Social-Developmental Psychology and Activism Research Collective
SPARC is a collaborative research group for undergraduate and graduate students across CUNY interested in how people are psychologically transformed through activism, social movements, and other forms of collective action. Bringing together social, developmental, and cultural-historical perspectives, our research examines changes in intergroup attitudes, political solidarity, class consciousness, identity, and agency that can emerge through participation in collective struggle.
Students participate as collaborators across the research process – developing questions and measures, collecting and analyzing data, conducting interviews, presenting findings at conferences, and contributing to publications.
Current Research
Teacher Strikes & Psychological Change
SPARC researchers are examining major U.S. teacher strikes as naturally occurring cases of collective action, asking whether strikes can shift racial attitudes, class consciousness, and public attention to social justice. The project combines archival survey data, measures of implicit and explicit attitudes, and online indicators of public attention.
Activists on Psychological Transformation
This qualitative interview project asks activists how sustained participation in organizing has changed their identities, relationships, emotions, political understanding, and sense of what is possible. SPARC students participate in interview preparation, transcription, qualitative coding, and developing new coding approaches to generate themes.
Intergroup Contact & Solidarity among Activists
This survey project examines contact and collaboration among activists from different racial and ethnic groups, with a focus on the conditions that foster political solidarity, reduce intergroup bias, and sustain collective action. SPARC students contribute to survey development, recruitment, data analysis, and interpretation.
Social Class, Class Struggle & Revolutionary Consciousness
This theoretical and measurement project critiques psychology’s reliance on socioeconomic status and subjective social class as proxies for class relations. Drawing on Marxist psychology and research on class consciousness, work, labor struggle, and social movements, we are developing an approach that treats social class as a relation of exploitation and asks how participation in collective struggle can transform class consciousness and political agency.
SPARC in Action
Research in Practice
SPARC students contribute to research beyond data collection and analysis. They also help develop recruitment materials, communicate research to potential participants, and shape how projects are presented to the communities involved.
This student-created flyer was developed for our Activists on Psychological Transformation interview study, which examines how sustained participation in activism and social movements can transform people psychologically.
Past recruitment material shown as example of SPARC’s collaborative research process. Recruitment information is no longer current.
People
Director
Jeremy E. Sawyer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Kingsborough Community College, CUNY
Doctoral Faculty, CUNY Graduate Center
Graduate Researchers
Graduate researchers contribute to project development, interviewing and qualitative coding, quantitative analysis, and manuscript preparation.
Undergraduate Researchers
Undergraduate researchers participate in literature review, study design, data collection, coding, analysis, and conference preparation.
Get Involved
Students interested in activism, social movements, social class, critical psychology, social and developmental psychology, or cultural-historical approaches to human development are welcome to get in touch about opportunities to participate in SPARC. Research experience is helpful but not required – curiosity, reliability, and a willingness to work collaboratively matter most.