Exploring social justice principles within an educational psychology service

ABSTRACT

With an increasingly diverse UK population and differences in outcomes and experiences, educational psychologists (EPs) need actively to adhere to and promote principles of equality and equity. Although there is limited engagement with social justice issues in the professional and ethical guidelines in the UK, there has been a growing body of research exploring socially just EP practice. This small scale exploratory research aimed to add to the UK literature by investigating how social justice principles can be developed within one educational psychology service (EPS). Findings indicate that social justice is defined as a cyclical process. A model has been produced to conceptualise social justice in EP practice which illustrates the importance of understanding how it is defined, and how this impacts EP work with clients and the EP team. Safe spaces and supportive leadership are highlighted as key to enabling reflection; and relationships and sharing information to promote systems-level change are highlighted. Limitations of the research and implications for practice are considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Social justice
• educational psychology service
• educational psychologist
• diversity
• inclusion

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the members of the EPS who participated in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the DfE Initial Training for Educational Psychologists bid 2015-2019. .