Cultural Psychology, Racism, and Social Justice

Carl Ratner is an international figure in cultural psychology. He has written extensively on the theory and methodology of cultural psychology. His work focuses upon concrete features of culture, especially their political-economic interests and structure. He emphasizes the political nature of psychology that embodies and reproduces culture. He has explained these issues in analyses of varied psychological phenomena including emotions, child development, cognition, perception, sexuality, gender, memory, mental illness and literacy. Ratner has applied cultural psychology to social-political issues of our time. These include multiculturalism, postmodernism, social constructionism, neoliberalism. His work utilizes analyses of culture and psychology to identify more fulfilling cultural organization and psychological activity. In this regard he has written about cooperatives and cooperation as an alternative culture and psychology. Ratner has worked academically for extended periods in China, Saudi Arabia, England, and India.