Theorizing and Studying Race, Ecology, and Trauma for African American Youth

• In Event: Eco-Cultural Frames: Examining Challenges of Race, Ethnicity, and Class for Youth Learning, Development, and Resilience

Abstract

Race is a core aspect of the experience of young people in schools and in communities in the United States. Even in an era that has been purported to be “postracial” one need only look to the news media in recent months to see just how critical race is as a part of the ecological terrain in this country. However, those concerned with understanding ecological niches in relation to learning and development have paid little attention to race as an aspect of the social and cultural ecology.

In this conceptual paper, we examine notions of race and ecology in relation to learning and development, specifically exploring the ways that developmentalists and learning theorists (e.g. Brofenbrenner, 1979) have conceptualized race as an aspect of the ecological context (Nasir & Saxe, 2003). We argue that research has employed limited notions of race, and we draw on a range of theoretical perspectives, including developmentalists (Spencer, 2006) and post-structuralist theories on identity and race (Hall, 1993; Giroux, 1994; Leonardo, 2009), and Dumas’ notion of the Black Educational Imagination (Dumas, 2010), to offer theoretical insights into the ways that race is deeply interwoven into the ecological settings that African American young people navigate daily in our society.

We also consider the methodological implications of theorizing race as an aspect of the ecological setting, examining the limitations of prior methodological approaches to the study of race in relation to the ecological context. We offer suggestions for how we might more robustly study race as an aspect of the context, as we seek to understand the impact of race in relation to adolescent’s opportunities to learn and develop in school and community settings (Nasir et al, 2012). Critical to our considerations of theory and method is the notion of trauma, and racialized trauma in particular. We view racialized trauma, the ways that trauma is inflicted on communities and individuals by virtue of race or racialized violence and oppression, as one way to capture the intersection between the social ecology and individual functioning (Boykin, 1986).

To illustrate how race is a fundamental part of the ecology, we draw on two examples. First, we reflect on the recent Trayvon Maritn incident, where an unarmed Black boy was shot and killed by a neighborhood watchman, as an example of racialized trauma—both for Trayvon Martin, who lost his life, but also for African American men and boys for whom the incident was a reminder of the possible trauma that can be inflicted by virtue of race (Spencer et al., 2004). Second, we draw on an example from a study of African American male high school students enrolled in a manhood development program in Oakland, Ca. We provide illustrative examples of the ways that African American young men talk about race as an experience of trauma (as an aspect of the social ecology that they navigate), and the ways this is addressed as an opportunity for healing within the manhood development space.

Authors

• Nailah Suad Nasir, University of California - Berkeley

• Kihana Miraya Ross, University of California - Berkeley

• David Philoxene, University of California - Berkeley