About the Decolonial and Indigenous Social Psychology Syllabus Project
About the Decolonial and Indigenous Social Psychology Syllabus Project
Social psychology, as currently taught in the Philippines, evinces a colonial quality that prioritizes Euro-American perspectives on human social cognition, influence, and relationships. As a consequence, people are imagined primarily as autonomous and agentic individuals who navigate their environments independent of or minimally influenced by their social, material, historical, and cultural contexts. At another level, social psychological knowledge originating from the Global North is privileged as universal and central, whereas that offered by Majority World scholars is considered parochial and peripheral. In contrast, within the indigenous and decolonial traditions (including Sikolohiyang Pilipino), the primacy of relationship-centered interactions, power relations, colonial and imperial histories, material conditions, and cultural influences is acknowledged and emphasized.
As such, current efforts to develop a culturally and contextually appropriate social psychology education in Asia localize the discipline by supplementing foreign reference materials with local publications, integrating indigenous concepts in class discussions, and citing relevant social issues as points of application. However, such initiatives largely follow the sequence of Euro-American textbooks structured around social cognition, influence, and relationships.
In response, the Decolonial and Indigenous Social Psychology Collective [DISCo] has developed a syllabus for a decolonial and indigenous approach to the teaching of social psychology in the Philippines, which centers Filipino society, culture, and politics in its content and structure. Through its implementation, students are encouraged to interrogate the discipline’s colonial and neoliberal legacies and attend to social inequalities and injustices through the lens of intersectionality. In doing so, they then envision relationships (kapwa), power (kapangyarihan), and democratic citizenship (pagkamamamayan) as sites of social psychological intervention for individual and collective well-being (ginhawa).
The Decolonial and Indigenous Social Psychology [DISP] Syllabus Project started during the Decolonizing and Indigenizing Psychology Summer School convened by the University of the Philippines Diliman Department of Psychology in July 2025. This syllabus has been implemented in three higher education institutions during the First Semester of the Academic Year 2025–2026: Pampanga State University, University of the Philippines Diliman, and University of the Philippines Visayas.
The members of the Decolonial and Indigenous Social Psychology Collective are (in no particular order):
Junix Jerald I. Delos Santos, University of Baguio
Joan Dale R. Flores, Pampanga State University
Augil Marie Robles, MA, RPm, University of the Philippines Visayas
Polline Rae C. Domingo, University of the Philippines Diliman
James Montilla Doble, University of the Philippines Diliman
Francis Simonh M. Bries, PhD, University of the Philippines Diliman
The Decolonial and Indigenous Social Psychology Collective would like to acknowledge the following individuals and groups whose contributions made the Decolonial and Indigenous Social Psychology Syllabus Project possible:
Decolonizing and Indigenizing Psychology Summer School (SP Summer School)
Assoc. Prof. Jay A. Yacat, MA, RPsy, SP Summer School Overall Head and Mentor
Prof. Jose Antonio R. Clemente, PhD, SP Summer School Plenary Speaker
Implementation Sites (1S, AY 25-26): Pampanga State University Psychology Department; University of the Philippines Diliman Department of Psychology; University of the Philippines Visayas Division of Social Sciences
Research Labs: UP Dalub-Isip sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Sikolohiyang Pilipino Collective); UPD Social Psychology Research and Innovations Group (SPRING)