This paper based on the opening address for the 2023-2024 School Psychology Futures Conference, reflects on contemporary inequities in school psychology practice, research, and graduate education. Challenges as the profession reckons with its oppressive past are highlighted. Drawing on concepts from liberation psychology, critical school…

The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned reproductive, health, and abortion rights for women. Using the NASW Code of Ethics, a course assignment is offered for students to examine the professional, ethical commitment and responsibility of social workers to advocate for these rights and…

Alternative education programs or schools can be defined in several ways, and individuals may have various perspectives on what alternative programs are expected to be. For some, alternative placements may be seen as a setting for students who experience difficulty within public schools, some may think of an exclusive boarding school, or some…

Many of the conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education rightly focus on the experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students and how to support them on their educational journey. Fewer of the conversations involve naming and interrogating the oppressive systems that cause these students to need…

Purpose: In recent years, issues related to body image, fat shaming, and societal perceptions of weight have gained more attention in educational discourse (Carmona-Márquez, "et al.," 2023; Dark and Aphramor, 2023; Nutter, Ireland, Alberga, "et al.," 2019; Schorb, 2022). The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of…

Social media serves as a virtual platform for young people to foster community and amplify marginalized voices, allowing them to actively engage with societal issues and take on roles as activists, advocates, and allies. A 2021 study (McDaniel, 2022) on teens revealed diverse literacy practices employed to address social justice, civil unrest,…

Though advocacy and activism have been frequent topics of research, few studies explore this work across campus roles, meaning inclusive of students, faculty, and staff. A more holistic understanding of advocacy would pave the way for more effective social justice efforts. Researchers used hermeneutic phenomenology to engage with 26 advocates…

As "divisive concepts" educational policies continue to be implemented across the United States, it is important to consider how preservice teachers (PSTs) are being prepared for this teaching landscape. Within an upper-level undergraduate education foundations course at a public university in Iowa, this critical case study (Dyson &…

Within the discipline of school psychology, social justice is a fundamental concept and an aspiration of practitioners. Recently, a myriad of pleas has been made for school psychologists to act as agents of social justice change. Further, bullying, which is a prevalent issue in schools, has been identified as a school-based social justice…

This article will describe the work of the Cultural Leadership Institute (CLI), a one-day institute with interactive workshops designed to facilitate students' understanding of diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice to explore leadership within a diverse society.

The notion of inert benevolence has been written about in the context of primary school teachers working with "languages beyond English" (Cunningham and Little, 2022). However, the concept has a broader relevance for those working in education and this paper seeks to explore it more fully, through the use of the metaphor of a…

We find ourselves at a time when the need for transformation in science education is aligning with opportunity. Significant science education resources, namely the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) framework, need an intentional aim of centering social justice for minoritized communities and youth as…

This article is a call for collective action across health equity researchers and advocates to build a more just world. We attempt to make sense of senseless structural and interpersonal brutality in the context of the current political climate across the United States, whereby the spectrum of gender nonconformity has been and continues to be…

The comprehensive implementation of anti-racist dance pedagogy requires recognition that the prevailing dominance of Anglo-European cannons of teaching, creating, performing, researching, and learning dance has continued to disempower, subjugate, and inhibit knowledge and practices of communities on the margins. As dance practitioners writing from…

Advocacy has been identified as a relevant way for counsellors to respond to the social inequalities in the world of work and education in today's neoliberal context. This article draws on a qualitative study conducted with three groups of guidance counsellors in school settings in Quebec, Canada, to analyse their advocacy work as a…