Understanding the experiences and views of Educational Psychologists from a minority ethnic background and how this impacted their training as well as the impact on their current practice

Abstract

After the death of George Floyd, America, as well as the rest of the world were impacted. This incident led to protests across several countries and promotion of the Black Lives Matter movement. During this time, issues related to racial inequality were being highlighted within society and many workforces were now reflecting on how they promoted racial equality within their professions.

This thesis will focus on understanding the experiences of ethnic minorities during the doctoral course and whilst working within a local authority educational psychology service. Participants will be asked to share their experiences and the effects of their experiences whilst on the training course and working within services. Participants will also be asked to share what they believe should be changed on the training courses in England and within local authorities and why they believe these changes are important.

This research will be split into 2 phases. The first phase of this research will use an online questionnaire to explore these thoughts and views and the second will follow this questionnaire for a more in-depth exploration of answers and suggestions via interviews with individual participants. Phase 2 of this study will be analysed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis to better understand the data that will be gathered.

The conclusion of this study will aim to highlight the current issues trainee educational psychologists and educational psychologists are facing or have faced during the training course and within their current services. Participants will be asked to share good practice that universities and services currently have in place and that may be shared with other institutions.