Stuck Getting Ready: Exploring the Emotional Underpinnings of a Racial-Equity School Improvement Project

• In Event: School Leadership and the Public Good: Reclaiming Community, Advocacy, and Justice

Abstract

This paper explores the complex emotional underpinnings of a racial equity school improvement effort as viewed through the lenses of select administrators, teacher, staff, and student leaders in a large diversifying high school. First, I describe some of the policy and procedural actions participants adopted as they attempted to guide their school community through the adaptive changes of fully integrating moderate and low-income Black and Latino students into the school. Drawing from team meeting audio, I analyzed participants’ attempts to persuade reluctant colleagues, students, and parents of the merits of their racial equity agenda, the backlashes that ensued, and the emotions that underpinned their experiences. I found that the emotional challenges of the improvement efforts fell along three lines: the emotions of (a) not wanting to be seen as racist or as “reverse-racists,” (b) persisting in the face of white teacher and parent resistance and sabotage, and (c) managing the fallout (and looming possibility) of high-level racialized events (e.g. school fights and brawls involving students of color, disparate AP pass rates, etc.) and decisions (e.g. reducing suspension-worthy offenses, adopting of restorative justice, forming social-justice student organizations) that placed their commitments to racial equity under intense scrutiny of the majority white school community. The confluence of events left participants feeling “stuck” in the improvement process. I discuss implications for leaders and conclude by offering considerations for being intentional about addressing the emotional underpinnings of racial equity-based school improvement.

Author

• Decoteau J. Irby, University of Illinois at Chicago