Recognizing the Agency and Strengths of People in Disadvantaged Positions: A Holistic Approach to Studying Inequality

In understanding the psychology of social inequalities, research has often framed individuals in disadvantaged positions as weak, lacking in skills or potential. In response, calls to better recognize individuals’ agency and strengths have become increasingly popular. Yet, doing so in the context of social-inequality research – research aiming to understand effects of disadvantage – is not trivial. How can we reconcile the need to recognize people’s strengths with the need to address the very real challenges they face? And how can we study the way individuals experience disadvantage, without reducing them to the role of weak and passive victims? To answer such questions, we integrate traditional social-inequality research with recent advances in strength-based research in what we call a ‘holistic approach’ to studying inequality. At the core of this approach is a simultaneous recognition of context-level disadvantage (the focus of traditional inequality research) and individual-level agency (the focus of recent strength-based research). The present article outlines this approach, including its purpose, and tenets, and offers practical guidelines on implementing it, including an illustrative example. In doing so, we hope to support authors, reviewers, editors, and other stakeholders aiming for an accurate and non-stigmatizing study of social inequalities.