The crossroads of Psychology in Higher Education

clues to enchant whitened curricula

Abstract

This paper critically examines two research studies on psychology training in Brazil, with a central focus on the integration of racial issues in the curriculum. The first study analyzes the psychology curriculum of a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the State of Rio de Janeiro, investigating the content through documentary analysis and its potential impact on the black student community at the university. The author argues that psychology education in Brazil is heavily influenced by the hegemony of modern scientific knowledge, which marginalizes Afro-diasporic perspectives, leading to intellectual alienation among students. To counter this epistemic whitening, the study advocates for authentic strategies that affirm the black identity of students. The second research highlights the lack of racial literacy in the training of psychologists at a private HEI, proposing racial literacy as a foundational practice in psychology, thereby fostering the emergence of an anticolonial, Afrocentric, and pluralistic psychology. By synthesizing these two studies, the paper underscores the urgency of deconstructing the presumed certainties of a whitened curriculum, advocating for a rupture with alienating practices and promoting strategies that support a psychology rooted in social justice.