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global citizenship education
BPS updates, Education, Teaching and learning

Psychology for the global, connected, greater good

Madeleine Pownall, Pam Birtill and Richard Harris on the 2024 British Psychological Society Accreditation Standards.

20 December 2024

We are three educators in the School of Psychology, University of Leeds, who spend most of our working day discussing the graduate attributes and outcomes of psychology undergraduate education. Therefore, when the new 2024 BPS Accreditation Standards dropped this week, it was our academic Christmas. We read the new standards with interest and, later, delight. 

There are some welcome changes, including a more explicit nod to EDI and a discussion of open science knowledge, which marks a useful way forward for the discipline. However, we particularly appreciated the addition of a shout-out to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is new since the 2019 iteration. The accreditation standards now read: 

'Psychology has a clear role to play in responding to the challenges/ opportunities identified by the UN's SDGs. Programmes should be mindful of the of their role in developing the knowledge, skills and values that students require to contribute to sustainable development.' 

We whooped in our Teams chat. This is a promising addition for a number of reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates a recognition of the importance of psychology in contributing to addressing the world's most pressing global issues, including climate change, poverty, and gender inequality. As we have explored in our pedagogical research, psychology students are well-equipped to address these kinds of problems. This represents a philosophical commitment to the future of psychology education too. By framing the purpose of psychology education as working towards the SDGs, this also promotes the development of 'global citizenship' across the curriculum. 

Indeed, the application of psychology to the SDGs is, as we have argued in our work, the crux of 'global citizenship education' in psychology. Global citizenship education is a pedagogical approach that promotes students' application of disciplinary knowledge to contribute to the global good. The 'global good' may be best conceptualised as the SDGs. This has been thought of as 'psychological literacy' (Cranney et al., 2012), which is also explicitly referenced in the new standards. 

We are also happy because the inclusion of the SDGs in psychology education accreditation in the UK can, we think, foster a greater sense of purpose among students. It reminds them that their knowledge is not confined to academic settings but can be used, meaningfully and adaptively, to solve global problems. This may also help students to articulate their unique skills as psychologists, which is often a challenge (see Pownall et al., 2024). 

Aligned with global citizenship education and psychological literacy is the notion that students should be assessed in an authentic way (Wake et al., 2024). That is, assessments should reflect skills and knowledge that can be applied beyond the immediate academic context. This is another welcome addition to the accreditation standards, which now bring together these different pedagogical concerns explicitly: 'assessment design should include... authentic assessments and assessments that prepare students to address sustainability challenges'.

Overall, the inclusion of the SDGs into the BPS standards, and the inclusion of consideration of how this may be assessed, is more than just a way of enhancing the curriculum. It is, we think, a call to action for the psychological pedagogical community. It reminds us that psychology carries a real responsibility to contribute to the global, connected, greater good. 

By explicitly incorporating the SDGs (coupled with an explicit shout-out to the value of Open Science knowledge and skills, which also didn't pass us by), these standards represent a new positive vision for the future of psychology as a discipline. This future situates students centre-stage and makes psychology relevant and ready for the coming challenges.

Madeleine Pownall, Pam Birtill, Richard Harris

Cranney, J., Botwood, L., & Morris, S. (2012). National standards for psychological literacy and global citizenship: Outcomes of undergraduate psychology education. Australia: The University of New South Wales.

Pownall, M., Thompson, C., Blundell-Birtill, P., Newell, S. J., & Harris, R. (2024). Does "psychological literacy" feature in non-psychology degrees? A cross-discipline study of student perceptions. Teaching of Psychology51(4), 453-460.

Wake, S., Pownall, M., Harris, R., & Birtill, P. (2024). Balancing pedagogical innovation with psychological safety? Student perceptions of authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education49(4), 511-522.