American Psychologist
2016, Vol. 71, No. 6, 474 – 485
© 2016 American Psychological Association
0003-066X/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0040323
Incorporating Intersectionality Into Psychology: An Opportunity to Promote
Social Justice and Equity
Lisa Rosenthal
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Pace University
Intersectionality is receiving increasing attention in many fields, including psychology. This
theory or framework has its roots in the work of Black feminist scholar-activists, and it
focuses on interlocking systems of oppression and the need to work toward structural-level
changes to promote social justice and equity. Thus, the current interest in intersectionality in
psychology presents an opportunity to draw psychologists’ attention more to structural-level
issues and to make social justice and equity more central agendas to the field. The large,
ever-growing bodies of research demonstrating the wide-ranging adverse consequences of
structural- and interpersonal-level oppression, inequality, and stigma for the health and
well-being of many diverse groups of people support that these issues are central to the field
of psychology. We as individual psychologists and the field as a whole can work to fully
incorporate the insights of intersectionality and therefore contribute to making social justice
and equity more central across the varied subfields and realms of our work. Specific ways that
we can do this are to (a) engage and collaborate with communities, (b) address and critique
societal structures, (c) work together/build coalitions, (d) attend to resistance in addition to
resilience, and (e) teach social justice curricula. There are important examples both within and
outside of psychology that can guide us in achieving these goals. These suggestions are meant
to foster conversation and consideration by psychologists across all subfields and areas of
focus.
Keywords: equity, intersectionality, oppression, social justice, stigma
range of psychological phenomena, including discrimination, health disparities, identity development, psychological
distress, socialization, and stereotypes. As has been reviewed previously (e.g., Cole, 2009), intersectionality has
its roots in Black scholar-activist thought going back many
decades in the United States and, in particular, the work of
Black feminist scholar-activists (e.g., Collins, 1990; Combahee River Collective, 1977/1995; Crenshaw, 1991; Davis,
1981; hooks, 1989). A critical aspect of intersectionality is
its focus on interlocking systems of oppression and the need
for broad structural-level changes to promote social justice
and equity. Yet, many (e.g., Alexander-Floyd, 2012; Bilge,
2013; Collins, 2015; May, 2015) suggest this aspect is being
lost and not given enough attention by some involved in the
current academic interest in intersectionality.
Psychology’s recent increased interest in intersectionality
presents a valuable opportunity for the field to make social
justice and equity more central agendas and to be at the
forefront of calls for radical structural changes to promote
the well-being of all people. To support our role as psychologists in struggles for structural change, social justice,
and equity, in this article, I draw on intersectionality and the
large, ever-growing bodies of literature demonstrating how
various forms of oppression, inequality, and stigma at mul-
Intersectionality is a form of resistant knowledge developed to
unsettle conventional mindsets, challenge oppressive power,
think through the full architecture of structural inequalities
and asymmetrical life opportunities, and seek a more just
world. It has been forged in the context of struggles for social
justice as a means to challenge dominance, foster critical
imaginaries, and craft collective models for change. (May,
2015, p. xi)
Within the past decade, intersectionality has received
increasing attention in psychology and other fields. Both
theoretical (e.g., Cole, 2009; Earnshaw, Bogart, Dovidio, &
Williams, 2013; Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008;
Rosenthal & Lobel, 2011; Townsend, 2008) and empirical
(e.g., Galinsky, Hall, & Cuddy, 2013; Ghavami & Peplau,
2013; Settles, 2006; Thomas, Hacker, & Hoxha, 2011;
Thomas, Witherspoon, & Speight, 2008) work has incorporated insights of intersectionality to better understand a
I thank Prerna Arora, Valerie Earnshaw, Thalia Goldstein, Sheri Levy,
and Leora Trub for their insightful feedback on these ideas and earlier
versions of this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lisa
Rosenthal, Psychology Department, Pace University, 41 Park Row, 13th
Floor, Room 1317, New York, NY 10038. E-mail: lrosenthal@pace.edu
474
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INCORPORATING INTERSECTIONALITY
Lisa Rosenthal
tiple levels harm diverse groups of people. Further, I present
examples of work in psychology that has incorporated intersectionality to promote social justice and equity through
research, teaching, and clinical practice. Finally, I make
specific suggestions about ways that we as individual psychologists and collaboratively as a field can make these
issues more central across the varied subfields and realms of
our work.
Intersectionality, Interlocking Systems of
Oppression, and Activism
Intersectionality highlights the importance of attending to
multiple, intersecting identities and ascribed social positions
(e.g., race, gender, sexual identity, class) along with associated power dynamics, as people are at the same time
members of many different social groups and have unique
experiences with privilege and disadvantage because of
those intersections. Given its activist roots, focusing on
systems of oppression and the need for structural change to
promote social justice are central components of intersectionality. Carbado, Crenshaw, Mays, and Tomlinson (2013)
described “intersectionality’s grounding as a counterhegemonic and transformative intervention in knowledge
production, activism, pedagogy, and non-oppressive coalitions” (p. 308). In particular, intersectionality contributes an
important understanding of multiple systems of oppression
as “interlocking,” suggesting they must be both understood
and struggled against simultaneously. As one example,
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (1989, 1991), legal scholaractivist who first used the term intersectionality, critiqued
both antidiscrimination law as well as activist theory and
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movements because of their marginalization of Black
women due to a focus on racism and sexism as separate
rather than interconnected forms of oppression. As another
example, bell hooks (2014), a prominent Black feminist
scholar-activist that has been a voice of intersectionality,
refers to our society as an “imperialist, white supremacist,
capitalist patriarchy,” highlighting intricate connections
among multiple systems of oppression.
Yet, there is concern that these key aspects of intersectionality focused on interlocking systems of oppression and
the need for structural-level changes to promote social justice are not being given sufficient attention by many academics currently drawing on intersectionality. In a critique
of social science research employing intersectionality,
Alexander-Floyd (2012) summarized concerns of scholars,
including Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Michelle Fine, and
Julia Jordan-Zachery, that researchers are “flattening” intersectionality by only focusing on multiple identities and
not addressing structural inequities or connections to political activism. Bilge (2013) argued that some feminist academics are “depoliticizing” or “undoing” intersectionality
by disconnecting it from its social justice goals. In a review,
Collins (2015) noted that it is more common for scholarly
work using intersectionality to focus on identities than on
social inequities and social justice, concluding that “intersectionality as a knowledge project faces the fundamental
challenge of sustaining its critical edge” (p. 17). As psychologists, I suggest we should fully attend to and embrace
intersectionality’s critical, social justice core, taking this
opportunity of the field’s (and other fields’) increasing
interest in intersectionality to reorient ourselves toward
more central social justice and equity agendas in our work.
The Role of Psychology in Struggles for
Structural Change, Social Justice, and Equity
One might argue that focusing on structural oppression
and social justice constitute the work of other fields, such as
sociology, public health, or gender and race studies, and/or
of activists, but not of psychology. However, there are large
bodies of existing evidence about the adverse effects of both
interpersonal and structural oppression, inequality, and
stigma across the spectrum of human experience and behavior (for reviews, see Hatzenbuehler, Phelan, & Link,
2013; Kramer & Hogue, 2009; Lewis, Cogburn, & Williams, 2015; Livingston & Boyd, 2010; Logie & Gadalla,
2009; Pascoe & Smart Richman, 2009; Puhl & Heuer, 2009;
Williams & Mohammed, 2009), suggesting these issues fall
squarely within the realm of psychology across subfields,
populations, and specific phenomena of interest for psychologists.
As just a few examples, experimental, cross-sectional,
and longitudinal studies with diverse adult and adolescent
samples both in the United States and various other coun-
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tries around the world have found interpersonal discrimination or other forms of stigma (e.g., stereotyping, internalized
stigma) based on characteristics such as age, chronic disease, gender, HIV status, mental illness, race/ethnicity, and
sexual orientation, to be associated with a range of adverse
outcomes, such as poorer body image, educational outcomes, health behaviors, job satisfaction, mental and physical health, self-esteem, psychiatric outcomes, quality of
life, relationship quality, and sleep (e.g., Benner & Graham,
2011; Choi, Bowleg, & Neilands, 2011; Earnshaw & Quinn,
2012; Lewis et al., 2013; Sabik, 2013; Settles, Cortina,
Stewart, & Malley, 2007; Trail, Goff, Bradbury, & Karney,
2012). Various forms of structural-level oppression, inequality, and stigma, such as constitutional amendments
banning same-sex marriage, laws restricting rights of and
media images promoting stereotypes of people living with
mental illnesses, racial residential segregation, as well as
poverty and unemployment (both disproportionately experienced by some groups in the United States such as Black
and Latino Americans; e.g., Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2015) have also been associated with a range of adverse
outcomes, such as poorer cognitive functioning, development, health behaviors, mental and physical health, psychiatric outcomes, and risk of early death (e.g., Corrigan,
Markowitz, & Watson, 2004; Evans & English, 2002; Hatzenbuehler, McLaughlin, Keyes, & Hasin, 2010; Lukachko,
Hatzenbuehler, & Keyes, 2014; Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir,
& Zhao, 2013; Roelfs, Shor, Davidson, & Schwartz, 2011).
Evidence also supports that reducing structural-level oppression, inequality, and stigma can improve the well-being
of members of stigmatized groups (e.g., Hatzenbuehler et
al., 2012; Kling, Liebman, & Katz, 2007; Krieger et al.,
2008; Orr et al., 2003). Further, interpersonal stigma is not
separate from or unrelated to structural oppression, inequality, and stigma; rather, evidence supports that they are
closely connected, interact with, and influence each other
(e.g., Fuller-Rowell, Evans, & Ong, 2012; Pachankis, Hatzenbuehler, & Starks, 2014). As articulated by Hatzenbuehler and Link (2014) in discussing structural stigma,
“social structures actively shape individual- and group-level
processes; at the same time, however, structures are themselves molded and altered by individual and interpersonal
factors” (p. 3). Indeed, an important insight of intersectionality is that individuals’ intersecting identities and the interpersonal experiences that come along with them are
intricately linked to societal structures, particularly interlocking systems of oppression (May, 2014).
Taken together, there is ample evidence that interpersonal
and structural oppression, inequality, and stigma are connected and have a wide range of adverse consequences
relevant to psychology. Therefore, it is important for psychologists in their varied areas of work to give more attention to these issues to contribute to a core goal of the field,
which is to understand human behavior (American Psycho-
logical Association [APA], 2015a). Further, many support
that beyond understanding human behavior, psychology
also has at its core a goal of helping people to promote
health and well-being. APA identifies its mission as being
“to advance the creation, communication, and application of
psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve
people’s lives” (APA, 2015b). Given this goal, the existing
evidence that oppression, inequality, and stigma harm and
that structural changes toward social justice and equity can
benefit diverse groups of people suggests that promoting
social justice and equity is indeed part of psychologists’
work.
One might also argue that advocating for structural
changes to promote social justice and equity are liberal/
progressive/radical goals that if incorporated more into psychology would contribute to what some suggest is an already existing and problematic bias against conservative
perspectives in the field (e.g., see Duarte et al., 2015). This
is certainly a political issue, and concerns about bias in
psychology and other sciences are critical. An important
contribution of intersectionality has been highlighting biases that exist in society broadly and specifically in academia that affect which ways of understanding the world are
valued versus ignored; this includes highlighting ways in
which intersectionality itself has been critiqued based on
dominant perspectives that intersectionality challenges
(May, 2014). A benefit to intersectionality is that because
social justice and equity goals are at its core, its potential bias
is stated explicitly and therefore can be directly explored in
relation to other forms of bias that may go unquestioned
without an intersectional perspective. May (2015) has asserted
the importance of being biased toward intersectionality to
challenge dominant perspectives that are entrenched in societal
inequalities and therefore are inherently biased against and
ignore certain perspectives. This direct exploration of the way
our biases affect our work is incredibly valuable, as asserted
for example by qualitative researchers (Clarke & Braun, 2013).
Thus, intersectionality can greatly benefit our ability to understand and address various forms of bias in psychology.
Working to promote social justice and equity is about
being responsible scientists, teachers, and practitioners. If
scientific evidence has identified factors and conditions that
are harmful, it is incumbent that psychologists document
and report those harmful effects, as well as suggest and
work on ways to intervene to reduce the conditions that
produce harm, with the goal of improving the well-being of
individuals and benefiting society as a whole. As Eagly
(2014) recently suggested, being committed to striving for
unbiased science does not contradict having social justice
and equity agendas as psychologists. These agendas are
directly supported by a large and strong base of scientific
evidence. We can and should encourage debate and discussion among dissenting views within our field, including
examining various forms of bias that affect our work, while
INCORPORATING INTERSECTIONALITY
building and acting on the evidence that we have. Incorporating intersectionality helps us to do both simultaneously.
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Contributions of Intersectionality in Psychology
The wide-reaching and growing interest in and influence
of intersectionality across disciplines and recently within
psychology highlights the incredibly valuable insights that
are generated among communities experiencing interlocking systems of oppression and activists struggling for social
justice and equity. Psychologists have incorporated intersectionality into their research, teaching, and clinical practice, and I will describe several examples of this work that
underscore what intersectionality and psychology offer each
other. This is by no means an exhaustive list of work in
psychology that employs intersectionality; rather, these are
examples that demonstrate the applicability of intersectionality to understanding experiences of diverse groups of
people and the intersections of both oppressed and privileged identities, directly addressing the critique that intersectional work reinforces the very identity categories it
seeks to disrupt by focusing on Black women as “prototypical intersectional subjects” (Nash, 2008, p. 8). These examples also illustrate how incorporating intersectionality
helps to promote social justice and equity and to bring
attention to the role of structural inequalities. Each of these
critical insights can be missed without an intersectional
framework, underscoring its value to our field.
Research
The influence of intersectionality in psychology is most
prominent in research, including both theoretical and empirical contributions, and much of the research employing
intersectionality has focused on experiences of Black
women in the United States. Using an intersectional framework, Settles (2006) employed qualitative and quantitative
methods to explore the intersections of Black women’s
racial and gender identities. This study revealed the importance of the intersection of race and gender for Black
women, the unique experiences that intersection creates,
including both challenges and benefits, as well as the connections among individual identities, interpersonal interactions, and societal structures. Further, the study acknowledged diversity within Black women due to other
intersecting identities and highlighted Black women’s resistance to oppression. Thomas et al.’s (2011) focus group
study with young Black women that employed an intersectional perspective revealed similar insights as Settles’
(2006) study, such as the inseparable nature of race and
gender identities, multilevel factors ranging from personal
to structural that affect those identities, and experiences of
both oppression and resistance. Rosenthal and Lobel (2011)
drew on intersectionality to argue for the importance of
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attending to unique challenges Black women face due to
historically rooted structural and interpersonal oppression
and stigma to understand persistent racial disparities in birth
outcomes. Following from that theoretical framework,
Rosenthal and Lobel (2016) conducted an experiment documenting the continued influence of historically and structurally rooted stereotypes of Black women related to sexuality and motherhood on people’s perceptions of Black
women. This work’s use of intersectionality called attention
to the need for structural changes, such as in media portrayals of Black women, to promote social justice and equity.
As examples of the growing body of research focused on
groups other than Black women that incorporates intersectionality, Bowleg (2013) and Bowleg, Teti, Malebranche,
and Tschann (2013) conducted qualitative interviews to
explore experiences of Black gay and bisexual men, and
low-income Black heterosexual men in the United States,
respectively. These studies (Bowleg, 2013; Bowleg et al.,
2013) revealed complex dynamics involved with intersections of both oppressed and privileged identities, the connections of those identities to inequities and discrimination
in societal structures, as well as ways that intersecting
experiences of oppression can both harm and provide benefits to individuals. In drawing on intersectionality, these
investigations utilized expertise of community members
themselves, highlighted participants’ engagement with social justice issues, and called for addressing oppression and
stigma in communities and more broadly in society. Each of
these articles also spoke directly to the implications of study
findings for strengthening clinical work (Bowleg, 2013) and
HIV prevention efforts (Bowleg et al., 2013). All of the
described studies exemplify how intersectionality deepens
our understanding of complex, dynamic psychological experiences of diverse individuals while drawing attention to
structural oppression and calling for the promotion of social
justice and equity.
Teaching
Case and Lewis (2012) wrote about their strategies and
experiences using intersectionality in teaching undergraduate and graduate courses focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender (LGBT) psychology at historically Blackand Latino-serving institutions in the United States. Drawing on intersectionality, Case and Lewis (2012) designed
their courses and created coursework with the goals of
drawing students’ attention to diversity within LGBT communities, the interlocking nature of different forms of oppression, and connections between individual identities and
experiences with broader communities and societal structures. They used intersectionality to “support the development of a critical framework for making privilege and
power visible, examining social location and complex identities, exploring subjugated knowledge and developing
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strategies for empowerment” (Case & Lewis, 2012, p. 262).
Case and Lewis’ (2012) analysis of these courses offers
examples of how incorporating intersectionality into the
teaching of psychology helps instructors to enhance students’ learning and development as well as to encourage
student activism to promote social justice and equity.
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Clinical Practice
Das Nair and Butler (2012) edited a book including a
collection of chapters providing insights into how to incorporate intersectionality into psychotherapy with lesbian,
gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients in the context of the United
Kingdom. The chapters in this book address intersections of
sexuality with gender, race/ethnicity, religion, refugee/asylum status, social class, physical health, mental health,
disability, and age (Das Nair & Butler, 2012). This work
was designed to explore diversity within LGB communities,
challenge assumptions that all LGB individuals have similar
experiences, and draw attention to LGB individuals with
other intersecting marginalized identities whose perspectives have been ignored even within work in psychology
focused on LGB communities. This use of intersectionality
also encouraged clinicians to attend to the connections of
individuals’ (clients’ and clinicians’) intersecting identities
with societal structures that create experiences of both privilege and oppression, as well as to consider the potential role
clinicians can play as activists. Das Nair and Butler’s (2012)
edited book is one example of how incorporating intersectionality helps clinicians to more adequately address their
clients’ diverse experiences and strive for social justice and
equity to empower and promote well-being in clients and
their communities. Together, these examples illustrate how
intersectionality can strengthen our field, and that we may
miss opportunities to have greater positive impact on individuals, communities, and society through research, teaching, and clinical practice if we do not fully embrace intersectionality’s core components.
mujerista (Bryant-Davis & Comas-Diaz, 2016) psychology.
We have the opportunity as a field to be at the forefront of
advocating for and working toward social justice and equity
to promote well-being, and as psychologists, we have much
to contribute to this work. Next, I make several suggestions
of ways to do this, drawing on examples of psychologists
who already are, whether or not they explicitly draw on
intersectionality. I make suggestions that individual psychologists can implement in their own work, as well as
suggestions for the field more broadly that may need coordination and collaboration across psychologists and organizations in the field to be achieved (see Table 1 for a
summary).
In her important theoretical article, Cole (2009) outlined
three questions for psychologists to ask at different stages of
the research process to incorporate intersectionality into
their research: (a) Who is included within this category (to
highlight the diversity of individuals within a group because
of other intersecting identities)? (b) What role does inequality play (to highlight the importance of historical and contemporary inequities, power imbalances, and stigma)? and
(c) Where are there similarities (to highlight shared experiences across diverse groups of people, related to building
coalitions of activists)? As the contributions of intersectionality are complex, multifaceted, and continuously being
discussed, I aim to build on Cole’s (2009) suggestions and
present several ways that psychologists can make social
justice and equity more central agendas in all realms of their
work, including in research, teaching, and clinical work, to
fully embrace the radical nature of intersectionality. These
suggestions are connected to and should be considered
alongside Cole’s (2009) suggestions. One need not employ
all of the following suggestions to make an important contribution to a move toward greater focus on social justice
and equity, and there may be other ways to do so not
included here. These suggestions are meant to serve as a
starting point for conversation and consideration.
Engaging and Collaborating With Communities
Implications for Our Work as Psychologists
Incorporating intersectionality into psychology offers the
opportunity to incorporate social justice and equity agendas
more centrally in all aspects of our work. Similar calls to
focus more on stigma and inequality experienced at multiple
levels, including structurally, as well as to make social
justice a core goal have been made in some other fields, like
public health (e.g., Hatzenbuehler et al., 2013; Northridge,
2014), as well as within some subfields of psychology, like
social (e.g., Fine, 2012) and counseling (e.g., Speight &
Vera, 2004; Watts, 2004) psychology. There are also subfields of psychology that originated with a focus on social
justice, like community (Levine, Perkins, & Perkins, 2005),
critical (Teo, 2015), social (Fine, 2012), womanist, and
We can engage and collaborate with communities that
experience and are struggling against oppression, inequality, and stigma. Indeed, engagement and collaboration with
communities committed to social justice is the source of
intersectionality’s incorporation into academic disciplines.
This engagement and collaboration can be a part of but is
distinct from studying, teaching, intervening with, or providing clinical services to communities in ways that maintain power imbalances between psychologists and communities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR)
provides a useful framework, as CBPR is an approach to
research that involves equal partnerships between academics and the communities affected by the issues being studied
as well as a focus on social change (e.g., Israel, Schulz,
INCORPORATING INTERSECTIONALITY
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Table 1
Suggestions for Consideration by Individual Psychologists and by the Field
Suggestion
As individual psychologists
Engaging and collaborating
with communities
Learn and use CBPR or community-engaged research
methods to include community members in the
research process
Include community members in processes determining
the nature of clinical care
Include critiques of societal structures and ideas of ways
to change those structures to benefit communities in
writing and teaching (which can be through
collaborating with or drawing on the work of experts
in other disciplines)
Be an activist promoting social justice inside and/or
outside of work
Draw connections between the experiences of
communities with whom we work and other
communities in research, teaching, and clinical work
Collaborate with others whose work focuses on other
communities to learn from and support each other’s
research and clinical work
Focus on acts of resistance in research and clinical work
Consider activism and other forms of resistance as
potential intervention techniques
Incorporate social justice approaches into courses, such
as teaching about privilege, teaching service learning
courses, and addressing power dynamics
Include social justice themes in addition to diversity
and/or multiculturalism in program curricula at all
levels of training
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Addressing and critiquing
societal structures
Working together/building
coalitions
Attending to resistance in
addition to resilience
Teaching social justice
curricula
As a field
Work toward gaining better representation of CBPR and
community-engaged methods for research and clinical
work through curricula, awards, grant funding, and
publications
Work toward gaining greater prominence and recognition for
work that brings attention to and advocates for change in
structural issues affecting communities through curricula,
awards, grant funding, and publications
Work toward developing and sustaining coalitions committed
to social justice among different organizations within
psychology as well as connecting to organizations in other
fields and outside of academic and professional circles
Work toward making resistance more commonly studied in
research and addressed in clinical work through curricula,
awards, grant funding, and publications
Work toward making social justice themes considered
standard to be a part of or in addition to multicultural or
diversity curricula at all levels of training
Note. CBPR ⫽ community-based participatory research.
Parker, & Becker, 1998; Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008;
Wallerstein & Duran, 2010). This means that communities
actively contribute (as equal partners) to all parts of the
research process, including developing research questions,
choosing methods, conducting and interpreting results, and
deciding how results will be disseminated and used to
advocate for change (e.g., Israel et al., 1998). Even if some
psychologists do not believe CBPR is the best approach to use
for their own research, it can serve as a model from which to
incorporate insights about how to engage and collaborate more
with communities to the benefit of research and other work.
Many academics conduct “community-based,” “communityinvolved,” or “community-engaged” research that would not
necessarily be considered CBPR or include communities as
completely equal partners, but that incorporates community
advisory boards, community discussion forums, or other methods to connect with and learn from the communities on which
the research is focused (e.g., Israel et al., 1998). A CBPR or
community-engaged framework can also be applied to including community members as partners in shaping provision of
clinical services, of which we can find examples in community
psychology practice (e.g., Brookman-Frazee, Stahmer, Lewis,
Feder, & Reed, 2012). Through this process, issues that communities view as important are brought to the forefront, and
communities are empowered to be leaders in understanding
and addressing those issues (e.g., Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008;
Wallerstein & Duran, 2010).
There are many examples of psychologists and other
scientists using CBPR or other community-engaged methods to great advantage to scientific knowledge, various
communities, and society at large. As one example, Baffour
and Chonody (2009) used CBPR methods to collaborate
with rural Black American women on a qualitative study
about racial disparities in infant mortality, finding that participants identified the important role of structural challenges they face, including barriers to receiving financial
assistance, health insurance, and medical care. As another
example, in conducting a quantitative study of Somali adolescent refugees living in the United States, Ellis, MacDonald, Lincoln, and Cabral (2008) developed a community
advisory board and held community meetings about the
study to increase community engagement, and they found
evidence that trauma, resettlement and acculturative stress,
and discrimination each contributed to posttraumatic stress
disorder symptoms in the sample. By using these methods to
focus on what communities identify as important issues,
structural and stigma-related issues are often highlighted.
Further, many communities experiencing various forms of
oppression, inequality, and stigma are currently calling for
structural-level changes toward social justice and equity
through social movements, such as those currently focused
on environmental issues, immigration rights, LGBT rights,
police violence, and sexual assault on college campuses.
Through engaging and collaborating with communities, we
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can make these issues more prominent in psychology. As
individual psychologists, we can learn from CBPR methods
to engage and collaborate more with communities that are
stigmatized, disadvantaged, and disempowered in ways that
support them to study issues important to them, advocate for
changes in society to benefit them, and shape interventions
and other clinical work targeting them to be better tailored
to their needs. As a field, we can work toward making
CBPR a better represented approach taught to students,
recognized by awards, funded by grants, and published by
journals.
Addressing and Critiquing Societal Structures
We can address structural issues and advocate for
structural-level changes that promote social justice and equity, thereby improving the health and well-being of communities experiencing oppression, inequality, and stigma.
Intersectionality compels us to address societal structures,
as they are deeply connected to individuals’ experiences.
This addressing of societal structures can sometimes result
from engaging and collaborating with communities that
bring attention to those issues, as described above, and as
psychologists we can contribute our own analysis of ways
that structures could be changed to benefit various groups of
people because of our understanding of how those structures
affect individuals’ well-being. Many psychologists discuss
the roles of structural-level issues that harm individuals,
groups, and societies, such as the role of segregation in
intergroup conflict (Al Ramiah & Hewstone, 2013), the
roles of religion, law, medicine, and even the field of
psychology itself in promoting or reducing sexual stigma
(Herek, 2007), and the role of national minimum wage
policy in poverty and its consequences (Smith, 2015). Indeed, there are theories in psychology that focus specifically
on the roles of structural inequalities and power imbalances,
such as social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999)
and power basis theory (Pratto, Lee, Tan, & Pitpitan, 2010).
Addressing structural issues brings attention to “fundamental causes” of many of the outcomes psychologists care
about (see Hatzenbuehler et al., 2013) and helps to generate
multilevel approaches to intervention, even if structural
changes seem difficult to achieve. This also includes addressing larger systems that play a role in structural oppression, inequality, and stigma. For example, psychological
experiences resulting from racial and other forms of discrimination in the criminal justice system are linked to
dynamics of capitalism, as there are companies that profit
from and support having large numbers of people imprisoned as a source of cheap labor (e.g., see Davis, 2003 on the
prison-industrial complex; Fine & Torre, 2006). Psychologists who feel that addressing societal structures is outside
of their area of expertise can collaborate with and draw on
the insights of experts on societal structures in other disci-
plines, such as anthropology, economics, gender and race
studies, history, political science, public health, or sociology
to do so.
We can also be activists and participate in social justice
movements both as a part of and separate from our work as
psychologists. Activism can involve a range of activities,
and psychology has a rich tradition of activism to guide us.
As one example, Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark (along
with many other psychologists; e.g., see Clark, Chein, &
Cook, 1952/2004; Pettigrew, 2004) played important roles
in the Civil Rights Movement, using their expertise from
work with Black American children on internalized racism
to testify and contribute to court cases about desegregation
of schools, including the Brown v. Board of Education
supreme court case leading to segregation being deemed
unconstitutional. As a more contemporary example, María
Elena Torre, Michelle Fine, and others at the Public Science
Project, use participatory action research methods in a range of
projects to advocate for structural changes to promote social
justice, such as for fair policing and access to college in prisons
(e.g., Fine, 2012; Fine & Torre, 2006). There are also professional organizations within psychology that make activism and
advocacy around social justice issues central to their purpose,
such as the Association of Black Psychologists, the National
Latina/o Psychological Association, Psychologists for Social
Responsibility, and the Society for the Psychological Study of
Social Issues (Division 9 of APA). APA engages in policyfocused advocacy, including in relation to social justice issues,
such as poverty, health disparities, and LGBT and women’s
issues (APA, 2015c). As individual psychologists writing
about research or clinical work with communities and individuals facing oppression, inequality, or stigma, we can make a
point to include critiques of structural factors affecting those
communities and individuals, as well as suggestions for ways
to change those structures to promote social justice and equity.
This can involve interdisciplinary collaborations with experts
in other fields. We can also as individual psychologists consider ways to be activists advocating for change in structures
affecting students we teach and/or communities we work with
through research and/or clinical work. As a field, we can work
toward making attention to structural issues and activism more
prominent and recognized aspects of our work taught to students, recognized by awards, funded by grants, and published
by journals.
Working Together/Building Coalitions
We can work to form, sustain, and grow coalitions and
collaborations across different areas of psychology as well
as with other fields, organizations, and communities that are
focused on social justice and equity across multiple forms of
oppression, inequality, and stigma. Sometimes our expertise
and interests lead us to focus on one particular group (e.g.,
Black Americans, gay men, people living with HIV,
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INCORPORATING INTERSECTIONALITY
women), and many organizations (and as a result journals,
conferences, etc.) focus on a particular group and advocate
for structural-level changes to benefit that group. This type
of focus is important in forming a deep understanding of
factors affecting and ways to promote well-being in members of those particular groups. However, one of the insights
of intersectionality is that many diverse groups of people
have intertwined experiences with oppression, inequality,
and stigma that can connect them and their struggles for
social justice and equity, even though those experiences are
unique for each group (and each individual) and forming
coalitions among diverse groups can be challenging (e.g.,
Cole, 2008). Increasing collaborations and coalitions across
groups and social issues can broaden our impact and increase innovation through learning from each other’s areas
of expertise and experiences. This can also help to avoid the
marginalization and instead draw on the unique and important insights of individuals that are simultaneously members
of multiple oppressed and stigmatized groups (e.g., Cole,
2008; Crenshaw, 1989; Crenshaw, 1991). Indeed, intersectionality itself is a product of those insights, particularly
those of Black feminist scholar-activists, and has received
so much attention because of its utility in many contexts.
Intersectional awareness, or seeing connections among multiple forms structural inequality, has been found to be associated with more positive intergroup attitudes and activism (Curtin, Stewart, & Cole, 2015), further supporting
benefits that increasing awareness of connections across
forms of oppression and diverse groups has for people and
can have for psychologists.
There are examples of organizations that explicitly address social justice issues relevant to many different groups
of people, such as the Society for the Psychological Study of
Social Issues (Division 9 of APA). There are also examples
of collaborations between organizations that focus on particular groups when they see their goals as allied, such as
collaborative programming between divisions of APA at its
annual convention that sometimes bring together divisions
focused on particular groups, such as Divisions 44 (Society
for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender Issues) and 45 (Society for the Psychological
Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race). Many individual
activists and activist organizations also collaborate and create coalitions to address multiple social justice issues. As
individual psychologists, we can make a point to explicitly
draw connections in our research, teaching, and clinical
work between the communities that we focus on in our work
and other communities that may have related and interconnected albeit unique experiences. We can also as individual
psychologists collaborate with others whose work focuses
on different communities to learn from and support each
other in research and clinical work. As a field, we can work
toward developing and sustaining coalitions across organizations focused on social justice within psychology as well
481
as in other fields and outside of academic and professional
circles.
Attending to Resistance in Addition to Resilience
We can attend to various acts of resistance in which
individuals and communities experiencing oppression, inequality, and stigma engage. Many psychologists involved
in research and clinical work with individuals and communities experiencing oppression, inequality, and stigma focus
on individual-level “resilience” factors that help people to
thrive despite exposure to adversity (e.g., see Masten,
2001). Identifying resilience factors is critical, as this informs intervention efforts targeting those factors. However,
the activist roots of intersectionality draws our attention to
resistance either as a potential resilience factor or in addition to resilience factors. Attending to resistance can help us
to better understand individuals and communities as actors
responding to (and not just passively receiving) experiences
of oppression, inequality, and stigma, and can help us to
identify novel ways to intervene to improve well-being
among those with these experiences.
Many psychologists study collective action as one form of
resistance to oppression, inequality, and stigma. Some research has found involvement in collective action to have
psychological benefits, such as increases in empowerment,
well-being, satisfaction, and happiness (see Thomas &
Louis, 2013, for a review). Recent theory also suggests that
some “risky” behaviors (e.g., unprotected sex) may represent a form of resistance to oppression, inequality, and
stigma for some individuals (Factor, Kawachi, & Williams,
2011). Whether consequences of resistance are positive or
negative, attending to the role of resistance can help us to
better understand psychological dynamics and processes
among oppressed, disempowered, and disadvantaged
groups. This can include a range of forms of resistance and
community organizing to which psychologists should attend, some of which are familiar and consistent with past
social movements, including the use of protests and
marches, and some of which are new in recent years, including the use of social media (e.g., Juris, 2012; Tayebi,
2013). Further, there are models of clinical work, such as
feminist psychotherapy, social justice approaches in counseling psychology, multicultural counseling, and multicultural psychotherapy, that involve promoting advocacy and
activism in clients to empower and promote well-being in
those individuals and their communities (e.g., Brown, 2009;
Comas-Diaz, 2014; Sue & Sue, 2013; Toporek, Gerstein,
Fouad, Roysircar, & Israel, 2005). As individual psychologists, we can incorporate attention to resistance more in our
research and clinical work, as well as consider activism and
other forms of resistance as potential intervention techniques. As a field, we can work toward making resistance
more commonly studied in research and addressed in clin-
ROSENTHAL
482
ical work through what is taught to students, recognized by
awards, funded by grants, and published by journals.
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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Teaching Social Justice Curricula
We can incorporate social justice into our program and
individual course curricula for all levels of training. Many
psychology departments include multicultural and diversity
themes in their curricula, as APA identifies “individual and
cultural diversity” as a core competency included under the
cluster of “professionalism” and has put forth guidelines for
addressing these themes in the field (APA, 2003). These
curricula often involve learning about how psychological phenomena may differ based on cultural backgrounds and about
being “culturally-informed” and “culturally-appropriate” (APA,
2003),which are critically important in training students to appreciate the importance of and appropriately handle diversity. However, there is evidence that a multicultural approach can sometimes increase stereotyping when focused on cultural and other
group differences (e.g., see Rosenthal & Levy, 2010), and this
approach does not necessarily or always address dynamics of
privilege, power, oppression, inequality, and stigma that are important in shaping the experiences of diverse groups. Intersectionality encourages us to teach social justice curricula to address these
issues and help to make them more centrally and appropriately
addressed in our field and in society.
One example of how psychologists can build on and add
to multicultural and diversity curricula to address social
justice and equity issues is to directly teach about power and
privilege at a structural level in psychology courses (Case,
2013). This is important, as to address oppression, inequality, and stigma, we also need to focus on privilege and the
roles that individuals with various forms of privilege play in
maintaining or challenging the status quo (e.g., Stoudt, Fox,
& Fine, 2012). As another example, service learning courses
in psychology (and other fields) involve a community service component, which encourages civic engagement and
social responsibility in students (Bringle & Hatcher, 1995).
Many have also advocated for the importance of acknowledging and addressing power dynamics between and among
instructors and students connected to intersecting identities
to promote student empowerment (e.g., Case & Lewis,
2012; Johnson-Bailey & Cervero, 1998). As individual psychologists, we can consider incorporating these types of
approaches into our own courses and programs as well as
explore and evaluate new and innovative ways to teach
social justice and equity agendas to our students. As a field,
we can work toward making social justice themes considered standard to be a part of or in addition to multicultural
or diversity curricula at all levels of training.
Conclusion
There is increasing interest in psychology and other fields
in intersectionality, which has roots in the experiences,
thought, and work of Black feminist scholar-activists. A
core aspect of intersectionality is its focus on interlocking
systems of oppression and the goals of social justice and
equity. Large and ever-growing bodies of work demonstrate
the wide-ranging adverse consequences of structural- and
interpersonal-level oppression, inequality, and stigma for
the health and well-being of many different groups of people. I suggest it is in our own interests as psychologists to fully
adopt intersectionality, and thereby to push our field toward a
psychology that regularly critiques societal structures that harm
the well-being of diverse individuals, and that is committed to
pursuing social justice and equity. There are many ways that
we as individual psychologists and the field as a whole can
contribute to this, including through engaging and collaborating with communities, addressing and critiquing societal structures, working together/building coalitions, attending to resistance in addition to resilience, and teaching social justice
curricula. There are many examples of individuals and organizations both within and outside of psychology that we can
use to guide us if we choose to do so. Our science, teaching,
and clinical work can all benefit from the many insights that
intersectionality brings to the table, and psychology has much
to contribute to existing work and efforts focused on social
justice and equity. As our field increases its interest in intersectionality, we have an opportunity to learn and grow not only
from its focus on the ways that intersecting identities create
unique experiences for individuals, but also from its focus on
interlocking systems of oppression and the need for structurallevel change to promote social justice and equity.
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Received March 9, 2015
Revision received February 5, 2016
Accepted February 13, 2016 䡲