Prof. Ronelle Carolissen

Brief academic biography

Ronelle Carolissen is a clinical psychologist and professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Stellenbosch University. She has also served as the vice-dean (Teaching and Learning) in the Faculty of Education from 2017-2020 and has chaired the division for Community and Social Psychology of the Psychological Association of South Africa (2016-2019). She is a (South African) National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher. She holds the 2016 Psychological Association of South Africa award for excellence in teaching psychology in higher education. She was a visiting professor at Stanford University’s Bing overseas community engagement programme in Cape Town (2015-2019) and is a Fulbright research scholar (2021-2022). She serves on South African and international journal editorial boards that intersect in the fields of education and community psychology and has served on managing boards, most notably SAWIP (South Africa Washington International Leadership Programme 2016-2018) and the SAMRC (South African Medical Research Council 2019-present). She is the chief editor of the journal, Psychology in Society (PINS).

Her research expertise and publications explore critical community and decolonial approaches to teaching psychology with a strong interest in youth citizenship and identities in higher education. She specialises in qualitative methodologies including creative qualitative methodologies, with a specific interest in visual methodologies. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters in these areas and is the co-editor of the books Community, self and identity: Educating South African university students for citizenship (Human Science Research Council (HSRC) Press, 2012), Discerning critical hope in educational practices (Routledge 2014) and Transforming Transformation in Teaching and Research in Higher Education (African Sun Media, 2018).

Current intersecting research interests:

Critical citizenship, identity and belonging among university students: This covers issues such as race, gender, class, how students navigate university spaces and how they remake and enact identities in the face of hegemonic identity constructions.

Decolonial feminisms: What can the intersections of decoloniality and gender offer us when we think about higher education contexts, teaching and research? How can we make university teaching and learning contexts just and fair?

Psychology as profession and its intersections with community and community engagement: What are the current issues facing the profession of psychology in South Africa? How do we engage with Psychology as a profession, given the sociohistorical context, debates about transformation and mental health service provision in SA? What is community psychology and what does community psychology look like in practice and theory?

Recent publications (selection):

Saunderson, C. & Carolissen, R (under review). ‘I just want to get my degree and leave’: Psychosocial experiences of Black male students navigating a historically white South African university. Submitted to Race, Ethnicity and Education

Visser, M., Carolissen, R., Akhurst, J., & Matamela, N. (eds) (in press). Community Psychology. Van Schaik. (to be published in 2022).

Carolissen, R. (in press). Decolonising (community) psychology. In Visser, M., Carolissen, R., Akhurst, J., & Matamela, N. (eds) (under review). Community Psychology. Van Schaik. (to be published in 2022).

Joseph, B., & Carolissen, R (2022). Volunteer leadership: A silent factor in student volunteer retention. Journal of community psychology.

Fernández, J.S., Sonn, C., Carolissen, R., Stevens. G. (2021). Roots and Routes Toward Decoloniality within and outside Psychology Praxis. Review of General Psychology https://doi.org/10.1177%2F10892680211002437

Carolissen, R (2020). Becoming a community (educational) psychologist: enablers and constraints of participatory parity in student educational journeys. In Zembylas, M., Bozalek, V., & Holscher, D. Nancy Fraser and Participatory Parity: Reframing Social Justice in South African Higher Education. London: Routledge

Carolissen, R., Shefer, T., & Smit, E (2015). A critical review of inclusion and exclusion practices in Psychology curriculum in higher education, Psychology in Society, 14(1), 1–16.

Benjamin, L., & Carolissen, R. (2015). “They just block it out”: Community counsellors’ narratives of trauma in a low-income community, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 21(3), 414–431.

Completed research supervision (selection)

Farmer, J. (2021). Narratives of Black academic women in South African higher education: An autoethnography. (Phd, Higher Education)

Saunderson, C. (2019). Narratives of educational and psychosocial support amongst black male students at a historically white university. (Phd, Educational Support)

Walters, M. (2019). Belewinge van eerste generasie studente as beurshouers. (Masters, Educational Support)

Brown, L. (2016). Narratives of belonging among students at a historically white university. (Masters, Educational Psychology)

Benjamin, A. (2015). Community counsellors narratives of trauma in a low-income community (Phd, Psychology)

Teaching

Postgraduate

MA(Clin.Psych): Group therapy and Clinical Supervision

Honours: Community Psychology

Undergraduate teaching and module coordinator

348: Psychological interventions