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Navigating the Waters of Social Justice: Strategies from Veteran School Psychologists

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Abstract

Six school psychologist practitioners who self-identified as social justice change agents were interviewed for this study. Interview questions were informed by two central themes that were important to the understanding of school psychologists as change agents: defining social justice and potential application to school psychology practice. The interviews were coded via consensual qualitative research. Thirteen different themes emerged. Some of the most noteworthy findings related to being a social justice agent include taking personal responsibility to bring about change, using political savvy to navigate power structures, modeling the changes one is seeking to bring about, and working in a culturally responsive manner across differing perspectives.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Loyola University Chicago, 111 E Pearson St., Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Haley Biddanda, David Shriberg, Dana Ruecker, Devyn Conway & Garrick Montesinos

Authors
  1. Haley Biddanda
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  2. David Shriberg
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  3. Dana Ruecker
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  4. Devyn Conway
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  5. Garrick Montesinos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Haley Biddanda.

Ethics declarations

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendix: Interview Questions

Appendix: Interview Questions

  1. 1.

    What is social justice to you? (taken from Singh et al. 2010)

  1. i.

    How would you define social justice? (Jenkins et al. 2017)

  2. ii.

    How would you define social justice? (Jenkins et al. 2017)

  1. 2.

    In the recruitment email, we stated that we were looking for practitioners who feel that having a social justice orientation is important to them. Please elaborate on why having a social justice orientation is important to YOU.

  2. 3.

    What types of social justice-related issues do you see in your school (or schools)? (Singh et al. 2010)

  3. 4.

    What helps you to be a successful social justice change agent in your school? (Singh et al. 2010)

    Who are the key people, if any, in your school who you work with on issues related to social justice (Singh et al. 2010)

  4. 5.

    Please share some specific success stories related to being an agent of social justice in your school (Jenkins et al. 2017)

  5. 6.

    What barriers have you experienced in your desire to be an agent of social justice? (Jenkins et al. 2017)

  1. i.

    Example of where barrier has been overcome

  2. ii.

    Example of where barrier was not able to be overcome

  1. 7.

    Please talk about your graduate training in relation to your preparation as an agent of social justice.

  1. i.

    Follow up and ask for direct opinion as to if and how graduate training was helpful if this is not addressed clearly

  1. 8.

    What recommendations would you suggest to help training programs adequately prepare trainees to serve as social justice agents in their roles as school psychologists? (adapted from Singh et al. 2010)

  2. 9.

    What recommendations would you suggest to help the field of school psychology adequately prepare practitioners to serve as social justice agents?

  3. 10.

    Is there any other information you would like to add related to your experiences with social justice as a school psychology advocate?

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Biddanda, H., Shriberg, D., Ruecker, D. et al. Navigating the Waters of Social Justice: Strategies from Veteran School Psychologists. Contemp School Psychol 23, 379–387 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-018-0187-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-018-0187-9

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