Social Justice Pedagogy: Diversity,Equity,and Inclusion in the Teaching of Psychology

Abstract

Social justice pedagogy in psychology requires keen attention to diversity, equity and inclusion in the content and process of teaching and learning. The contributions to this special issue address both ‘what we teach' and ‘how we teach’ psychology through recommendations for instructor preparation and practices, an expansion of concepts and methods, practical projects and activities, and curricular modifications. Importantly, the contributions raise our consciousness about the harms of oppression and marginalization in the field of psychology and offer us a path toward liberatory pedagogy.

Keywords

psychology social justice diversity equity inclusion

Introduction

All of us in the academy and in the culture as a whole are called to renew our minds if we are to transform educational institutions—and society—so that the way we live, teach, and work can reflect our joy in cultural diversity, our passion for justice, and our love of freedom.

– bell hooks (1994, p. 34)

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI¹) are indispensable concepts for understanding the human experience. Diversity in psychological science refers to the variety of social identities and heterogeneity between and within groups. Equity is achieved when diverse social groups have fair access to the resources they need to attain health and wellbeing. Inclusion involves respectfully availing people from diverse social groups access and opportunities to participate in all aspects of the field of psychology and the larger society. Considering that the concepts of DEI are part and parcel of how we think, feel, and act, the future of psychology should be deeply intertwined with DEI. Said differently, a time when DEI is not central to the development and application of psychological science, if there ever was one, is over.

The American Psychological Association has a mission, “To advance EDI [equity, diversity, and inclusion] through psychological science that champions thought leadership, innovation and excellence” (APA Framework, 2021a, p. 6). APA's mission cannot come to fruition without addressing DEI in the mindsets, skills, and tools of psychology instructors across educational echelons. Furthermore, the forthcoming Undergraduate Psychology Guidelines 3.0 document (2023 publication anticipated) emphasizes incorporating DEI into the psychology curriculum as essential to meeting the needs of students of psychology and growing the knowledge base toward improving lives and communities.

That said, considering the relevance of DEI in psychological science and teaching is necessary, but not sufficient, without justice. A social justice orientation illuminates the sociopolitical contexts that confer advantages to some while disadvantaging others and creates an impetus to create institutional and structural changes to rectify our observations (Mallinckrodt et al., 2014). Furthermore, questions such as, “who benefits from psychology?” and “who creates psychological knowledge?” cannot be addressed without considering the positionality and critical consciousness of psychologists and psychology students. Exposing historical, and ongoing, inequities rooted in the marginalization and oppression of social groups, broadly defined, necessitates action to eliminate them, hence the social justice focus of this special issue.

The psychology classroom is an ideal forum for critically analyzing psychology's past, present, and creating a just future for us all. In our classrooms, we can expose students to a psychology that is unafraid to critique power structures and grow toward social justice and freedom. While APA urges psychology departments to consider DEI areas in the curriculum that need greater attention, we understand that questions about the best evidence and pedagogy for doing so abound and we believe that this special issue contains some, although not all, of the answers.

Revisioning Multiculturalism Toward a Liberatory Turn

Multiculturalism reverberated through the field of psychology and initiated a paradigm shift for many psychologists engaged in research, practice, and instruction. As an example, after the development of the Tripartite Model of Multicultural Competence the multicultural competence scholarly literature burgeoned (Sue et al., 1982). Additionally, the guidelines on Multicultural Education, Training, Research, Practice, and Organizational Change for Psychologists (Multicultural Guidelines) were developed and have served as a beacon of light for psychology for decades. In 2003, the APA Multicultural Guidelines provided a rationale and foundational concepts for multicultural competence among psychologists engaged in education, training, research, practice, and organizational change. Although the Multicultural Guidelines (APA, 2003) conceptualized psychology education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the ensuing impact was largely reflected in professional graduate education and accreditation (with some exceptions). The revision of the Multicultural Guidelines, Multicultural Guidelines: An Ecological Approach to Context, Identity, and Intersectionality (2017) incorporated updated knowledge and emphasized the importance of intersectionality and considering ecological contexts in all activities as psychologists, including teaching.

It is an understatement to say that the Multicultural Guidelines have revolutionized the field. Notable shifts in the demographic characteristics of psychologists and psychology students, research approaches, and practice guidelines occurred as a result of the visionaries who contributed to the Multicultural Guidelines. Although we find ourselves in a moment in time where people sincerely believe that we are undergoing an “awakening” or that the summer of 2020 and the Black Lives Matter movement was a “turning point” for the field, the visionaries of the multicultural guidelines are a testament to the age-old and enduring struggle for equity and justice.

Buoyed by the impact of multiculturalism and intersectionality in psychological science and increased awareness and scholarship about the importance of DEI, we are compelled to ask what more can we do? A revisioning of the multicultural guidelines will require a redoubling of the efforts to identify and dismantle structural and interlocking systems of oppression rooted in the history of conquest and colonization. A revision necessitates a psychology education, beginning with ourselves, that teaches our students how to critically examine how it is that people are sickened by oppressive ideological and ecological contexts and how they resist. We wondered how we might achieve a pedagogy of liberatory praxis that is uncompromising and rooted in an ethics of care. To that end, our call culminated in this special issue which showcases pedagogies for integrating DEI into the teaching of psychology and offers indispensable conceptual and practical tools that take psychology education around the liberatory turn.

Contributions in This Special Issue

The manuscripts in this special issue traverse a vast array of topics that push psychology to address diversity, equity, and inclusion toward social justice in new and creative ways. Some manuscripts center the experiences of instructors while others address curriculum redesign. Indeed, before the psychology curriculum can be transformed, instructor preparation and support must be ascertained and addressed. To this aim, Morgan and Marin (2023) present the findings of a qualitative research study examining the experiences of faculty who teach diversity courses including the personal and professional toll of such courses on instructors. Members of academic departments, colleges and universities will appreciate Lund's (2023) review of the literature, observations, and recommendations for supporting graduate student teachers with disabilities. Instructors across levels of experience seeking ways to create more inclusive classroom communities will benefit from reviewing Maimon, Howansky, and Sanchez's (2023) paper which presents the results of a study that indicate that embedding identity safe cues in syllabi is an effective approach to improve student engagement and field belonging.

Numerous manuscripts call for an expansion of the concepts and methods in psychology courses and offer innovative evidence-based and practice-informed strategies. Jordan (2023) discusses incorporating qualitative inquiry and critical whiteness studies in psychology as important knowledge areas for students and explains how these could be addressed in research methods courses. Also related to research methods, Etengoff (2023) offers a rich discussion with specific entry points to center social justice education and prepare students with the necessary knowledge, skills, and opportunities to become competent social justice change agents. Community-engaged learning opportunities are well aligned with ideals associated with DEI and have increased greatly in popularity. However, Haselau and Young (2023) present a powerful analysis of students and instructors involved with a service-learning course that cautions us about the constructions we make, often unawares, which may be rooted in prejudice and may sabotage our good intentions. Taking a holistic approach to educational psychology, in their adaptable visionary model, Mustafaa and Nuñez Martinez (2023) delve into what students and instructors bring to the classroom, curriculum and resources, how we teach and learn, and expected outcomes.

Various manuscripts describe practical projects and activities that center the experiences of historically marginalized groups, build critical-consciousness, and discuss opportunities to increase skills that prepare students for social justice action. Fish's (2023) interview with a psychologist project strives to increase representation of marginalized psychologists thereby amplifying their voices and experiences. Pickering (2023) describes an instructive tower-building activity that exposes students to an active learning and high-impact experience with privilege and marginalization. The results of Hicks, Alvarez, and Domenech Rodríguez's (2023) study with students in a multicultural psychology course indicated that incorporating a component involving difficult dialogues was associated with higher social justice behavioral intentions and perceived behavioral control than the comparison group pre to post. Rosales and Majzler (2023) offer various assignments to increase praxis; engaging students in cycles of deep critical thinking and transformative action.

Although most of the manuscripts involve conceptual and empirical scholarship with a focus on undergraduate psychology education, various offer insights about graduate education and/or may be adopted across educational levels (Morgan and Marin). Gómez (2023) discusses a course entitled diversity, systems, and inequality with graduate students in which she calls for the inclusion of transdisciplinary scholarship in psychology education. Kadaba, Chow, and Briscoe-Smith (2023) propose a course designed with the needs of students in clinical training who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color at the center as a way to challenge the—White student as normative—approach. Importantly, most, if not all contributions, in this special issue provide extensive resources for instructors via open source repositories, thereby facilitating successful implementation of their recommendations. For a review of the history of diversity, equity, inclusion, and internationalization in the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Division 2 of the APA, peruse the article by Haynes-Mendez, Nolan, Littleford, and Wolfe (2023). In this article, four Vice Presidents for Diversity and International Relations, a standing committee on diversity established in 2005, assert, that “…STP should play a pivotal role in changing the cultural, structural, and institutional processes representing ongoing barriers to DEI and social justice within the organization and the teaching of psychology” (p. 204). This review is exemplary for its ability to balance critical reflection with recognition of accomplishments, and the need for revisioning psychology learning and teaching. Further, they exhort us to join the long overdue struggle toward an inclusive and just psychology.

A Call for DEI and Social Justice Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The articles in this special issue are rich for their conceptual clarity and practical application; however, there are gaps that need to be addressed if we are to adequately prepare ourselves and psychology students for the future. We hope this special issue spurs an abundance of DEI and social justice oriented scholarship to add to what exists within and beyond this special issue. The following are suggestions for future scholarship:

Research that examines the impact of DEI and social justice on student learning outcomes

Models for linking psychology teaching and learning to confounding societal problems

Exemplar curricular transformations that augment DEI and social justice teaching and learning and increase sense of belonging among psychology instructors and students

Scholarship that illuminates the interplay between multilevel systems and psychological constructs

Scholarship that considers context and positionality as influential to teaching and learning

Arguably, the field of psychology is in the midst of a paradigm shift and, by definition, shifts are destabilizing. As such, it is not surprising that there is no consensus about how central DEI and social justice should be in psychology. However, it is clear that the field psychology has not been as diverse and inclusive as it should be and that some psychologists have even endorsed harmful ideas and scholarship (Yakushko, 2019). It is also clear that increasing DEI and social justice in the field is aligned with the values of the profession and should be reflected in the curriculum to a greater extent than it is currently (APA, 2021a, 2021b).

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

The author thanks Delishia M. Pittman and Joaquín Borrego for their contributions to the conceptualization of this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jasmine A. Mena

Notes

References

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American Psychological Association. (2017). Multicultural guidelines: An ecological approach to context, identity, and intersectionality. Retrieved from: http://www.apa.org/about/policy/multicultural-guidelines.pdf

American Psychological Association (2021a). Equity, diversity and inclusion framework. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/about/apa/equity-diversity-inclusion/framework.pdf

American Psychological Association. (2021b). Role of Psychology and APA in Dismantling Systemic Racism Against People of Color in U.S. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/dismantling-systemic-racism

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