Article archive / August 1, 2014
Originally published: . Volume 5, No. 12. Source pages: 1, 6.
Dr. Bonnie Nastasi Multicultural Issues, Child Rights
Tulane Professor Dr. Bonnie Nastasi, current Co-Chair of APA Committee on International Relations in Psychology, will be leading several symposia as well as chairing the session for the presentation of this year’s International Humanitarian Award taking place on the final day of the APA conference.
She will co-chair, “Psychology Without Borders––A Roundtable Discussion on International Teaching, Research, and Service.”
“This is a session organized by APA’s Committee on International Relations in Psychology [CIRP] in collaboration with American Psychological Association Student Group,” Dr. Nastasi told the Times. “The session is organized around the three topic areas of teaching, research, and service.”
“The purpose of the session is to provide information and opportunity for those interested in doing international work to hear from individuals with experience in doing international work,” she said. “The discussion focuses on how to get started, challenges and benefits, how to negotiate international relationships; and provides an opportunity to meet potential mentors and colleagues with similar interests.”
Dr. Nastasi will also chair the symposium, “Using Psychological Science to Promote and Protect Child Rights––Policy, Practice, and Research,” a collaborative session initiated by CIRP and the Committee on Children Youth and Families, she explained.
“This is the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,” Nastasi said. “I have been working in the area of child rights for the past several years, originally under the auspices of International School Psychology Association and subsequent collaboration with Division 16 [School Psychology].”
“We developed a curriculum for professional development of school psychologists––and other mental health professionals––in child rights advocacy within their roles working with individuals, systems and policy. The project is now centered at Tulane as the Tulane University Child Rights Team and reflects the efforts of several doctoral students and doctoral graduates of Tulane’s School Psychology program under my leadership.”
The roundtable session is an effort to bring together psychologists from different divisions who do work related to promotion and protection of child rights, she explained.
“My presentation is focused on integrating child rights perspective into the research through choice of research questions, methodology, and ethics; and including children as co-researchers,” she said.
On Friday, Dr. Nastasi will also present in “Top 20 Psychological Principles for PK- 12 Education,” along with co- authors for the APA Board of Educational Affairs.
The top 20 psychological principles were developed by Nastasi and others through the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education, an interdivisional coalition that works in collaboration with the APA Center for Psychology in Schools and Education within the Education Directorate, she explained.
The principles cover the domains of cognitive competence, assessment, motivation, and social- emotional competence, she noted. Examples include how emotional well-being influences educational performance, learning, and well-being, and how interpersonal relationships and interpersonal communication are critical to the teaching–learning process and the social–emotional development of students.
The Coalition is in the process of finalizing a document that presents the principles, explains the importance based on psychological theory and research, and discusses relevance for teachers, she said.
Also on Friday Dr.Nastasi will join colleagues from around the country and world to outline issues in, “School Psychology in a Global Context––Transnational/Global Considerations in Training and Practice.”
In this symposium Nastasi will present, “From Multicultural to Intercultural Competence: Implications for Training and Practice.” She will focus on an expanded view of multicultural competence that includes intercultural or transcultural competence.
“This is an area that I have become particularly interested in over the last several years,” Dr. Nastasi said,” related to my interests in international research and development, engaging in international partnerships, and preparing psychologists with a global perspective.
Following the work of Friedman and Antal, Nastasi views this type of competence to develop through reflection, interaction with others from different cultures, and by “… developing a broad cultural repertoire of perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors that facilitates flexible responding in different contexts. They also view the interactions across cultures as being a negotiated process to achieve shared meaning,” she said.
Dr. Nastasi is doing some writing and publishing in this area and has lead an effort in the Committee on International Relations in Psychology to develop “international competencies” that would parallel “multicultural competencies.”
Tulane’s Dr. Bonnie Nastasi
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