Race and Community Practice: Reflections From the Supervision of Professional Training

Abstract

In South Africa, social relations are inextricably structured around notions of race and "race trouble" due to the country's long-standing history of colonization and racial oppression (Durrheim, Mtose, & Brown, 2011). As a result, addressing issues of race, racism, and racialization is a central focus of critical community psychology in this context. In line with this imperative, the article reflects on themes of race and racialization that emerged in supervising community practice in students undergoing professional training.Existing scholarship on community psychology supervision in South Africa has largely highlighted the experiences and struggles of students (e.g.,

Telepsychology and the COVID-19 pandemic: the experiences of psychologists in South Africa

“…Thirteen of the 16 participants were Black 1 psychologists; the remaining three were White. This is in contrast to the profile of psychologists in South Africa, who are disproportionately White (Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), 2015 as cited by Bantjes, Kagee, & Young, 2016;Graham & Langa, 2015;Young & Saville Young, 2019). This skewed sample may be attributed to the fact that the authors 2 of this article are all Black and used their networks to recruit potential participants.…”

“…Over the years, there has been a call for the South African psychology profession to be more responsive to the mental health needs of all South Africans. It is thus important that practitioners reflect critically on their praxis and be flexible in offering services that are contextually relevant (Graham & Langa, 2015). In particular, access to online mental health services should be promoted and made accessible to all.…”

Epistemological resistance towards diversality: teaching community psychology as a decolonial project

“…While reflexivity is typically central to theoretical and applied community psychology modules within professional psychology training programmes (see Carolissen et al, 2010; Graham & Langa, 2015; Langa & Graham, 2011), this focus is minimised in many undergraduate or postgraduate community psychology modules outside professional training. The practice of critical, reflexive, participatory community engagement is especially difficult to teach experientially in undergraduate classes where there are limited opportunities for exploring the complex aspects of social positionality in relation to others.…”

Teaching toward Decoloniality in Community Psychology and Allied Disciplines: Editorial Introduction

“…Sparse research exists on the nature and impact of the complexities of student and faculty teaching and learning engagements with community psychology in interdisciplinary global, social, and political debates (Quayle, Ali, Baker, Sonn, Keast & Morda, ; Reyes‐Cruz & Sonn, ) and are typically published in non‐community psychology journals (Henderson & Wright, ). The little work that does exist on community psychology teaching focuses on curriculum content and minimally on the process of teaching Postgraduate courses and professional training programs such as the Masters degrees in Clinical, Educational, and Counselling psychology, are typically foregrounded, often highlighting the tensions between community psychology as a discipline and community psychology as an orientation to Psychology (Graham & Langa, ; Watkins & Ciofalo, ). Literature on teaching community psychology at an undergraduate level, focuses on the content and structure of courses and on service learning teaching models (Schlehofer & Phillips, ).…”

“…The focus on teaching community psychology creates opportunities for engaging with deeply entrenched power relations in teaching and learning in community psychology. For example, in South Africa, the politics of difference creates one of the core challenges for teaching community psychology (Carolissen, Rohleder, Swartz, Leibowitz, & Bozalek, ; Carolissen et al., ; Graham & Langa, ). Addressing difference, civic responsibility, social action, and oppression in the curriculum and teaching process is a crucial preparatory step to foster critical reflexivity of personal‐professional identities among faculty and students, while simultaneously expecting educators to make sense of our connections to our social and political worlds (Suffla & Seedat, ).…”