Previous Issues

April 2020

May 2019

This Special Issue focuses on the relationships between three major institutional agents in the making of the educational garden—the school, the family, and the community. A number of crucial issues are addressed. First, it brings to the field of home-school-community relationships a systematic theoretical scheme. Secondly it gives us a comparative-cultural (India, Canada) glimpse into the histories of education as it has been used as a tool to conquer the minds of new—by force annexed—members of the society. Thirdly, it brings into the school-home-community relationships discourse the basic principles of dialogical science. These relationships are not merely general themes of discourse but can take very concrete forms—when parents join their children in jointly building models of boats, or when children are involved in re-designing travel routes. Fourthly the general model of Urie Bronfenbrenner that since 1970s has been used as a basis for looking at school in society is given careful analytic attention. Finally, we get a glimpse of innovative pedagogical practices that are oriented towards the parents—who may be brought to the school territory to join their children in joint construction efforts.

May 2018

The current issue is a rolling issue of individual papers. As individual submissions are accepted for publication in 2018 they will be added to the current issue.

October 2017

The current issue is a rolling issue of individual papers. As individual submissions are accepted for publication in 2017 they will be added to the current issue. A new rolling issue will begin in January 2018.

August 2016

This special issue of Psychology & Society was guest edited by Gabriel Velez from the University of Chicago. This issue emerged in response to the revelations and public discourse surrounding the 2014 United States’ Senate Intelligence Committee’s report that implicated specific psychologists and the American Psychological Society as complicit in torture practices. While these connections are troubling, in many ways, social psychology supports the study and practice of human rights. To achieve this end, the current issue follows the special issue of Peace & Conflict: the Journal of Peace Psychology and includes a concluding commentary by that journal\'s editor, Fathali Moghaddam, that discusses the development of human rights and duties and its relation to change and violence. This issue provides an array of work occurring at the nexus of human rights and social psychology, with particular emphasis on the variety of methodologies and theories that can be employed to understand how human rights are understood, constructed, and enacted in social contexts. McFee demonstrates how a local-level social group constructs understandings of peace and future promise in relation to state discourses. Mazur analyzes geographical representation to argue for the importance of such constructions in human rights. Bertrand employs narrative analysis to explore youth meaning making amid governmental discourses of human rights. Canguçu Campinho, Sampaio Oliveira Lima, And Leone De Souza outline the process and importance of being attentive to human rights in producing psychological material for families with intersex children. Rafferty offers a human-rights based approach to constructing mental health supports for child victims of sex trafficking. Finally, Velez analyzes the construction of the child in human rights documents, and then demonstrates how social psychological theory offers a way to develop a more nuanced approach to child\'s rights. Each of these papers utilizes methodology and theory from social psychology to develop understandings of human rights in context and as socially constructed.

June 2016

We are pleased to present this June 2016 issue of Psychology & Society, comprised of individual papers covering a variety of topics in social and cultural psychology. With this issue Psychology & Society continues to grow as an outlet for researchers who use diverse methods to explore psychological processes in diverse cultural groups. This issue also includes two book reviews on recent works that are both topical and challenging. We hope you enjoy the papers in this issue and encourage you to engage with the research through our comments and ratings features.

October 2015

Mind the Border!

This special issue of Psychology & Society was compiled by guest editor Giuseppina Marsico from the University of Salerno, Italy. The special issue is aimed at exploring, from the theoretical and empirical points of view, the concept of border in contemporary cultural psychology. Borders is an innovative multidisciplinary theoretical construct that is raising interest in human and social sciences. Different psycho-social processes can be explored and understood focusing on what happens on the border. From the perspective of cultural psychology, borders are the outcome of culturally organized processes which are not fixed, but based on a continuous organization and reorganization of I-Other-World relationships. The special issue has managed to be interdisciplinary in the discussions of the border notion, promoting an enrichment for different areas of psychology and neighboring disciplines. Thus, on the pages of the journal one can find the interplay between different fields of research in contemporary psychology and the efforts to explain the notion of the border in its interface between art and science (see Lorderlo), from a clinical point of view (see Nassar), in between performing arts and cultural psychology (see Morais & Silva Guimarães), and in relation to discourse analysis (see Hermansen). Two other papers (see Carrè and Santana da Silva) complement and expand, in a wider theoretical perspective, the ideas discussed by the authors. Cultural psychology plays a crucial role not only in linking different scientific discourses, but also in supporting the synthesis of new ideas and in feeding new research practices towards a further development of the field.

February 2015

This special issue of Psychology & Society was edited by guest editor Maria Cecilia Dedios-Sanguineti from the London School of Economics and Political Science. The focus of the issue is around the question of \'context\' in a cultural psychology of human cognition, development and behaviour. In particular, the issue addresses the question of whether it is possible to put the context alongside culture when doing cultural psychology? Why is this necessary? Each of the contributors to this special issue propose different answers to these questions. Joshua Bruce examines how cultural psychology incorporates power into its theorizing and explanatory capabilities; Kurtis and Adams investigate culture and gender influences on interdependence; Goyal, Wice, Adams, Chauhan and Miller explore attributions of spousal transgressions in India and the US, challenging simple links between power, rights and responsibilities; Soerens views intimate partner violence among migrant women through the lens of the dialogical self; finally, Mandviwala provides a window into the experiences of adolescent Muslim girls growing up in America. Each of these efforts represents a nuanced and subtle approach to the study of the entanglements between culture, context, and mind.

November 2014

This November issue of Psychology & Society features individual submissions that span a wide range of topics. Bastos and Guimarães reflect on the relationship between researcher and subject in the context of conducting research in cultural psychology. Feehan presents a thematic analysis of Facebook users, identifying a code of being that structures self-presentation concerns. Haque examines achievement motivation among college students, focusing on the ambivalence that can arise from mulitple socio-cultural identities. Spjeldnæs explores the concept of mothering among adolescents in South Africa. Keipi integrates the social identity model of deindividuation effects with self determination theory to provide a new framework for understanding internet use amongst youth.

August 2014

The Person, the Collective, and the Cultural

This special issue was edited by guest editor Patrick Byers. The issue contains articles that explore the relation between the personal, the collective and the cultural in theoretical and empirical work. The articles focus on issues that include how individuals make use of collective cultural phenomena in the construction of personal sense, how different interactional contexts produce forms of activity that are irreducible to the interactants, and how the relation between the individual and the social is reframed by different theoretical perspectives. Readers are especially encouraged to comment upon any of these contributions in the space provided on the journal’s website.

September 2013

This special issue of Psychology & Society on semiotic mechanisms has been put together by guest editor Kevin Carriere. The concept of a semiotic mechanism is crucial for explaining the process of meaning-making in diverse cultural settings. The new concepts in the cultural psychology of semiotic dynamics that are developed include: a) semiotic processing; b) self-recursivity; c) semiotic switch; and d) semiotic commemoration. Readers are especially encouraged to comment upon any of these contributions in the space provided on the journal’s website.

May 2013

This special issue of Psychology & Society on societal psychology in Norway has been put together by guest editor Joshua Phelps. Societal psychology explores individual and social processes within institutional, socio-cultural and historical contexts.The issue brings together diverse contributions by authors who have produced their research under the disciplinary boundary “samfunnspsykologi” in Norwegian higher education institutions. Topics addressed include the health benefits of dog-ownership, the act of whistleblowing and neo-liberalism, psychologists’ role in depoliticizing society, and global identity. The issue consists of the guest editor’s introduction, four main papers and four commentaries. Readers are especially encouraged to comment upon any of these contributions in the space provided on the journal’s website.

January 2013

Welcome to the January 2013 issue of Psychology & Society. We have decided to create an annual \'rolling\' issue to which new articles will be added as they are accepted for publication. The purpose of this change is to minimize the time between submission and publication. Rather than wait for a full set of papers to be ready before publishing an issue, each new paper can be added to the rolling issue at any time, enabling rapid publication.

Along side the rolling issue we will still publish separate \'special issues\', focusing on a particular theme or research group.

Many thanks for your interest in Psychology & Society.

The Editors.

December 2011

This issue of Psychology & Society presents a series of individual papers that were independently reviewed and accepted for publication. Further papers for this issue are still being processed and will be added as they become available.

April 2011

This special issue of Psychology & Society on intergroup conflict has been put together by guest editor Seamus Power. The issue brings together young, enthusiastic and optimistic authors keen to make a contribution to this fundamental and increasingly pressing social issue. The collection, which follows a 'paper + commentary' format, addresses intergroup conflict in a range of real-world contexts, at both empirical and theoretical levels. We hope you enjoy the stimulating discussions and debates contained within this special issue.

August 2010

This is the fourth issue of Psychology & Society, and the first to consist entirely of individual submissions. The collection includes theoretical and empirical papers as well as commentaries, each with a strong cultural theme. The first four papers explore how cultural and historical contexts shape the development of ideas (Hatala; Cabell) and reactions to social change (Andriani & Manning; Bresco). On a more developmental level, Wagoner and Jensen employ a novel method to reveal change in children's understanding of animals and habitats following a zoo visit, and Dimitrova considers the role of objects in infants' development. Zuma interrogates social psychology's concept of 'desegregation', arguing it has been reified and stripped of its historical and political meanings. Finally, Flick, Caltabiano and Bentrupperbäumer describe an interview study of farmers' beliefs and attitudes towards waterway management in the far north of Australia. We are very pleased with this collection of articles and hope you will enjoy reading them. As ever, please do take the time to rate and comment on those you read.

November 2009

This is the second issue of Psychology & Society showcasing papers presented at the Annual Cambridge-LSE Inter-University Postgraduate Conference. This year's conference commemorated a decade of collaboration between these distinguished institutions, and the papers published in this issue reflect the diversity as well as central themes in this ongoing relationship. We hope you find them stimulating, and encourage you to express your thoughts using the rating and comments systems.

All the best,
The Editors

March 2009

We are pleased to present this special issue of Psychology & Society showcasing the research and interests of the Institute of Cultural Psychology and Qualitative Social Research (ikus) in Vienna. We would like to thank the issue's guest-editors -- Katharina Hametner and Amrei C. Joerchel -- for their superb work in organzing the issue, which was funded by the Science and Research Division (MA 7) of the City of Vienna.

If students at your institute want to put together a similar issue please contact us with your ideas.  

The Editors
Psychology & Society

November 2008

Welcome to the first issue of Psychology & Society. We hope you enjoy the articles, all of which are authored by current postgraduate students and colleagues who presented their work at the 9^th Annual Inter-University Postgraduate Conference on Constructions, Discourse and Representations, held on the 17th of May 2008 at the University of Cambridge. 

If you are new to the site, you will notice functions that allow you to rate and comment on each article. We hope these features provide useful feedback to authors and generate lively discussions. If you read an article, please take the time to rate and/or comment on it. 

Finally, we hope this is the first of many issues of Psychology & Society, and are now in a position to offer an open invitation to all postgraduate students of psychology to submit manuscripts for consideration in future issues. If you are considering submitting a paper to the journal, please see the ‘information for contributors’ section of the website. 

Happy reading, and good luck with your own research. 

The Editors