A people's academy: (Re)imagining anti-racist research mentorship in psychology doctoral programs

Psychology doctoral students are trained in spaces historically designed by and for white, able-bodied, middle- to upper-class, straight, cisgender men. Within these settings, minoritized students encounter epistemic exclusion and discrimination that relegate them to academia's periphery. Extant research outlines various approaches to anti-racist research mentorship that support the well-being and academic success of minoritized students. In this paper, we expand on existing lines of inquiry by proposing a "wind chime" model of doctoral research mentorship, which blends the Cultural Research System Model and principles of Critical Race Theory. Drawing from experiences within our Diversity Science Research Collective, we illustrate how our practices-project gardens, lab meetings, authorship and expertise, and writing groups-(re)configure people, places, practices, and power to create affirmative and liberatory academic spaces. We contextualize our model within the broader context of underfunded public institutions of higher education and discuss structural constraints to actualizing anti-racist and just mentorship in revolting times characterized by epistemic exclusion, inequitable institutional policies, political censorship, and economic austerity. Finally, we provide suggestions on promoting anti-racist research mentorship of doctoral students across higher education spaces.