Teaching Social Justice in Counseling Psychology

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (8) ◽  
pp. 1058-1083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue L. Motulsky ◽  
Susan H. Gere ◽  
Rakhshanda Saleem ◽  
Sidney M. Trantham
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Counseling Psychology ◽  
Multicultural Competency ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
Classroom Teaching ◽  
Teaching Approaches ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Core Courses ◽  
Nontraditional Teaching

Recent years have witnessed increased calls from counseling psychology to include social justice competencies in the training of future practitioners. Integration of social justice awareness, advocacy skills, and opportunities for social change action are needed extensions of the field’s commitment to multicultural competency. Classroom teaching is a key component of transforming counseling psychology curricula and of developing students’ awareness of the value of social justice perspectives, yet pedagogical applications are rarely present in the literature. This article provides a case example of the integration of social justice and multicultural consciousness across the curriculum of one counseling psychology program. It highlights examples of innovative pedagogical techniques within a variety of core courses. We present specific examples of readings and nontraditional teaching approaches to promote social justice consciousness, including experiential exercises, self-reflection opportunities, use of video and online discussions, and assignments.

Breaking Institutional Habits: A Critical Paradigm for Social Change Agents in Psychology

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad D. Olle
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Counseling Psychology ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
Action Methods

There is a growing concern in counseling psychology that the field is not matching its commitment to social justice with adequate preparation of social change agents. Compiling and building off of a uniquely interdisciplinary framework, this article offers an alternative way forward for psychologists and trainees. Recommendations include a reorientation to institutions in which psychologists are immediately embedded and a legitimization of direct-action methods.

Expanding Multicultural Competence through Social Justice Leadership

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Arredondo ◽  
Patricia Perez
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Multicultural Competence ◽  
Counseling Psychology ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Multicultural Competency ◽  
Case Conceptualization ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Standards And Guidelines ◽  
Advocacy Strategies ◽  
Martin Luther King

Social justice and multicultural competence have been inextricably linked for nearly four decades, influencing the development of multicultural competency standards and guidelines and organizational change in psychology. This response provides a historical perspective on the evolution of competencies and offers clarifications regarding their scope, actual counselor behavior, relationship to case conceptualization, and political implications. Advocacy strategies of social justice leaders such as César Chávez, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks are highlighted and recommended for incorporation in a counseling psychology social justice agenda.

scholarly journals Social Justice in Counseling Psychology: Then, Now, and Looking Forward

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 938-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cirleen DeBlaere ◽  
Anneliese A. Singh ◽  
Melanie M. Wilcox ◽  
Kevin O. Cokley ◽  
Edward A. Delgado-Romero ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Counseling Psychology ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Systems Change ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
Counseling Psychologists ◽  
Proactive Role

In this article, a diverse group of early, mid, and advanced career scholars call for counseling psychology to continue to evolve in our integration of social justice action in our field. In doing so, we first consider our history as proponents and enactors of social justice, highlighting the ways in which counseling psychologists have served as social justice leaders in psychology. We then discuss our field’s contemporary challenges to, and opportunities for, social justice progress as we work toward equity and justice. Finally, we offer recommendations for counseling psychologists individually and as a field to move forward in our social justice action. Given our longstanding social justice values and our unique training as counseling psychologists, if we aim with intentionality to use our skills toward systems change, counseling psychologists are poised to have a strong and proactive role as social change agents within psychology and society at large.

Multicultural Competence, Social Justice, and Counseling Psychology: Expanding Our Roles

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M. Vera ◽  
Suzette L. Speight
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Multicultural Competence ◽  
Multicultural Counseling ◽  
Counseling Psychology ◽  
Counseling Competencies ◽  
Multicultural Counseling Competencies ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
Psychology Literature

The construct of multicultural competence has gained much currency in the counseling psychology literature. This article provides a critique of the multicultural counseling competencies and argues that counseling psychology's operationalization of multicultural competence must be grounded in a commitment to social justice. Such a commitment necessitates an expansion of our professional activities beyond counseling and psychotherapy. While counseling is one way to provide services to clients from oppressed groups, it is limited in its ability to foster social change. Engaging in advocacy, prevention, and outreach is critical to social justice efforts, as is grounding teaching and research in collaborative and social action processes.

scholarly journals Exhaustion and possibility. The wor(l)dlyness of social work in (G)local environment worlds during a pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 54-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona B Livholts
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Writing Genres

Exhaustion is not about being tired. It is an intense feeling of restlessness, of insomnia, and awakening when I ask myself: have I exhausted all that is possible? Such a state of restlessness and wakefulness represents a turning point for having enough, and opens for new possibilities to act for social change. This reflexive essay departs from the notion that the language of exhaustion offers a wor(l)dly possibility for social work(ers) to engage in critical analytical reflexivity about our locations of power from the outset of our (g)local environment worlds. The aim is to trace the transformative possibilities of social change in social work practice through the literature of exhaustion (eg. Frichot, 2019 ; Spooner, 2011 ). The methodology is based on uses of narrative life writing genres such as poetry, written and photographic diary entrances between the 4th of April and 4th of June. The essay shows how tracing exhaustion during the pandemic, visualises a multiplicity of forms of oppression and privilege, an increasing attention and relationship to things, and border movements and languages. I suggest that social work replace the often-used terminology of social problems with exhaustive lists to address structural forms of racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, which has been further visualized through death, illness, violence, and poverty during the pandemic. I argue that the language of exhaustion is useful for reflexivity and action in social work practice through the way it contributes to intensified awareness, attention, engagement, listening, and agency to create social justice.

White Supremacy and Counseling Psychology: A Critical–Conceptual Framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick R. Grzanka ◽  
Kirsten A. Gonzalez ◽  
Lisa B. Spanierman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Counseling Psychology ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Helping Professions ◽  
White Clients ◽  
Racial Progress ◽  
Counseling Psychologists

The mainstreaming of White nationalism in the United States and worldwide suggests an urgent need for counseling psychologists to take stock of what tools they have (and do not have) to combat White supremacy. We review the rise of social justice issues in the field of counseling psychology and allied helping professions and point to the limits of existing paradigms to address the challenge of White supremacy. We introduce transnationalism as an important theoretical perspective with which to conceptualize global racisms, and identify White racial affect, intersectionality, and allyship as three key domains of antiracist action research. Finally, we suggest three steps for sharpening counseling psychologists’ approaches to social justice: rejecting racial progress narratives, engaging in social justice-oriented practice with White clients, and centering White supremacy as a key problem for the field of counseling psychology and allied helping professions.

Justice versus Social Justice in South Africa: Quo vadis?

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marelize Isabel Schoeman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Underlying Basis ◽  
Quo Vadis

This article explores the concept of criminal justice as a formal process in which parties are judged and often adjudged from the paradigmatic perspective of legal guilt versus legal innocence. While this function of a criminal-justice system is important – and indeed necessary – in any ordered society, a society in transition such as South Africa must question the underlying basis of justice. This self-reflection must include an overview questioning whether the criminal-justice system and its rules are serving the community as originally intended or have become a self-serving function of state in which the final pursuit is outcome-driven as opposed to process-driven. The process of reflection must invariably find its genesis in the question: ‘What is justice?’ While this rhetorical phraseology has become trite through overuse, the author submits that the question remains of prime importance when considered contemporarily but viewed through the lens of historical discourse in African philosophy. In essence, the question remains unanswered. Momentum is added to this debate by the recent movement towards a more human rights and restorative approach to justice as well as the increased recognition of traditional legal approaches to criminal justice. This discussion is wide and in order to delimit its scope the author relies on a Socratically influenced method of knowledge-mining to determine the philosophical principles underpinning the justice versus social justice discourse. It is proposed that lessons learned from African philosophies about justice and social justice can be integrated into modern-day justice systems and contribute to an ordered yet socially oriented approach to justice itself.

Die Bahnhofsmission – Ort gelebter Ökumene. Theologische Reflexionen

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 286-296
Author(s):  
Dorothea Sattler
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Individual Case ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Threshold Concept ◽  
The Core ◽  
Low Threshold

Abstract This article examines the questions of why the ›Bahnhofsmission‹ is suitable as a seismograph of social change, how it performs this function, what it can achieve and where its limits lie. This is done with the help of self-reflection of the practice of the ›Bahnhofsmission‹ and by unfolding practical examples. The seismograph function is described as a task of the ›Bahnhofsmission‹ that goes beyond the core of individual case assistance and is of benefit to society as a whole. This involves drawing attention to changes at an early stage in order to identify structures of poverty and injustice as causes of need for help as well as of exclusion and to contribute to the elimination of those structures. Due to their location at the station and their open, low-threshold concept, ›Bahnhofsmissionen‹ have an excellent seismographic potential. Where they succeed in raising this potential, they can become incubators for innovation.

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