'Product placement' to widening participation in psychology: the case for culture

Abstract

The case is made that psychology, and the British Psychological Society in particular, should make culture in all it guises (multiculturalism, diversity, ethnicities, gender, sexuality, class) part of the core curriculum of undergraduate degrees. It is suggested that this could increase participation by Black and Minority Ethnic groups (BME) because psychology is a self-reflecting discipline and its diversification will provide role models, representation and visibility that impact on people’s motivations, sense of identity and belonging. It is argued that the product of psychology presently is ‘culturally cleansed psychology’ which is partly a by-product of positivistic science epistemic motives that are implicitly conservative in nature. Placing psychology’s ‘product’ in culture would increase the palatability of what we ‘give away’ by making this ‘product’ more suitable for a multi-cultured world and a multicultural society, and hence add to the betterment of the everyday, civil life of society