School psychologists enter the third decade of the 21st century marked by mass protests against state-sanctioned violence against Black people, worsening economic and environmental crises, and a deadly pandemic that makes preexisting disparities worse. We argue that the profession can respond to the challenges children, families, and schools face…

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Social Justice Committee (SJC) chose the theme of health disparities as the focus of the committee's work for the 2020-2021 school year. The pandemic underscored the importance of this theme and school psychologists' understanding of health disparities through…

Recognition and acknowledgement of cultural variables are cornerstones of ethical school psychology practice (National Association of School Psychologists [NASP], 2010b). School psychologists are expected to possess knowledge about diversity factors and how they impact students and have the skills to effectively serve children and families of all…

Mirroring national dialogue in the United States, intersectionality is gaining traction in school psychology practice and research. In fact, work (e.g., National Association of School Psychologists [NASP], 2017b; Proctor, Kyle, Fefer, & Lau, 2018) in the school psychology literature and research is influencing the way other education related…

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to use a social justice advocacy framework to affect individual and systems-level change for students who live in low-income and economic marginalization (LIEM). The authors provide an in-depth discussion of all three levels of the American Counseling Association's (ACA; Toporek & Daniels,…

As noted in the first article in this National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Social Justice Committee (SJC) series on health disparities (see Proctor et al., 2020), health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or in opportunities to achieve optimal health experienced by socially…

The health, economic, and social challenges associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) present a range of threats to students' well-being, psychoeducational experiences, and outcomes, spurring fears for a "lost generation." In this article, we present COVID-19 as a large-scale multisystemic disaster causing massive disruptions…

For more than 120 years, researchers have documented how minoritized and historically marginalized groups routinely experience lower levels of access and worse outcomes when interfacing with the U.S. healthcare system (Levins, 2019). Currently, COVID-19 and related media coverage underscore the continued and urgent need to address health…

Social justice has been defined as fair and equitable distribution of resources, rights, representation, and treatment for marginalized people who do not possess equal power in society (Linnemeyer, Nilsson, Marszalek, & Khan, 2018). As a theoretical concept, social justice is an emergent area of inquiry in school psychology (Johnson, Bahr,…

For school psychologists, social justice action involves protecting the educational rights, opportunities, and well-being of all students, "especially those whose voices have been muted, identities obscured, or needs ignored" (NASP, 2017). Facilitating social justice for students requires that school psychologists advocate for fairness…

To equitably and effectively serve children, families, schools, and communities, school psychologists must appreciate the dynamic interaction that exists between many variables. Using Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems theory as an example, this comprehensive conceptual framework provides a model for understanding how interconnected…

Scholars in special education and school psychology are engaged in renewed debate about the disproportionate representation of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in special education following research and commentaries challenging long held assumptions that many students are inappropriately identified with special…

Children and youth who experience low-income and economic marginalization (LIEM) suffer inequities in education, healthcare, housing, and postsecondary outcomes. LIEM is a broad conceptualization of poverty that incorporates many aspects of what it means to be economically oppressed, including access to limited financial resources and…