Radical Accountability: A Strategy for Addressing Challenges and Inequities in Research Mentoring Relationships
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: In research-intensive fields such as psychology, research mentoring is a crucial component of academic and professional advancement. Research mentoring occurs when a more experienced person mentors a more junior person in research. Although these mentoring relationships have significant potential to address systemic inequities in psychology and academia more generally, some mentoring relationships do the opposite by further marginalizing women, People of Color, and Women of Color. In this theoretical paper, we argue that the absence of radical accountability is the root cause of many problems in mentoring relationships. Building on critical frameworks and corresponding empirical work, we conceptualize radical accountability as practice whereby mentors critically reflect on how power and privilege shape mentoring dynamics and take intentional steps to redress inequity. After describing radical accountability and its conceptual underpinnings, we engage in the feminist practice of reflexivity to describe how we—the authors of the paper—applied it in a recent professional endeavor. This discussion leverages the authors’ diverse professional and sociodemographic backgrounds. We conclude by providing practical recommendations for how mentors can engage in radical accountability.
Source: Feminism & Psychology
Authors: J. Abigail Saavedra, Gloria Wong-Padoongpatt, Diana R. Beltran, Rachael D. Robnett, Richard Chang, Courtney L. Luedke
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W7128716451