About Research and Training

GSEP students and faculty are actively engaged in research, training, and community initiatives to advance and advocate multicultural proficiency. As a result of these efforts, our academic programs are developing curricular models for practice in educational and psychological environments that support cultural sensitivity and understanding. Through hands-on experience, students learn how to facilitate solutions and create opportunities in support of diversity.

• Urban Initiative — The Urban initiative exists to develop transformative solutions to social problems that have both a humanitarian value and are grounded in problem-oriented perspectives.
• Multicultural Research and Training Lab (MRTL) — MRTL was organized by a cohort of psychology faculty members at GSEP to provide PsyD students engaged in multicultural research a space to discuss and receive feedback on their clinical dissertations topics. In addition to offering dissertation support, MRTL provides students the opportunity to discuss their views on how effectively the PsyD program contributes to their multicultural competence, and the ways in which GSEP can offer a more welcoming experience for students from diverse backgrounds.
• Culture and Trauma Research Lab — The Culture and Trauma Research Lab meets weekly to conduct qualitative and quantitative research on the cultural context of interpersonal trauma recovery. Projects, including critical analyses of literature, focus on partner abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, genocide, and the societal trauma of racism. Current populations of interest are American Indian, African American, Latina, Asian American, Jewish American, Liberian, and South African. The lab has also examined the role of religion and spirituality in the trauma recovery process.
• Pepperdine Resource, Youth Diversion, and Education (PRYDE) — PRYDE is a prevention, intervention, and counseling program for at-risk youth and their families in Orange County, staffed by graduate and post-graduate interns from GSEP.
• Language and Culture Lab — The Language and Culture Lab meets weekly to conduct qualitative and quantitative research to understand and empower diverse communities within a cultural context. The lab is inspired by Martín-Baró’s work on liberation psychology and conducts four tracks of research in the areas of language and culture within the field of psychology.