De-centring the psychology curriculum: Diversity, social justice, and psychological knowledge This is a repository copy of De-centring the psychology curriculum: Diversity, social justice, and psychological knowledge. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/141693/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Kontopodis, M and Jackowska, M (2019) De-centring the psychology curriculum: Diversity, social justice, and psychological knowledge. Theory and Psychology, 29 (4). pp. 506-520. ISSN 0959-3543 https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354319858419 © 2019, The Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper published in Theory and Psychology. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. eprints@whiterose.ac.uk https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. 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To address this question, we established an innovative research project of de-centring the psychology curriculum, so that BA students from diverse backgrounds could familiarise themselves with cultural-historical, postcolonial, feminist and other critical psychological approaches as well as reflect on the histories, contexts and epistemologies of classic developmental psychological theories and research. We conducted focus group discussions with the students as to explore their views on the introduced contents and approaches. The findings of our research form the basis for critical reflection on the possibilities and challenges of de-centring the psychology curriculum in the contemporary university settings. Introduction Since October 1974, when the American journal Teaching of Psychology was founded, long debates on psychology teaching have taken place in this as well as in similar forums such as the Studies in Higher Education, which is linked with a UK-based international academic society. Recent research has focused on a variety of topics such as: computer-based demonstrations in cognitive psychology (Copeland Scott & Houska, 2010); curriculum contents and psychology workforce readiness (Wielkiewicz & Meuwissen, 2014); online discussion forums and support with assignments (Sheen, AlJassmi & Jordan, 2017). There has been little research, however, on student views and interests with regards to the contents of the contents of the psychology curriculum. Psychology curricula have initially been developed in Global North societies and have close ties to the histories and cultural traditions of these societies’ white middle-class populations. The ethnic, racial and socio-economic characteristics of psychology students have, however, changed significantly in the past decades, and diverse groups of students are now entering higher education institutions in countries such as US, UK, Germany, Canada or Australia (Richardson, 2008; Maringe, Foskett & Woodfield, 2013; Varghese, 2013). Psychology is attracting increasing interest in the Global South, as well (Stevens & Gielen, 2007; Takooshian, Gielen, Denmark & O'Roark, 2018). The characteristics of modern psychology students beg a question on how the psychology curriculum may reflect the interests and values of students from diverse ethnic, racial and socio- economic backgrounds. Generally speaking, students from ethnic and racial minority groups and lower socio-economic backgrounds manifest significant differences from white middle-class 2 populations in subject related interests, learning styles, understandings and performance levels in higher education (Burke, 2012). While focusing specifically on psychology, Hodges and colleagues (2007) suggested that students from ethnic and racial minority groups felt loyal towards their psychology degrees; yet they simultaneously reported feelings of exclusion from, and underrepresentation in the psychology curricula. Initially the psychology curriculum (as well as psychological theories and research) reflected the cultural and historical background of white middle-class populations, which could access the relevant study and research trajectories. Psychological Societies such as the British Psychological Society have historically updated their guidelines for undergraduate and post-graduate psychology programmes as to incorporate new research areas, approaches and theoretical debates. As a result, psychology curricula in the UK currently cover qualitative as well as quantitative methodologies, discuss theoretical and historical issues in parallel to exploring neurocognition, and sometimes entail a few cross-cultural and global references – which becomes a significant selling point when marketing degrees to international students (cf. Lumby & Foskett, 2015). However, liberal and open-minded such an approach to the teaching of psychology may seem to be at a first glance, there is little reflection on the assumed impartiality and value-neutrality of most psychological knowledge. Psychology has often been criticised as the science of the “white, middle-class man” (Staeuble, 1991; Teo, 2005). It has also sometimes been racist – especially in its early phases (Richards, 2011; Lack & Abramson, 2014). In opposition to white-centred, racist psychological theory and research, Fanon published the seminal “Black skin, white masks” in the 60s (Fanon, 1952/1967), while movements to establish so-called “indigenous” or “indigenized” psychologies were taking place in the Philippines (Paredes-Canilao & Babaran-Diaz, 2013), in Taiwan (Hwang, 2005), and later on in Latin America (Kontopodis, Magalhães & Coracini, 2016), India (Sinha, 1997) and elsewhere in the world (cf. Jahoda, 2016; Brock, 2014). Various efforts to establish non-white- man-focused psychological approaches have taken place in North-Western settings, too (feminist, queer, postcolonial, etc., cf. Burman, 2005; 2017; Parker, 2015; Prilleltensky & Nelson, 2002; Walkerdine, 2001). In this frame, many scholars have argued for the necessity to “de-centre” theory and research, so that diverse polyphonic and polycentric psychologies emerge (Staeuble, 2004; Hook, 2012). Taking the aforementioned debates as a point of departure, we established an innovative research project of de-centring the psychology curriculum, so that BA students from diverse backgrounds could familiarise themselves with cultural-historical, postcolonial, feminist and other critical psychological approaches as well as reflect on the histories, contexts and epistemologies of classic developmental psychological theories and research. We aimed to investigate the students’ views on the introduced contents, and reflect, on the basis of this investigation, on how the psychology curriculum may reflect the interests and values of students from diverse ethnic, racial and socio- economic backgrounds in the contemporary higher education settings. The present article presents briefly the methodology of our study and its main findings; it concludes with a discussion on the possibilities and challenges of de-centring the psychology curriculum in the contemporary university settings while taking into account the contested history of psychology as the science of the “white, middle-class man”. Research Design & Methodology 3 Year 1 BA students from diverse ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds at a South London university, have been invited to study the histories, contexts and limitations of classic developmental psychological theories in a series of lectures and seminars focusing on cultural- historical (Hedegaard, 2011; Stetsenko, 2017), postcolonial (Enriquez, 1995; Hook, 2012), feminist (Burman, 2017; Walkerdine, 2001) and other critical psychological approaches (Kontopodis, 2014; Morss, 1996). These lectures and seminars have been part of a compulsory module on psychology and human development, by the first author, which included classic approaches and references to contemporary empirical research, as well. Specifically, in five 2- hour-long lectures we explored historical, epistemological and theoretical issues in psychology and human development on the basis of the above-mentioned literature. In another five lectures, classic theories of cognitive, emotional and moral development were discussed in relation to empirical research on timely topics such as learning difficulties; new media; parenting; bullying (cf. Berk, 2013; Smith, Cowie & Blades, 2015). Lectures were attended by a cohort of about 80 students and were followed by seminars and tutorial sessions aimed at supporting students in reading and reflecting on the course literature, and at preparing for their assignment. The module was assessed by means of essay writing according to a variety of typical criteria, such as presentation and language, clarity and coherence, appropriate use of terms and critical analysis and synthesis. These contents aimed specifically at addressing the needs and interests of a diverse student population: approximately 60% of the students came from middle socio-economic and/ or White British backgrounds and 40% from lower socio- economic and/or non-white ethnic backgrounds (primarily British African-Caribbean, Asian and Arabic). Many of them were also mature students and/or parents themselves as indicated by the data collected for their registration (20% 30 years old or older, 10% 25-29 years old and 70% 18- 24 years old on average).1 Our research project focused on a small opportunity sample (n=7) of students attending the course, who reported volunteering to participate in the study for a variety of reasons including curiosity to engage with research procedures, interest in expressing their views on the course, and/or motivation to socialise with peers. Two focus groups (Bohnsack, Pfaff & Weller, 2010) in which three and four participants, respectively, took part, were conducted approximately for 1,5 hour each during the last two weeks of the course, and before grades were announced. Even though our focus group sample was small, the analysis of the participants’ grades and demographic information revealed that they could be seen as quite diverse in terms of ethnic backgrounds, age, family socio-economic circumstances, entry points and final grades. In total six out of seven participants were female; four participants were younger than 21 years, one was 23 and 2 were aged 30-35 years. Four participants were mature students and 2 had children. Three participants categorised themselves as white and the rest were of Asian or black-African/Caribbean ethnic background. In terms of parental education, two participants’ parents had no formal qualification, three had mothers but not fathers with university education, one participant’s both 1 The university name is not given as to guarantee the anonymity of participants and keep confidential relevant institutional information. The above-mentioned percentages are high when comparing to other UK Universities; they reflect the entry criteria for BA students in this particular university: The average tariff required to enter the university where the research took place was about 285 points while minimum entry standards for Cambridge are around 600 points (the highest entry level in the UK in the respective year). Out of a total of 126 universities in the UK there are about 20-25 universities with lower entry standards than that (the lowest entry standard in the UK was 220). Resource: http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?o=Entry+Standards (date of access: 11-Jan-19). 4 parents had a university degree and one’s had A-levels and GCSE qualifications suggesting a broad range of parental education level amongst participants. Four participants had own or parental total income less than £20.000, and three had parental family income between 20.000-40.000 per year; which is a very low income for London living standards. In terms of essay grades two participants achieved only 40%, one participant received 58%, one 68% and there were also a 78% grade and 2=two 85% grades. One participant was diagnosed with dyslexia. In terms of entry criteria, two mature students were accepted onto the course based on their prior training and/or relevant work experience in education. Three other participants, aged 19-21 years, entered the university having obtained about 280 entry points or 320 entry points from their A levels, respectively. Two participants were international students. The questions were open with a minimal probing by the coordinator of the discussion as to minimise bias and facilitate a debate between the focus groups’ participants. Two researchers were present in the group discussions: the first author, who was the main lecturer at the developmental psychology course (white, male in his thirties) and a white (female) research assistant in her mid- twenties, who was not involved in the course and helped with the data collection. The focus group discussions were video-recorded. One more researcher (the second author) was later on involved in transcribing and analysing data, as to take a third person’s viewpoint under consideration for the interpretation. The group discussions took place in a quiet office at the university. The atmosphere was relaxed; the students laughed a lot and mostly agreed with each other. The students were seen as “experts” in the respective field and topic of investigation (Gläser & Laudel, 2004). The analysis and interpretation followed sociological approaches to knowledge and discourse (Keller, 2012; Keller, Hornidge & Schünemann, 2018) in three steps: (a) mapping of the overall structure and progression of the focus group discussion and identification of main- and sub-topics; (b) focusing on longer extracts with dense information and interpreting of what meaning is communicated and how this meaning is communicated; (c) verifying the generated categories on the whole set of data/ generalising i.e. reconstruction of implicit understandings, and discursive patterns. Particular attention was therefore paid to the choice of words as well as to the silences, interruptions and intonation. Additional materials collected included a questionnaire on the students’ personal data and family backgrounds as well as the standard course evaluation questionnaires and the student’s grades. Ethical permission to conduct this project was granted by the university authorities and all standard procedures were followed (informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity, optional participation, data safety cf. Brooks, te Riele & Maguire, 2014). The focus group discussions took place in addition to class activity outside the class time; there was no link to the class activities and any obligation or benefit for students to participate in the research. Learning about Cultural Identities is “Intriguing” The introduction of cultural-historical and postcolonial literature aroused the curiosity and interest of the students participating in the focus groups. Various students used the word “intriguing” a few times and in different moments of the group discussions as to describe their feelings about this literature, as in the example below: G2-65. D. I would say it was (…) was really quite intriguing to me it’s something 66. I’m quite interested in in terms of ahm, people living with dual, ahm cultural 67. identities (…) I was really intrigued when I saw that 5 69. this ((cultural identity)) is another layer another, ahm, aspect of child 68. development Damien2 uses the word “intriguing” here as to emphasise his genuine interest in the developmental approach to multiple cultural identities by Hedegaard (2011). Damien, refers to Hedegaard’s approach as of personal interest and relevance to him, since he himself has contact with i.e. has grown up in an area where many children have dual cultural identities: one at home and one referring to the broader area i.e. the national state they live in. He did not seem to expect, that this aspect of everyday life is included in scientific theorising on child development. While the concrete extract above refers to the specific contents, “intriguing” – as voiced by others at different times during the focus group – also referred to the students’ feeling of appreciation with the lecturers’ decision to include such literature in the course in general. The students explained that the discussed topics inspired them to engage with the relevant developmental psychological readings and theoretical models and to reflect on these while taking under consideration their personal experiences. Moreover, as the students mentioned in the focus group discussions, the readings and class activities stimulated conversations on cultural identities and multicultural education with peers outside the university. The students used words such as “relate to”, “relatable”, “engaging” in this context and seemed to agree among themselves that diversity, the development of multiple cultural identities and multicultural education are “relatable” topics of study. In the following extract another student, Horathi, argues: G2-141. H. (…) When you, when you can relate to a specific ((topic)), you know like 142. multicultural or something, I think it’s, I think it’s really 143. helpful and kind of engaging when you kind of relate to something as well. According to the students, the course’s focus on diversity motivated them to make the effort required to participate actively in the relevant class activities and to engage – before and after the lectures – with the relevant academic readings. Engaging with readings and course materials is quite challenging for students from diverse ethnic, racial and low socio-economic backgrounds in general, as they are less familiar with the academic reading and writing styles than the students from white and middle or upper socio-economic backgrounds, as we know from the relevant literature (Richardson, 2008; Burke, 2012). Addressing contents that matter for the students and reflect the challenges, which they are confronted with in their everyday lives, seems to be of particular importance, in this frame – not only in terms of student motivation but also in terms of recognition and inclusion of the diverse student voices in the psychology curriculum (cf. Boysen, 2011). Humane Approaches and Social Justice After talking about the “intriguing” and “relatable” course contents, as mentioned above, the students expressed value-related dispositions and referred to their own criteria, on the basis of which they contrast various approaches to children’s development with each other and evaluate these. Contrasting critical approaches to classic behaviourism or current neurocognitive thinking, the participating students agreed with each other that they were more interested in cultural- 2 All names are pseudonyms matching the participants’ ethnic background and gender so that the differences among the various participants are easily detectable for the readers. 6 historical, postcolonial and feminist approaches because these lead to “person-focused” i.e. “humane” professional practice, for example in school spaces: G2-427. K: I think it completely changes your approach as well. Because if, if you 428. have a teacher ((…)) from a different course, they will focus on, ok, let’s do 429. science, let’s, let’s let’s do that and that. Whereas with that knowledge, that 430. we have from here, you will approach it, you approach the person, or what 431. drives you ((…)) 432: H: Like you won’t be focused on just the curriculum, like, like I 433. said, you’ll be understanding of the actual knowledge and then executing it 434. it’ll be a lot more, I guess it’ll be a bit more, not, not fun, in a fun way, but 435. it’ll be a bit more 434. K: humane. 435. H: Yeah, a bit more adventurous and a bit more, a bit of a different manner. 436. Like you’ll see things from a different sort of (~). Both Kasia and Horathi agree in this extract that the cultural-historical approach enables teachers to approach and facilitate teaching and learning in a more “humane” or “person-” oriented, as opposed to subject-oriented manner. While Kasia used the words “drives you”, Horathi used the word “adventurous” implying that a person-cantered approach is dynamic, but that it may be more challenging and also interesting and efficient for both teachers and pupils. Another issue that was brought into the discussion and evaluation of various approaches to child development by the students was that of social justice and discrimination. Certain readings referred to examples from classroom observations in which white teachers did not fully acknowledge the challenges that pupils from different ethnic backgrounds were facing. Although our own explanations in the lectures brought to students’ attention various perspectives and challenges teachers may have been facing, the participating ethnic minority students seemed to identify themselves with the ethnic minority pupils in these examples, rather than with the teachers. The students expressed much concern that pupils may be treated unfairly because of their colour, race, origin or ethnicity. Therefore, they agreed that critical and culturally sensitive psychological approaches are necessary to develop best practice in teaching and childcare institutions. The extract presented below is exemplary for this kind of talk: G1-228. B: yeah, me and Raha were discussing about with another friend as well, 229. and hmm it was it was unfair on them (…) I think like any if you reflect on 230. how it is now (…) you can see how hmm (…) some people do get treated 231. unfairly because of where (…) they’ve come from and, the back ((…)) 232. and like just because they come from another country and some people 233. don’t. I know it isn’t an issue now ‘cause you hear on the news and stuff 234. (…) but like the text it was really unfair on them because the teachers 235. didn’t treat them equally (…), and you know in (…) education in general 236. the policy is that they always say that everyone should be treated fairly 237. and equally and no one should be discriminated or anything like that, so 238. for me to see that in the text it was just like, that’s was just like that’s quite 239. sad like why would them have do that that’s not really nice. Discussing value-related issues openly occurred quite intuitively since the readings and discussed materials offered the ground for such a debate to take place. Beverley expresses here her concern that pupils may be treated unfairly in school because of their country of origin. Through repeating 7 words like “unfair on them”, “really unfair”, “equally”, “discrimination”, “not really nice” she takes a clear position on the side of the pupils who may have been discriminated, and emphasises that none should be discriminated in education and in society, in general, which was a shared concern among the other students, too. Psychological Knowledge and Epistemological Concerns Psychology has not only been the science created by and studied primarily by the “white, middle- class man”; it has also been one of the main disciplines that enabled that “white, middle-class man” to help “Others” to “develop” – the “Others” being from diverse ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds (Teo, 2005; Mills, 2014). “Knowledge production” and “development” have not taken place, however, on neutral grounds, but within a continuing global history of discrimination, racism, wars, and exploitation of various local populations (Mignolo, 2012; Kontopodis, 2014); The science of psychology and – more broadly speaking – the university, as an institution, have unfortunately, often being an intrinsic part of this contested history (cf. Howell, & Tuitt, 2003; Richards, 2011; Parker, 2015; Wilder, 2013). The “Others” may nowadays study psychology themselves, and then work as psychology practitioners in their own local communities and places of origin, instead of the communities relying on the psychological services provided by white, middle-class psychologists; this shift does not unfortunately, however, imply straightforward shifts in the historically rooted unequal distribution of power (cf. Hook, 2007). In our focus groups, we were quite perplexed to realise that, even if the students reflected explicitly and critically on value-related issues and social justice with regards to psychological theory and practice, as referred to above; this reflection was part of a broader endeavour though to identify the “best” developmental psychological knowledge that would enable the “perfect” practice for the “benefit” of all children: G2-551. D: I just think some, some knowledge of developmental psychology ahm could make 552. a difference to so many people, if they knew, if they just knew the effects of so 553. many things that are [going] 554. H: [oh yeah] 555. D: around their children, [around themselves] 556. K: [it’s power it’s a] power 557. D: (…) around their teenagers, yeah, it’s amazing ((…)) 573. D: Well yeah what you’ re saying there is no handbook for being a good parent. You 574: know, there are norms, to every society and every culture, but there is no 575: handbook that says do this and do that and you’ll be able to be a perfect parent. 576: (…) however if you have someone with knowledge of developmental 577. K: you’ll 578. D: have perfect child psycho[logy] 579. H: [you’ll] understand which factors 580. D: regardless of your culture (...) regardless [of your] 581. K: [What could] harm, (…) what [could], 582. H: [yeah] 583. D: gender. Yeah, you could have a rough idea of how, of what to do best by the child 584. H: or to benefit, what would be beneficial for it In this example, echoing each other, the three students agree that developmental psychological knowledge could be beneficial for any child regardless of the child’s culture or gender. In 8 accordance with widespread popular understandings, the students express a strong belief in psychology as a system of knowledge that is objective and impartial – even universal – and aims at benefiting all children – a discourse, which, as already explained, has been much debated in the relevant critical psychological literature. Questioning the discourse that psychological knowledge is “objective” and “universal” proved to be more difficult for the BA students than we had anticipated; The students, as a matter of fact, had spent a significant amount of money and resources to study psychology, hoping to obtain “objective” knowledge and “help” their families and communities after their graduation. Psychology graduates from diverse ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds may, in such a frame, reproduce rather uncritically the so-called paternalist approach i.e. seek affirmation of superiority through the provision of help in their professional roles, and practices instead of raising awareness of the complex structures, viewpoints, and power relations that create and maintain exploitation and inequality (cf. Stein & Andreotti, 2016). The question poses itself here – echoing Brock (2006) – whether a “de-colonial”, “postcolonial”, “feminist” or “indigenous” “psychology” “curriculum” is possible at all, or whether these word combinations are oxymora and no de- centered psychology curriculum can ever exist. It would be far stretching for us to adopt such a position without further investigation; we suggest though that lecturers and students should continuously reflect on the power relations that have historically shaped the production of psychological knowledge, and be aware, in this frame, of the inherent difficulties entailed in challenging prevailing understandings of the nature and function of psychological knowledge. Discussion and Conclusions: De-centring the Psychology Curriculum The psychology curriculum has close ties to the histories and cultural traditions of industrialised societies’ white middle-class populations. Psychology students are no longer, however, a homogenous group largely consisting of white, middle-class men. It is timely and worthy, in this frame, to bring a variety of critical psychological readings for debate into university lecture theatres and seminar rooms, and to discuss the foundations, histories and potential limitations of psychological knowledge with diverse students. The present article explored how the contents of the psychology curriculum can reflect the interests and values of students from diverse ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds. While taking critical distance from psychology as the science of the “white, middle-class man” (cf. Hook, 2012; Teo, 2005), we established an innovative research project of de-centring the psychology curriculum, so that BA students from diverse backgrounds could familiarise themselves with polyphonic and polycentric psychologies (Staeuble, 2004). By analysing focus group discussions with the students, we explored their views on the introduced contents and approaches. The scale of our research has obviously been limited; follow-up studies with larger samples and repeated focus groups over longer periods of time could explore potential differences, in terms of ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds and gender, in the discursive positioning among various students as well as document potential changes in their views and understandings over time. According to the analysis of the focus group discussions, students were “intrigued” by cultural- historical, feminist, postcolonial and other critical psychology approaches, as these approaches address issues which the students encounter in their everyday lives in – often marginalised – ethnic communities. The students expressed concerns with regards to diversity, multicultural education and social justice in relation to psychological theory and professional practice, and brought to the 9 foreground their own everyday experiences when doing that. At the same time, it proved difficult for the students to question the discourse that psychology is a system of objective, impartial and even universal knowledge that aims at benefiting all – a discourse, which has been much debated in the relevant critical psychological literature. On the basis of these findings and echoing current research and debates on de-colonising higher education (Stein & Andreotti, 2016), we propose that the psychology curriculum should not only enable students to access to culturally enriched psychology handbooks and teaching materials; it should also enourage continuous critical reflection on the values and epistemological dispositions entailed in psychological theory and research. This is a difficult task though: relevant theory and research in the field of “indigenous psychologies” (Brock, 2014) as well as in the fields of “postcolonial” and “de-colonial studies” caution that particular forms of knowledge and certain modes of life have been privileged over others in the course of modernisation. In this context, a wide range of people around the globe has often not even been able to communicate their views and participate into the relevant institutional spaces (cf. Spivak, 2012; Mills, 2014). Even if there is no straightforward way to address this issue, it is important that psychology faculty reflects on the fact that psychological knowledge production and dissemination has not taken place on neutral grounds, but within a continuing global history of racism, inequality and asymmetrical relations of power between children and adults (Parker, 2015; Prilleltensky & Nelson, 2002). Following from such a critical stance, psychology faculty may undertake a few concrete steps as to address the challenges in dialogue with their diverse students. These steps would be:  Creating spaces for psychology students from diverse ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds and age groups to explore their own questions;  Discussing epistemological and value-related issues openly with students from diverse ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds, who bring with them their own interests, forms of knowledge and value-related positions, as well as their own community histories and future imaginaries;  Empowering students to search for and critically analyse differentiated readings and sources of information in their own languages on topics of their own interests. Student engagement could be facilitated through self-organised student seminars and study groups, as well as through alternative assessment formats such as student presentations or small-scale research projects. Of course, this would also require appropriate resources, such as time for discussions with student representatives and engagement with diversified readings for the involved academics; engagement within professional accredited organisations, such as the British Psychological Society, as well as support with programme development and evaluation procedures. On the longer run, participatory and co-productive research with the students and graduates from diverse ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds themselves (Campbell & Vanderhoven, 2016) would be necessary for a variety of topics, which are relevant for these students and their communities, to be investigated across diverse settings so that new teaching materials are developed. 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