Moral Injury in Racially and Economically Marginalized Public Schools: A Phenomenological Inquiry

• In Event: 79.022 - Injury, Loss, and the (Im)Possibility of Justice in Racially Punitive and (Neo)Colonial Schooling

Abstract

This paper presents a phenomenological study of moral injury among K-12 educators in racially and economically segregated urban schools. Using Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality Theory, I identify how race and class oppression produce an education context that is rife with moral wrongs and accompanying distress. Participants cited the larger realities of the racialized and classed contexts in which they worked as being inherently immoral, as well as specific school-level policies and practices that reinforced and reproduced racial and class injustices. I end with recommendations for how the construct of moral injury can be employed to work towards eliminating educational injustice.

Author

• Erin Sugrue, Augsburg University