School Psychology International

Dominant knowledge systems rely on a Western perspective of creating and disseminating new information. These systems marginalize traditional ways of knowing including co-creating knowledge, personal narratives and lived experiences, as well as inherited cultural knowledge. Additionally, Western knowledge systems have centered the White adult male as the primary knowledge creator both through what has been valued in contemporary scientific traditions and culturally in the image of who is considered capable of creating knowledge. Those who do not fit this image have historically been marginalized and exploited in the pursuit of knowledge making including youth and particularly youth with diverse racial/ethnic identities. It is these narrow epistemological systems that have informed school psychology research and practice since its inception. Recent calls for social justice as central to school psychology work have challenged the status quo and emphasized the amplification of marginalized voices in research and practice. Therefore, this article outlines methodologies that subvert more traditional knowledge-making strategies foundational to school psychology work and critiques these to provide guidelines for methodologies that can truly incorporate youth as co-researchers, particularly Black, Indigenous and youth of color within a US context. A case study illustrating the implementation of these guidelines is included.

People with intellectual disabilities (IDs) have experienced involuntary and inhumane research practices. Consequently, researchers have shifted towards excluding those with IDs; caregivers, teachers, or peers compose study samples, dominating a space they indirectly experience. Researcher bias regarding intellectual capacity has resulted in a unique research gap that overlooks insights from the population the research is intended to benefit. People with ID are interested in research participation and have a right to be included in decision-making that impacts them. Emancipatory inquiry allows school psychology scholars to center student voices while also promoting social justice. Emancipatory inquiry empowers the “subjects” of social inquiry by producing knowledge that directly benefits disenfranchised populations. Emancipatory inquiry aligns with the social justice frame of DisCrit, which compels us to privilege the voices of marginalized populations and recognize that many of the gains for disabled populations have largely occurred because of the benefits they afford White, able-bodied, middle-class citizens. Using Emancipatory inquiry, school psychology scholars can prepare trainees and future researchers to conduct ethically sound research, prioritize first-person voices of those with ID, provide socially valid services to students and their families, and move school psychology closer to partnership with the disabled community.

The concept of Botho/Ubuntu emerges as a balancing paradigm poised to drive cognitive justice in psychological discourses. A paradigm is a universally recognized scientific model that represents a worldview of the nature of the world. There are enduring concerns about the privileging of Western European paradigms, ontologies, epistemologies, and axiologies over their African counterparts. In this article, we present the Botho/Ubuntu paradigm as a strong contender for the promotion, and humanization of epistemologies in psychology. The 59th annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in Washington, DC in 2015, whose theme was “Ubuntu! Imagining a Humanist Education Globally,” as well as the World Council of Comparative Education Societies’ (WCCES) recent book, Comparative Education for Global Citizenship, Peace and Shared Living through Ubuntu, are examples through which Ubuntu began to emerge as a paradigm poised to deliver cognitive and epistemic justice in the area such as psychology. We use Critical African Psychology as a lens through which we interrogate cognitive injustice. We conclude by demonstrating that Botho/Ubuntu paradigm might serve as a driver of cognitive justice in psychology and makes inroads into major discourses driven by African scholars.

School psychology has heavily relied on quantitative methodology to create and sustain our knowledge of best practices regarding academic, behavioral, and mental health outcomes for students. Nevertheless, underlying assumptions of the neutrality of quantitative data have obfuscated how school psychology research has perpetuated oppressive ideologies and practices, which directly harm students from marginalized identities. This paper demonstrates the need for employing a critical lens when engaging in and consuming school psychology research that utilizes quantitative methods. One such framework is QuantCrit, developed in the United Kingdom, which intentionally integrates Critical Race Theory tenets into the development, analysis, and interpretation of quantitative data. We explore specific examples of the insidious ways that ‘presumed neutral’ quantitative approaches have led to the perpetuation of oppressive practices in the following key areas of school psychology research: (a) discipline disproportionality, (b) special education disproportionality, and (c) school accountability metrics. Furthermore, we provide recommendations for both utilizing and publishing quantitative research that moves school psychologists towards more equitable practices for children and families across the globe.

As marginalized graduate students and faculty, we have stories to tell about our experiences within school psychology. Many of these stories center our oppression, trauma, and exclusion but some of them also center our joy and resistance. The purpose of this collaborative autoethnographic project was to create a counterspace in which we, BIWOC faculty and graduate students, could come together to engage in storytelling and build community amongst one another as a way to survive and thrive in academia. As a result of the counterspace, we are able to provide critical feedback and recommendations for school psychology programs to better support marginalized students and faculty. And we also offer critical hope and knowledge to marginalized graduate students and faculty who are currently in the field.

Many psychologists working in schools acknowledge how their work contributes to the reproduction and mitigation of societal injustices. While professionals engaged in education systems and classrooms may hope to achieve the latter, disciplinary conventions can compete with best intentions. In response, psychologists working in schools have recently been encouraged to realize anti-oppressive schooling by practicing what is referred to as critical school psychology. Although potentially new for school psychology, critical work bridging education and psychology has been available for some time in North America and internationally. To encourage the use of psychology in support of justice and in resistance to oppression, we review some of this work and invite those interested to consider psychosocial justice as an ethical orientation to enmeshed theory∼practice. The purposeful engagement of critically informed work from outside traditional divisional silos will not eradicate every problem facing schools today, but such action will, at the least, provide concerned practitioners options for collaborative knowledge-making and more preferred ways of working.