Cultural Psychology, Racism, and Social Justice

This book utilizes cultural psychology as a cultural theory and psychological theory capable of explaining and improving social issues. In particular Vygotsky’s cultural-historical psychology, and Ratner’s macro-cultural psychology are invoked to explain racism and mitigate it. This explanation of, and solution to, racism are utilized as a framework for analyzing and refining contemporary movements for racial justice.

Among the topics discussed:

• Macro cultural psychology and Vygotsky’s Marxist cultural-historical psychology
• Differentiating psychological racism from economic racism
• Historical examples of racism during American slavery which reveal their cultural and psychological features
• Cultural-psychological analysis and refinement of Black Lives Matter, racial capitalism, intersectionism, and Ta-Nehishi Coates’ work

Cultural Psychology, Racism, and Social Justice will be of interest to the fields of social policy, social transformation, psychological theory, cultural theory, and history.

Carl Ratner is an international figure in cultural psychology. He has written extensively on the theory and methodology of cultural psychology. His work focuses upon concrete features of culture, especially their political-economic interests and structure. He emphasizes the political nature of psychology that embodies and reproduces culture. He has explained these issues in analyses of varied psychological phenomena including emotions, child development, cognition, perception, sexuality, gender, memory, mental illness and literacy. Ratner has applied cultural psychology to social-political issues of our time. These include multiculturalism, postmodernism, social constructionism, neoliberalism. His work utilizes analyses of culture and psychology to identify more fulfilling cultural organization and psychological activity. In this regard he has written about cooperatives and cooperation as an alternative culture and psychology. Ratner has worked academically for extended periods in China, Saudi Arabia, England, and India.