Who'S Included? Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Of Students In School Psychology Literature Over The Last Decade

The field of school psychology continues to further embrace a social justice perspective to address systemic racism, privilege, prejudice, and discrimination. To accomplish this mission, school psychologists must ensure that there is a solid literature base that is inclusive and representative of students from minoritized backgrounds. A review of student sociodemographic characteristics was conducted of all articles in four of the primary journals of school psychology from 2010 to 2019 (n = 1,213 articles). Compared to national estimates of school-age sociodemographic distributions, researchers tended to include samples more representative of students identifying as White/Caucasian and underrepresentative of students from low-income backgrounds. Authors rarely included or described participants' sexual orientations and gender identities beyond the binary (female/male). We provide a discussion and recommendations for improving the inclusivity of students from minoritized backgrounds in future school psychology research.Impact StatementTo provide evidence-based school psychological practices to all students, the field's literature must be representative of the student population. In reviewing the past decade of school psychology research, the literature tends to overrepresent students who are White and come from middle to high socioeconomic backgrounds. There tends to be underrepresentation of sexual minority youth, youth from low SES backgrounds, and children at the elementary grade level.