Occupational Justice and Its Related Concepts: An Historical and Thematic Scoping Review

Abstract

The concept of occupational justice relates to social inequality focusing on the needs of humans as occupational beings in their contexts. This article aims to examine the scholarly evolution of the term occupational justice and its related concepts. The article reports (a) the historical development of the term and (b) a thematic mapping of issues addressed by articles that used the occupational justice concept and its related terms. A scoping review was performed where 553 articles were found. We found the first article in 1974, and it was described as the first article that used the term. Two main sets of articles were analyzed: the ones that presented individual approaches and the ones framed by a collective approach. The review contributes to a better understanding of the use of the term occupational justice and its related concepts, and reflects on the impact of collective approaches to socially responsive occupation-based interventions.

Keywords: collective dimension; context; occupational justice; scoping reviews.