Classroom Justice 3
the classroom. Specifically, this study analyzes the relationship between students’ perceptions of
distributive and procedural justice in a college course and student aggression and hostility toward
the course instructor, as well as student resistance of instructors’ requests. The continued
extension of organizational justice theory and research to the instructional context should provide
further insight into the dynamics involved in the student-teacher relationship, classroom
management, and numerous other issues. Perhaps most importantly, investigating student
perceptions of classroom behaviors and students’ potentially harmful responses may lead to
knowledge that can be applied to the prevention and control of student aggression and violence.
Organizational Justice
Organizational justice refers to theories of social and interpersonal fairness that may be
used to understand organizational behavior (Greenberg, 1987a) and involves perceptions of
fairness and evaluations regarding the appropriateness of workplace outcomes or processes
(Cropanzano & Greenberg, 1997). Perceptions of the fairness of organizational outcomes is
referred to as distributive justice, while perceptions of the fairness of the processes used to arrive
at these outcomes is referred to as procedural justice.
Distributive justice concerns perceptions of the fairness of outcomes received as the
result of an allocation decision. When resources such as employee pay or student grades are
allocated, a configuration in which some people receive more of the resource and others receive
less of the resource results. When individuals evaluate what they have received (e.g., the amount
of pay or the course grade) they are making judgments of distributive justice (Leventhal, 1976).
In assessing distributive justice, individuals may compare the outcome (e.g., pay or grade) they
received to some standard (e.g., their own or others’ expectations, needs, societal norms) or to
the outcome received by another individual (Adams, 1965; Cropanzano & Greenberg, 1997). For
Convention