Clarifying Our Racial Lens: Reviewing Racial Theories and Methods of Minority Youth Development Research and Intervention

• In Event: Cry Me a River: Navigating Racial Injustice Trauma in Teaching, Jailing, and Social Media

Abstract

Despite the ubiquitous use of race as a demographic variable, scholars for over three decades have acknowledged race a representative of a lived experience often marked by resilience and trauma in communities of colors. Extant Research on minority students focusing on the impact of race offers only a preview into the efficacy of race in student functioning, outcomes and intervention. Racial identity, if understood as a resultant of the social construction race, shapes the course of our lives in the United States. In light of this dynamic, this review highlights the application of the concept of race in educational research and intervention over the past five years from the top ten education journals. Suggesting that there is needed clarification on the prevailing lens on race in youth developing optimal outcomes.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Whereas much of the extant literature focusing on race as salient factor in the study of minority youth acknowledges race as a demographic variable scholarship supports a more complex understanding of the lived experience of race. Race is often co-constructed in the context of schooling through the shaping the worldviews and psychological resilience of youth (Nasir, 2012). Without taking a more integrative approach interrogating the racial socialization (Hughes et. al., 2006; Stevenson, 2014), racial identities and racial stress and coping (Students) of these students we overlook the impact of the day-to-day experiences of these students (2014.) Incorporating the phenomenological view of race in youth development allows us to more clearly see the students; in who’s lives we seek to intervene (Spencer et. al., 2006). This study seeks to clarify the racial lens that we examine youth development through.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
This paper is a systematic literature review surveying the last five years of research on minority students in the top ten Education Journals (n=116).

Data sources/Evidence
The data for the review was drawn from the past five years of extant research from the top ten education journals as measured by impact score. The scholarship included focused on studies that used race as a salient variable for the study of and interventions with minority youth.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Our findings indicate that a majority of the studies published within the reviewed timeframe do not feature a fully conceptualized view of race as a factor in youth development. Of the studies that do feature more complex racial conceptualizations there exists a need for further alignment of the role of racial and ethnic identities in order to better compare and unite the literature.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
Developing a sharper lens on the role that race plays within the lives of minority students is imperative to both research and intervention. In order to improve the academic and psychosocial outcomes of these students we must conceptualize the function of race in their lived experiences. This work seeks to discuss more efficacious lenses on the development and intervention of the lives of racialized youth.

Authors

• Lloyd Matthew Talley, University of Pennsylvania

• Howard C. Stevenson, University of Pennsylvania