A National Evaluation of Social Justice and Antiracism Within School Psychology Graduate Preparation Programs

Abstract

As school psychologists, we have an ethical responsibility to engage in social justice and antiracist action. Specifically, graduate education programs have a significant role to play in preparing future school psychologists as social justice change agents. To facilitate effective change, graduate educators must confront potential biases in university training programs and themselves, act in culturally affirming ways, and commit to using psychological science to prepare future school psychologists to engage in advocacy and combat systemic racism within youth-serving systems. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore training efforts aimed at promoting social justice, antiracism, and multiculturalism consistent with best practices within school psychology training programs. Additionally, this study aimed to identify how programs and individual faculty members were responding to increasing calls for racial justice and social justice and the impact of the “dual pandemics” of COVID-19 and racism on their training efforts. Finally, the researchers sought to identify facilitators and barriers to training and pedagogy focused on social justice, antiracism, and multicultural issues in graduate psychology training programs. Impact Statement As graduate educators, we must examine the extent to which school psychology graduate preparation programs are using the multicultural, social justice and antiracist practices recommended in the literature. With proper training, school psychologists wield significant power in dismantling structural oppression and praxis in schools and strengthening the adoption and implementation of culturally relevant academic and social-emotional and behavioral supports. However, social justice awareness, knowledge, skills and dispositions need to be explicitly taught and cultivated as areas of competency. Graduate educators and accrediting bodies should focus on improving the quality of preservice training for school psychologists so they may successfully navigate the myriad challenges associated with systemic change and act as effective change agents in bringing about racial and social equity in schools. This study provides a snapshot of graduate training efforts in these areas to help in identifying current practices, needs, strengths and future directions for the field.