The research project “Social justice, civic commitment and critical concience in teenagers and young people” (PICT 2019-0047), directed by Alicia Barreiro and her team is financed by the Argentinian Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica (National Agency for Scientific Promotion), with 10000 dollars.
This project’s main objective is to contribute to the study of the social injustice that has become constitutive in Argentinian society in the last decades, through the psychological processes involved, the economic distribution of resources, recognising social groups and political participation. With regards to the first dimension, the situation in Argentinian society is deeply worrisome, given that more than 40% of its population live in a situation of poverty. Nevertheless, according to previous local and international studies, teenagers and adults tend to deny social inequality and blame the poor for their situation, thus justifying the economic system. Meanwhile, the distribution of economic goods and resources depends on the recognition given in a society to each of the groups that compose it. For that reason, this project studies the way that people in a situation of poverty are represented socially and the prejudices towards them. Their levels of civic commitment and possibilities of transformation towards the future are also analysed. This study is carried out in Argentina but its results can be extrapolated to some extent to other societies, especially in Latin America.
