In 2021, the American Psychological Association (APA) adopted a resolution acknowledging that the APA failed to lead the discipline in actively recognizing and dismantling systems and practices that contributed to racial discrimination. There is evidence that educational psychologists have been committed to anti-racism. Although their efforts are important, the theoretical and empirical foundations of their work limit the possibilities for enabling anti-racism in schools. Certain ontological, methodological, and epistemological assumptions can be used to create and justify racial hierarchy, exclusion, and deficiency. I will illustrate the limitations of educational psychology discourse by examining values and expectations for curiosity. In acts of curiosity in schools, students must be vulnerable, comfortable with showing that they do not know something, interested in closing the knowledge gap, and trusting of the context to support epistemological harmony. Understood this way, curiosity in schools will not feel the same for all students. Schooling systems, structures, and practices are created and protected by white racial actors. Expecting students to accept and acknowledge gaps in their understanding requires them to legitimize a body of knowledge, which can invalidate their being, knowledge, and experience. For some students, being curious can be a form of obedience to institutional control in contexts that undermine ways of knowing and being. Conversely, not displaying curiosity, which can be a form of resistance, can be interpreted as a character or dispositional flaw. It is essential to examine the context in which students are expected to be curious and the pathologization of students around assessments of curiosity.

From its outset, educational psychology focused on the conditions of school learning. Starting with factors such as optimal lighting or the length of lessons, it soon turned to teachers’ abilities to stimulate interest, motivation and learning in students. The goal has always been to find ways to impart knowledge to students or, more recently, to help them achieve good results. Yet students' perspectives – other than those of teachers – have hardly played a role in educational psychology. This seems surprising given that many young people spend more than a decade in education and can certainly be considered experts in the field. We asked 282 German high school students to complete a qualitative questionnaire in which we asked for their views on their school and, in addition, how they would create the best school ever if they had the opportunity. Preliminary results show how students realise and negotiate their own position, which is often perceived as secondary within an institution that restricts their agency or even violates their basic human needs. Such research from the students' point of view, is a central part of critical educational psychology that shifts the focus from governance to the empowerment of educational subjects.

In Danish educational psychology practice, “structure” is routinely recommended in psychoeducational reports as a standard solution to support students’ learning and well-being. This presentation critically examines how such recommendations reflect not only psychological reasoning but also political assumptions about order, control, and normative development. Drawing on empirical examples from educational psychology practice, this presentation explores how structure is recommended to manage complexity and ambiguity in inclusive education. While structure can be a meaningful and supportive intervention, its standardization also risks functioning as a psychological-political tool that shapes educational subjectivities and reinforces institutional power. By interrogating the dual role of structure—as both potentially enabling and constraining—the presentation contributes to broader debates about the political role of theory in education.

Interprofessional collaboration is increasingly used to address complex challenges in and across school and homes. Such collaborations often gather multiple professionals around meeting tables, where different forms of expertise are mobilised and perspectives on current issues are presented. This presentation draws on a current research project examining how these arrangements not only create opportunities but also reproduce particular ways of locating and understanding problems. The findings show that difficulties emerging in school are often conceptualised as originating in the home, legitimising interventions directed at parents on the assumption that problems “must be solved at home” to produce change in school. This logic can be theorised as a form of displacement, in which responsibility for action is transferred across contexts rather than understood as situated.

The findings also show how support systems around children and young people can be organised in ways that produce “waiting practices,” in which professionals defer action to others, generating chains of waiting that sustain rather than resolve problems. The presentation demonstrates how these structures and patterns emerge and how professionals can work to transcend them through alternative and exploratory forms of collaboration.

Theoretically, the paper draws on critical perspectives within educational psychology to illuminate how our conceptualisations of children’s and young people’s difficulties in school are embedded in historical, organisational, and political conditions that shape where and how support is initiated, and how these conceptions are entangled with the development of educational psychological support practices.