Each one, teach one: Critical history as counterstories, antiracist affordances, and cues for belonging.

Abstract

Recently, there have been several calls for psychologists to dismantle systemic racism within the field (e.g., Buchanan et al., 2021; Dupree & Boykin, 2021; Wilcox et al., 2022). In this article, we discuss why incorporating critical histories into psychology curricula can be beneficial to this effort. We focus on three potential pathways: critical histories provide counterstories that challenge racist narratives, critical histories promote contexts that encourage antiracism practices (antiracist affordances), and critical histories can signal identity safety and belonging. To adequately integrate critical histories into psychology curricula, we make three recommendations. First, create and support a departmental curriculum that engages critical histories in the field of psychology at the undergraduate and graduate level (we offer some example topics and readings). Second, based on our own training experiences, we recommend that psychology graduate programs facilitate opportunities to take interdisciplinary courses that cover the history of race and racism in domestic and/or global contexts. Finally, we recommend funding research and supporting student projects that produce critical histories in psychology to expand the knowledge base of our field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).