Social Justice and Counseling Psychology: Listening to the Voices of Doctoral Trainees

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand counseling psychology doctoral trainees’ perceptions of social justice training in their academic programs. Participants ( N = 66) completed an online social justice survey with open-ended questions. Researchers identified major themes of participants’ responses (e.g., promotion of social equality, infusion across training contexts, training opportunities outside of programs, importance of “walking the talk”). Implications, future directions, and limitations of the study are presented.

Counseling psychology trainees' social justice interest and commitment.

“…Palmer & Parish, 2008;Singh et al, 2010) suggest that training environment directly impacts counseling psychology trainees' social justice development, pre.sent findings suggest that this impact occurs indirectly through selfefficacy. Consistent with study hypotheses, social justice training environment supports and barriers impacted social justice commitment indirectly by bolstering social justice self-efficacy beliefs (e.g., providing opportunities for social justice advocacy performance accomplishments and vicarious learning experiences).…”

“…For example, the infusion of social justice in coursework might represent a vital component of social justice training that bolsters trainees' social justice development (Pieterse et al, 2009). For example, trainees' self-efficacy beliefs specific to social justice advocacy might increase if they are introduced to social justice issues early in their training, with support and positive reinforcement by faculty who demonstrate the importance of social justice engagement throughout their own work (Singh et al, 2010). Palmer and Parish (2008), program faculty can have a large impact in shaping the environment by modeling, supponing, and facilitating social justice engagement and discussions.…”

Differentiation of Self and Social Justice Commitment Mediated by Hope

“…Students with low levels of DoS may be at risk of early burnout in social justice efforts and may struggle with managing the stress and invalidation that are inevitable in social justice work. Conversely, those with high levels of DoS may be more capable of speaking out and making a commitment to social justice in the face of resistance from family and friends compared with those with low levels of DoS, and managing such resistance has been mentioned in prior studies with graduate students (Beer et al, ; Singh et al, ). It is also possible that social justice commitment facilitates growth in DoS and hope.…”

Exploring the corollaries of students’ social justice intentionality

“…How?' Along the same lines, Singh et al (2010) supported the need for increased empirical attention to the social justice preparation of students, given that most of the literature that does exist is conceptual or theoretical in nature.…”