Social justice, anti-racism and school psychology: Reconciling with our past to build an equitable future

Abstract

Abstract: This article introduces the second part of the special topic issue Training School Psychologists as Social Justice Change Agents: Current Practices and Future Directions, which consists of five conceptual articles and empirical studies related to social justice training issues in school psychology. First, we highlight several current events that have brought racial injustice and the acknowledgment of structural racism into the mainstream culture in the US over the course of the last several months. Next, we highlight how the field of school psychology has responded to these events, including increasing calls to action to embed social justice and anti-racism approaches within our training efforts, and the evolution necessary to embrace an anti-racist identity as a field. Third, we discuss salient aspects of each of the articles in order to emphasize the unique contributions made to the social justice and school psychology training literature. Finally, we discuss implications and future directions for training, practice and research with the goal of advancing empirically validated social justice and anti-racist practices within school psychology and education.