/s1, Table S1. Documentary corpus of graduation profiles analyzed.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, C.O.F., R.S.J. and L.R.P.; methodology, C.O.F. and K.L.J.; formal analysis, C.O.F., R.S.J. and J.S.V.; investigation, C.O.F. and L.R.P.; data curation, C.O.F. and J.S.V.; writing-original draft preparation, C.O.F., R.S.J. and J.S.V.; writing-review and editing, C.O.F., J.S.V., R.S.J. and K.L.J.; project administration, C.O.F. and L.R.P. contributed to investigation. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Directorate of Research and Artistic Creation of the University of Bío-Bío, Chile, under the project “Learning about Social Justice Derived from the Formative Process in Social Work”, grant number DU2433410. The APC was funded by the University of Bío-Bío.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Ethical review and approval were waived for this study due to the use of publicly available institutional documents and the absence of interaction with human participants or processing of sensitive data.

Data Availability Statement

The documentary corpus analyzed in this study is provided in Supplementary Table S1. The original institutional sources are indicated where available; however, web-based graduation profiles may be updated over time.

Acknowledgments

During the preparation of this manuscript, the authors used ChatGPT-5.5, developed by OpenAI, to support the organization and linguistic refinement of Table 1 in the Section 3 and Table 2 in the Section 4, as well as to facilitate the translation and editing of selected sections of the manuscript. Its use was limited to organizational, drafting, and linguistic support. The identification of units of meaning; the coding process; the construction and validation of the typologies; the interpretation of the findings; and the final revision of all generated content were carried out exclusively by the authors, who take full responsibility for the final version of this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

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