School and Educational Psychology Training: Cultural Considerations, Issues and Future Directions

This chapter highlights the critical competencies necessary for school and educational psychologists (SEPs) to work in increasingly diverse and globalised contexts and the steps that training providers need to take to enable future professional generations to contribute to developments in psychological theory, research and practice that cut across cultural boundaries. This chapter considers intercultural competencies and the need for SEPs to understand an individual’s intersectional experiences in order to appreciate the barriers they encounter. Academic and practice (fieldwork) aspects of training are addressed with respect to teaching and learning about cultural dimensions of consultation, assessment, case conceptualisation, intervention and evaluation of psychological practice with children and young people from individual, group and systems theory perspectives. We draw on models and frameworks developed in the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US) and other countries to guide best practices in providing culturally responsive, sensitive psychological services. The importance of encouraging supervisors to view culture beyond demographic variables, but as a determinant of worldview, has implications for supervisory relationships and processes. This is discussed, along with implications such as the need for training providers to provide opportunities for growth through dialogue and professional initiatives/networks. In addition, considerations related to the research elements of programme delivery are presented. We argue that trainee SEPs need to know about the full range of research methodologies to enable them to understand, critique and contribute to the evidence base related to populations that are culturally and linguistically diverse and to appraise practice-based evidence. We conclude by considering future directions for the development of training curricula for intercultural school and educational psychology.