Critical psychology & education: Opportunities outside silos

Abstract

Many psychologists working in schools acknowledge how their work contributes to the reproduction and mitigation of societal injustices. While professionals engaged in education systems and classrooms may hope to achieve the latter, disciplinary conventions can compete with best intentions. In response, psychologists working in schools have recently been encouraged to realize anti-oppressive schooling by practicing what is referred to as critical school psychology. Although potentially new for school psychology, critical work bridging education and psychology has been available for some time in North America and internationally. To encourage the use of psychology in support of justice and in resistance to oppression, we review some of this work and invite those interested to consider psychosocial justice as an ethical orientation to enmeshed theory∼practice. The purposeful engagement of critically informed work from outside traditional divisional silos will not eradicate every problem facing schools today, but such action will, at the least, provide concerned practitioners options for collaborative knowledge-making and more preferred ways of working.

Introduction

Critical work in areas intersecting psychology and schooling is too regularly pushed to the margins of mainstream education discourse. Daily demands on teachers, counselors, psychologists, and students precariously encourage the adoption of less challenging and just educational solutions. One reason may be that critical perspectives tend to complicate practices and structures, competing with institutional values of compliance and efficiency. Another can be practitioners’ discomfort with ambiguity and uncertainty associated with critical analyses. Another can simply be associated with whether there is a need or requirement for practitioners to signify their work as either educational or school psychology. In a recent article, Sabnis and Proctor (2021) put forward a case that critical work is largely absent in school psychology, potentially contributing to unjust educational policies and practices. In their discussion, the authors present a conceptual framework for practicing critical school psychology (CSP), which relies on critical theory to shape the mindsets, ethical commitments, practices, and types of research school psychologists undertake. Though potentially new scholarly ground for school psychology, we were surprised to note that reference to critical educational psychology (CEP) was non-existent in the proposed framework. In fact, educational psychologists have been working for some time to advance CEP (Corcoran, 2014; Martin & McClellan, 2013; Sugarman, 2014; Vassallo, 2017; Williams et al., 2017).

In this article, we canvass potential collaboration between the CSP framework and existing CEP ideas. To do so, we begin by questioning how, in the modern academy, this kind of scholarly siloing is enabled to occur. For distinct disciplines, like psychology and engineering, the trend for some time has been the promotion of interdisciplinarity. Quizzically, however, the apparent void between educational and school psychology is not one of interdisciplinarity as much it is intradisciplinarity. The fissure between sub-disciplines is at its most evident in the United States (US). Subsequently, observations will be made regarding each sub-discipline's work across areas of research, professional practice, and training in the US. Having provided this background, we then revisit the Sabnis and Proctor article, briefly sketching its main points. Our next section expands on work previously undertaken in CEP in North America and elsewhere. Finally, we examine CEP and CSP with particular attention drawn to their capacity to promote relational ways of knowing/being. Several practical strategies will be canvassed to bring educational and school psychology into greater collaboration. Our hope is that future dialogue between CSP and CEP will help advance critical theory∼practice, supporting collaboration among psychologists working in schools and other educational settings.

Silos & bridges

Opinion is split regarding the existence of disciplinary silos in academia. Although historically, the presence of disciplinary siloing has been recognized (Lloyd, 2016), recent research suggests interdisciplinary engagement has been evident for many years. For example, using benchmarked citational bibliometrics, Albert et al. (2020, p. 761) observe: ‘Borrowing knowledge seems to be standard practice, not the exception. Further, this practice has been in place for more than 100 years, long before universities began reorganizing disciplinary structures.’ Before proceeding, we should be clear about how we are operationalizing key terms. For this discussion, we take interdisciplinarity to refer to work engaging distinct disciplines like sociology, anthropology, or biology. Within a discipline like psychology, intradisciplinary work may occur in sub-disciplinary relationships (e.g., between educational and school psychology). This is where the following discussion is situated. If we accept the contention that interdisciplinary work has been going on in the academy for generations, it would be unexpected to suggest that intradisciplinary boundaries potentially contribute to maintaining a rift between educational and school psychology. What is more likely is a circumstance unique to scholarly and professional activities taking place predominantly in the US. The separation of educational and school psychology there reaches across, to varying degrees, research, training, and professional practice, and it is to these matters our attention now turns.

Let us begin with the area of activity where division between educational and school psychology seems to be at its most evident: professional practice. It is too great a generalization to contend that US-based educational psychology only attends to systemic-level interests like analyzing school district data, whereas US-based school psychology focusses on supporting individual socio-emotional learning and academic attainment. Licensure varies across states and subsequently, in a few locations, educational psychologists can register to practice and perform tasks like individual assessment (e.g., California). In the main, however, this is not the case, and such circumstance moves our attention to how training offered in each sub-discipline might contribute to creating intradisciplinary siloing.

The American Psychological Association (APA) Division 15 Educational Psychology webpages recognize that ‘[w]hile there's a spectrum of overlapping interests between Educational Psychology and School Psychology, these are two distinct fields in terms of the primary career paths and training focus’ (APA Division 15, n.d.). We have just mentioned how practice licensure can determine professional career path. This distinction is clearly reflected in training made available. Even though differences will be apparent depending on the institution and program an individual enrolls in, several distinctions can be made in this regard. For example, in attending to systemic level engagement, educational psychologists may have an availability to study education policy and pedagogy. School psychologists, on the other hand, may concentrate on developing skills related to working directly with students such as counseling and/or psychometric and behavioural testing. It is also likely, given the focus on individual intervention, school psychologists will engage in forms of clinical training. Age demographics are another area where training foci can be distinguished. With its dedication to all aspects of learning, educational psychology does not limit its scope to particular age groups. Conversely, school psychology is predominantly concerned with child development within formal primary and secondary schooling.

Potential collaboration between educational and school psychology should be at its most fertile in the area of research. However, with school psychology's adherence to the scientist-practitioner model of practice (APA Division 16, n.d.), this may be where, on two counts, seeds of separation are likely sown. Firstly, the typical model for scientifically informed psychology relies on positivism and objectivity. For instance, when references to ‘evidence-based’ practice are invoked, what kind of evidence is valued? Such evidence is usually said to (i) exist naturally in the world beyond the subjectivity of the researcher, and (ii) establish factual knowledge which can be universally applied. Paradigm dialogues, the central theme of this special issue, are made redundant when only one paradigm is accepted as the source of evidence. The second matter has to do with how material and non-material relationalities are understood. Later in this discussion, we introduce the idea of psychosocial justice (Corcoran & Vassallo, 2021). As a matter of psychosocial justice, compulsion to reductionist separations, for example between theory and practice or isolating a person from the world, are purposively opposed in critically informed orientations. On both counts, it would seem that what is being described as CSP would potentially affiliate with CEP. To assess in detail such a claim, we now turn to the Sabnis and Proctor (2021) article.

The call for critical school psychology

Sabnis and Proctor (2021) call on school psychologists to fundamentally rethink the methodological, theoretical, and philosophical commitments in their research and practice. The authors ground their call in broad social, political, and institutional policies and conditions. Like in many institutional settings, they contend that bias, oppression, and marginalization are persistent in K-12 schooling. They name three concerns that are relevant to school psychology:

racially and ethnically minoritized students are disproportionately represented in special education;

minoritized students are more likely to be subject to disciplinary measures that push them out of school;

experiences of oppression outside of school affect minoritized students’ psychological and emotional states in ways that negatively impact academic performance.

Sabnis and Proctor (2021) contend that CSP can address these concerns by supporting disciplinary interrogation to ensure that psychology is used to realize anti-oppressive and socially just practice. The authors acknowledge that psychological discourse can serve to either reproduce these conditions or combat them.

To mobilize CSP for anti-oppressive schooling, Sabnis and Proctor (2021) draw from a critical pedagogical tradition, which is grounded in the work of Freire (1970) and has been embraced and developed by key educational theorists, including Kincheloe (2004), McLaren (1995), and Giroux (2022). Sabnis and Proctor identify three tenets of critical theory that are relevant for school psychologists:

reality is understood through a historical materialist lens;

knowledge is an extension of those who produce it;

actions, beliefs, and perceptions are bound to group interests, ideological affinities, and social positions and these should be constantly examined.

From these tenets, the goal of critical work is to interrogate knowledge claims, systems, and practices to illuminate and dismantle oppression and mitigate the reproduction of inequality. As such, systems and practices are neither inherent nor natural but rather organized by dominant groups to justify certain realities. Thus, Sabnis and Proctor (2021) reason, the goal of CSP is to produce knowledge that can empower oppressed people by confronting and changing those realities that produce and protect injustice.

As Sabnis and Proctor (2021) acknowledge, there are various strands of critical theorizing, which is neither thematically monolithic nor organized around universal principles and assumptions. Coupled with analytical diversity, oppression in schools can be subtle and, at times, invisible. Furthermore, not all educationalists agree on which structures and practices are unjust and oppressive. Sabnis and Proctor, therefore, list a set of commitments that should guide CSP in hopes of realizing anti-oppressive schooling:

engage with the voices and perspectives of those who are the objects of research and practice;

engage with non-positivist forms of research and limit dangers of numerical data;

work with local stakeholders to address local issues;

act rhizomatically by spreading critical roots throughout a system in everyday practice;

increase each other's critical consciousness.

From this list, CSP is about continuous action to engage with communities and diverse perspectives, to challenge methodological and conceptual normativity and illuminate oppression in schools.

Critical work in educational psychology

Many of the concerns as well as the methodological and critical commitments in CSP are present in CEP. Although a distinct field, educational psychology is informed by psychology, generally, but also specifically by a number of associated psychological subfields, including but not limited to health, social, developmental, community, and neuropsychology. To different degrees, there is critical work in these fields relevant to CEP (see e.g., Billington, 2017; Burman, 2016; Cromby, 2015; Prilleltensky, 2014; Shotter, 1993). Although the presence of critical perspectives has been around for some time, it is more recently that efforts have been made by educational psychologists to draw from these rich critical traditions to advance CEP (e.g., see Corcoran, 2022; Martin & McClellan, 2013; Sugarman, 2014; Vassallo, 2017; Williams et al., 2017). In this section, we briefly trace some of the key influences on the development of CEP. We then turn to discuss contemporary CEP in North America and internationally.

Here we will focus on three key themes distinguished in work influencing CEP developments: resisting reductionism, accepting pluralism, and acknowledging theory∼practice inseparability. Resistance to reductionism challenges head on the commonsensical grip that dominant positivist-informed science has had on psychology as a means of knowing humanity. Placing the individual at the centre of inquiry, psychology has been largely governed by methods founded in experimental paradigms reliant on statistics. These methods have been preferred because they cater to understanding people as individuals whose actions can be explained from knowing about such things as genetic markers and biomolecules. Much like a mechanic would do when fixing your car, if problems arise with individual learning, they can be methodically dismantled – just as the mechanic would do with the car's engine – to explain cause and direct rehabilitation. Or, to put it simply, to fix the problem.

But of course, people and the communities in which they live are not the same. Every community changes over time. Subsequently, whilst not outrightly denying the validity of biological influence on human behavior, CEP encourages a pluralistic understanding. What this means is that multiple ways of knowing can be present at any given time and these need not essentialize humanity to be devoid of social, cultural, political, or historical influence. For example, historically, psychology can and should be called to account for ways the discipline has treated two particular groups in our communities – Indigenous people and those living with disability – treating either as forms of pathology compared to normative, white, able-bodied individuals. If not already doing so, psychologists working in schools would benefit from examining how social justice pursuits align with regularly used psychometric assessments or the existence of what is regrettably known as special education.

A third theme attended to by CEP is recognition of the inseparability of theory∼practice. CEP, along with other critically informed scholarly endeavors in education (e.g., critical pedagogy), is suspicious of theories that fail to acknowledge their politics, their cultural context, their adherence to a social status quo, and so on. For in failing to acknowledge how theory can, for example, marginalize significant sections of the population, psychologists practicing such theory are complicit in perpetuating prejudice (Corcoran, 2017). There is, however, CEP being developed across the globe addressing the matters mentioned above. It is to such developments our discussion now turns.

North America

There are two different strands of critical theorizing that have taken hold in different parts of North America. In the United States, critical commitments tend to center on critical constructivism, rooted in Paulo Freire's critical pedagogical perspective. A foundational feature of this perspective is that schooling is rife with inequalities that are protected through the use of specific psychological instruments and perspectives. A critical constructivist perspective enables persons to confront and challenge those inequalities by validating local knowledge, perspectives, and ways of being. Similar to the goals of CSP, a central focus is on voice and empowerment. From a critical constructivist perspective, persons are empowered when engaged in the production of all forms of knowledge, which includes psychological, cultural, and academic. The alignments between CSP and this strand of CEP are clear with Sabnis and Proctor's (2021) emphasis on engaging with local knowledge, avoiding speaking for others, and including community stakeholders in schooling policy and practice.

Although constructivism is a well-embraced perspective in educational psychology and teacher education, critical constructivism has more traction in social foundations discourse communities than it does in educational psychology. Although researchers and educators have for decades been interested in structuring schooling to mitigate inequalities, Goodman (2008) helped to merge this commitment in educational psychology with his edited volume, Educational Psychology: An Application of Critical Constructivism. What emerged shortly after the publication of that book was a series with the publisher Peter Lang titled, Educational Psychology: Critical Pedagogical Perspectives. For nearly a decade, Goodman was the general editor of this series and published manuscripts focused on ways educational psychology contributed to and helped challenge the reproduction of inequalities. This series started 1 year after Gallagher's (2007) book, Educational Psychology: Disrupting the Dominant Discourse. Aligned with critical constructivist commitments, Gallagher's goal was broad in that she wanted to show how values circulate through educational psychology.

Further north in Canada, Sugarman (2017) and Martin (2004) are prolific researchers and pioneers in CEP. Since the 1990's, they have been publishing work that challenges reductionist, normative, and naturalist assumptions in educational psychology. Although their research spans various topics and draws on several different perspectives, an important contribution of their work is the use of sociohistorical theory to examine ideas about self, identity, and personhood. From a sociohistorical perspective, the self is a cultural artifact; the self is not inherent, assumed, waiting to be discovered, nor something internal to persons. Rather, they contend from a historical ontological perspective, the self takes form in relation to others in a particular moment. In the process, persons are confronted with their own memories, structures, practices, systems of evaluation, language, and ways of reasoning that provide the contents for a sense of self/being. This understanding challenges a foundational assumption on which psychology in schooling rests, namely that persons have interior cores and internal characteristics that are measurable, trainable, and controllable.

Martin and Sugarman have been instrumental in challenging ideas about personhood but also showing that education policies and practices contribute to the production, normalization, and endorsement of a particular type of self. They have also paved the way for others to explore the ideological, cultural, political, and philosophical contexts of those selves (e.g., see Martin & McLellan, 2013; Vassallo, 2021). They showed that schools contribute to the production of persons and that such construction is bound to specific values for selfhood. This work supports critical engagement with theory∼practice recognitions because the starting assumption is that all practice is underpinned and guided by a particular brand of selfhood or way of being. Even assumptions about self and being that inform critical constructivism are bound to a particular vision and governed by certain epistemological and ontological truths. Although Martin and Sugarman have contributed greatly to CEP in North America and have gained some traction in educational psychology discourse, their work tends to be embraced by theoretical and philosophical psychologists. In North America, critical psychology work that is relevant for schooling tends to be embraced by academic communities outside of mainstream educational psychology discourse. Psychologists such as Slife (2004), Richardson (2012), and Yanchar (2016), who tend to publish in philosophically oriented venues, have been instrumental in critically engaging with foundational assumptions in educational psychology.

Internationally

From the outset, we need to clearly state that the reference points listed in our discussion are in no way intended to be taken as exhaustive of work contributing to CEP internationally. In what follows, we recognize that many of the examples being forwarded are situated in global North scholarship. There are many reasons that challenge more fluid engagement (Begeny et al., 2020). Let us take this opportunity to acknowledge practitioners from all parts of the globe, value the contribution their presence instills, and continue to celebrate diversity across our international community. In this section, we cover several key authors, publications and higher education programming directly related to CEP.

As mentioned earlier, scholarly traditions are difficult to pin down to a precise time of birth. This is no different for CEP. Lise Claiborne, originally from the US and for some years now living in New Zealand, wrote what many consider to be one of the original discussions dedicated to CEP (Claiborne, 1999). Therein, concerns with psychological applications in education that continue to be present to this day are examined, from defining things like intelligence to self-esteem, to the use of psychological assessments and research methods. The concept of special education is also deliberated. Apart from the importance of the topics covered, of commensurate significance is recognition that Claiborne's paper appeared in the first edition of an important publication. The Annual Review of Critical Psychology is still published via the Discourse Unit, originally located at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK; https://discourseunit.com/annual-review/). Also influenced by the Discourse Unit, having completed a PhD under the supervision of Unit co-founder and critical developmental psychologist Erica Burman, is UK critical educational psychologist Tom Billington. More will be said regarding Billington's influence on CEP developments in a moment.

While there are no scholarly journals dedicated to CEP, one edited book is worth citing for its international collection. In 2014, Corcoran published Psychology in education: Critical theory∼practice. This edition brought together authors from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Greece, as well as the United States and Canada (Corcoran, 2014). Of note for those interested in critical psychology, the book was initiated by a symposium convened at the 14th biennial conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), hosted in 2011 at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. As with dedicated journals, there is no critical educational psychology conference presently taking place internationally. However, this should not dissuade those interested in critical psychology from attending the ISTP, as education-related presentations regularly appear on its program.

Turning now to higher education based critical educational psychology programs, it cannot be said that any known programs present as such. However, the educational psychology program at the University of Sheffield has a long history of promoting critical theory∼practice. The Doctor of Educational and Child Psychology qualification is recognized by the UK Health and Care Professions Council and British Psychological Society (BPS) permitting graduates to register and practice in schools as Educational Psychologists. Tom Billington inherited direction of the program from David Thompson in the mid-2000s and under Billington's tenure, academics and graduates connected to the program contributed to the publication of Critical Educational Psychology (Williams et al., 2017), a BPS textbook published through Wiley. The themes covered in the edition resonate with those highlighted at the beginning of our discussion, doggedly pursuing their relevance to practitioners working across educational settings.

No doubt there are other educational psychology programs internationally that include critical ideas in their teaching. Another example from the UK is the Professional Doctorate in Educational and Child Psychology offered at the University of East London (UEL). Of note with this program is its explicit commitment to anti-racism and decolonization (Thomas et al., 2020). It is interesting also to note that this program is based in the School of Psychology at UEL – the Sheffield program is located within the University's School of Education. Whether critically minded psychologists experience greater philosophical affinity in departments outside their own discipline is a question worth monitoring. Regardless, the presence of critical psychologists across a range of higher education faculties is important for developments in CEP.

So far in our discussion, we have briefly revisited the main points of Sabnis and Proctor's (2021) article and elaborated on CEP work undertaken in North America and elsewhere. To help advance the application of critical theory∼practice and support collaboration among psychologists working in schools and other educational settings, we now turn to a key theme which unites CEP and CSP – in their promotion of relational ways of knowing/being and how such orientation can affect the work of practitioners in educational settings.

Introducing psychosocial justice

One could reasonably ask that if forms of critical psychology are actively resisting instances of bias, oppression, and marginalization, are they not already supporting and valuing relationships in our communities? Possibly yes, but if you responded to the question in the affirmative, you might be surprised to know that there is more than what appears at face value. Elsewhere we have discussed a concept we believe is central to advancements in social justice which broadens the reach of critical perspectives – psychosocial justice (Corcoran & Vassallo, 2021). We contend that social justice enactments, as they commonly take place in schools and other places worldwide, can maintain reductionist traces as they look to engage individuals and their environments. It is to this matter we turn in this section and do so invoking psychosocial justice as a means to mitigating the force of prevailing and debilitative psychological conventions.

It is non-sensical to suggest what psychosocial justice is because, by definition, psychosocial justice involves more than can be known. Rather than trying to resolve the matter, following the work of British psychologist John Shotter (1993, 2016), we invite those interested to consider psychosocial justice as an orientation to being enmeshed in all that exists, as well as being an active participant in what is yet to come. Allow us to elaborate. Ecologists, geologists, and more recently social science and humanities scholars, describe the era in which we presently live as the anthropocene; an era marked by exponential adverse effects humans are having on the planet (see for example, Morton, 2016, 2018). Amongst other points of interest, attention to anthropocentrism highlights the apparent importance and value placed upon human being in relation to other things (e.g., animals, climate, and the land). Conventional psychological approaches are products of their time, and acknowledging their putative relational orientations as anthropocentric is important but need not signal an end to the discipline as we know it.

In our discussion, we have identified several areas where we consider similarities to exist between CEP and CSP. To continue along this line, it is important for both to explicitly challenge compulsions to anthropocentrism. This can be done, as we argued above, by interrogating the lifeline that animates theory∼practice. It may seem insignificant in appearance but CEP and CSP invocations to matters of consciousness connect what is being discussed to psychological models like constructivism placing human being at the centre of attention. Applying the term ‘critical’ to either constructivism or consciousness does little to sever the lifeline. For instance, when describing what is involved in operationalizing critical consciousness, Sabnis and Proctor (2021) state this involves ‘increasing people's capacity to perceive the structures and processes that create and perpetuate oppression and injustice’ (p. 7). Psychological models have received extensive criticism for how they reduce performative actions to possessive qualities (e.g., ‘people's capacity to perceive’). Key here is that genuine aspirations to social justice, manifest in acknowledgements of voice and respect for locality, may still not address the kinds of anthropocentrism inherent in most, if not all, psychological theory. Conflating aspects of constructivism and constructionism regrettably maintains this theoretical concern (cf. Dragonas et al., 2015 and Sabnis & Newman, 2022).

The point we return to is a distinction made involving social justice's connection to relationships and psychosocial justice's favoring of relationality. As we stressed above, this is primarily to do with orientation (see also Corcoran, in press). The issue just raised regarding consciousness is not made to suggest psychology do away with its concern for the individual. Rather, our interest implores school and educational psychologists to revoke individual/collective binary starting points, or immediate concern for relationships occurring between things (e.g., individual to individual or person and the world), and embrace relationality as a preferred and unrelenting anticipatory response to our life's work. Political theorist Bennett (2010) put it this way: ‘… life draws attention not to a lifeworld of human designs or their accidental, accumulated effects, but to an interstitial field of non-personal, ahuman forces, flows, tendencies, and trajectories’ (p. 61). In other words, before we are individuals, we are one. In this sense, relationality is a superordinate concept acknowledging all things – including humans – in existence or life prior to imposing divisions.

What possibilities might arise then from orienting to psychosocial justice in schools and other educational settings? Frankly, these are immeasurable. Out of the gate, the ethics supporting our work would be candidly apparent in each and every engagement. Could there be such a thing as ‘special education’ in a world where ableism and division are renounced? CEP and CSP have much to learn from critical disability studies in this regard (cf. Goodley & Billington, 2017). Similarly, as Sabnis and Proctor (2021) highlighted, so too does Critical Race Theory provide forceful arguments for change in our communities (see for example, Proctor & Rivera, 2022). Engagement with critical theory cannot promise to solve every problem facing psychologists. If, at the least, CEP and CSP provide practitioners a means to preferred ways of working, then change has already begun.

Moving the dial

To draw toward our conclusion, several US-focused strategies are proposed which we think could assist greater collaboration across CSP and CEP. The suggestions provided are open to elaboration and intended to encourage those belonging to either sub-discipline to (re)consider future engagement.

Professional practice

Among the three areas considered in our discussion above of silos and bridges, professional practice is the activity where concerted collaboration, in our view, holds least importance. We would go as far as to question whether intradisciplinary engagement in this area of practice is necessary. As mentioned, in some areas of the US, educational psychologists can obtain license to practice and perform individual psychological assessment. Equivalently, school psychologists are not excluded from being involved in systems change (Castillo et al., 2021). If such circumstance seems like professional encroachment, prospects for collaboration have a long way to go. As discussed when referring to work taking place outside the US, educational or school psychologists provide wide ranging scope to their services offering education settings, teachers, families, and students comprehensive responses to school community, relational and individual need. Consequently, if US-based training options incorporated expanded practice options, the necessity for intradisciplinary collaboration would be redundant. Professional licensing bodies would have to be open to such change.

Training

Change to training options, for example, involving exposure to multi-systems practice or clinical interventions, must be addressed via the curriculum offered by higher education institutions preparing school and educational psychologists. In contemporary post-neoliberal markets, any challenge to program profit margins (e.g., potential decreases in student enrolment) would likely be met with stiff opposition. Relationships between universities and licensing bodies would be tested for their willingness to accept, under the appropriate conditions, expanded practitioner flexibility. And further, advocating for change to licensing regulations and revision of higher education curricula are matters beyond the pay grade (and interest) of most school and educational psychologists. But it precisely to this kind of policy/program-oriented work that potential collaborations may be struck if alternate forms of practice are to be realized.

Another point worth considering, raised briefly in our earlier discussion, is whether a school or educational psychology training program is homed in a School of Psychology or a School of Education. Psychology, particularly its practice-oriented sub-disciplines, are often aligned to the scientist-practitioner model. Conversely, while the influence and rhetoric of evidence-based practice has gained traction in educational settings, the scientist-practitioner model is not often prominent in initial or postgraduate teacher education programs. Whether a program's setting contributes to creating or closing opportunities for exposure to critically informed scholarship is a matter we invite readers to reflect upon from their own educational experience.

Research

Inevitably it would seem, the bifurcation of school and educational psychology has created a false separation between the kinds of theory∼practice relevant, or at least read, in each sub-discipline. How else could critically oriented work in school psychology be considered new in the second decade of the twenty-first century? As scholars belonging to either school or educational psychology, we should be regularly looking outside our own silos for ideas that could benefit our work. Of course, such exploration should not be restricted to intradisciplinary engagement. Interdisciplinary rambling offers different horizons toward which we can journey to experience intellectual worlds ready to challenge our traditional ways of knowing/being. Openness to interdisciplinarity should directly affect the potential for curricular construction mentioned above.

Two other options could also encourage collaboration between educational and school psychologists. The first would be to invite researchers into intradisciplinary project teams. Whether that be grant funding development and application or collaborative writing for scholarly publication, targeting complimentary skills and expertise is crucial to the success of most effective teams. A second option involves invitations of a different kind. If there were availability to engage intradisciplinary colleagues on doctoral defense panels, this could present opportunities to enhance the quality of the event, process, and outcome.

Conclusion

Critical psychologists operating in various fields accept that psychology can be used to mitigate or reproduce inequality. Sabnis and Proctor (2021) quite rightly suggest that school psychology often fails to realize varieties of anti-oppressive schooling. To address such concern, they present a CSP framework to interrogate psychological applications in schools in support of educational justice. However, as we outlined, critical work in psychology broadly, and CEP specifically, has been underway for some time. Given existing educational and psychological discourse, for psychology to effectively support anti-oppressive theory∼practice, psychologists must break out of their sub-disciplinary and geographical silos to avoid unnecessary reinvention and open prospective dialogue. The commitment to engage critically with psychology is driven by concerns for ethics and justice. Dialogue and collaborations may not generate consensus on all aspects of critical theory∼practice but at least should contribute to developing a significant body of knowledge for alternative ways of working in schools. In one respect, this work can be organized around the notion of psychosocial justice, which centers an ethical orientation to psychological theory∼practice. Employing a notion like psychosocial justice, and actively engaging across educational and school divisions, can strengthen commitment to critical psychological work in schools.