Diversity and Social Justice Issues in Family Therapy Literature: A Decade Review

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we report on our (a) review of diversity and social justice issues as represented across articles published in five family therapy journals between 1995 and 2005, and (b) in-depth analysis of the content of diversity and social justice related articles in one of the five journals (the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy [JMFT]) during the same time period. Our primary goal is to contribute to the discourse on diversity and social justice by examining how frequently these issues have been discussed across family therapy journals and in what ways they are talked about. The results of our research indicate that there has been an overall increase in articles focusing on diversity and social justice over time, although some dimensions of cultural identity, including class, age, and nation of origin, have been severely underrepresented. Our in-depth analysis of articles in the JMFT yielded trends in how diversity and social justice have been discussed as well as suggestions for clinical practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity
• social justice
• cultural competence
• critical multiculturalism

The authors express sincere thanks to Jamie Donaghue, M.A., Doctoral Candidate, University of Connecticut, for her consultation on this study.