Decolonized School Counseling as a Requisite for Black Student Empowerment and Achievement

• In Event: School Counseling to Promote the Success of Black Youth: Critical Reflections on Theory and Praxis

Abstract

1. Objectives/Purposes:
This session defines:
• Monoculturalism: a system reliant on dehumanizing depictions of Black students as the pitied cultural “other”;
• Multiculturalism: a colorblind approach of assimilating cultural difference(s) into the status quo (Smith, 2015; Smith, Geroski, & Tyler, 2015) without undoing intergroup domination (Goodman & Gorski, 2014);
• Social justice: connects social inequity and disparate educational outcomes (e.g., opportunity gaps not “achievement gaps”) but assumes the redistribution of resources (e.g., wealth) ameliorates disadvantage (Ratts, DeKruyf, & Chen-Hayes, 2007);
• Decolonization: challenges basic assumptions of schooling (e.g., meritocracy) that problematize Black students (Dumas, 2016).

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: Marsella’s (2015) ideas inform this presentation, specifically, when he writes “it is essential as counselors and as human beings that we recognize the socialization matrix of a domain culture and its consequences on nonmembers” because “the dominant North American and Western European cultures are themselves a function of historical powers that resulted in colonization of indigenous populations, established via imperialistic impulses (p. ix).

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: Black people have envisioned education as a device for collective self-determination. Following Dumas and Ross’ (2016) conception of Black Critical Theory, this session cites Black social critics (e.g., Baldwin, 1963) and educational theorists (King, 2006; Love, 2019; Sizemore, 1990; Woodson, 1933) to advance a vision of decolonized school counseling where a genuine love for Black children and the centering of their voices and experiences guides the counseling endeavor.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials: This decolonized approach to school counseling is epistemologically grounded in Black Critical Theory (Dumas & ross, 2016). As a result, the presentation highlights:
• Black communities’ attempts to implement liberatory education and how those attempts have been repeatedly undermined and obstructed (e.g., Dumas, 2011; Sojoyner, 2013);
• Mundane and egregious examples of anti-Blackness against Black students (e.g., a school counselor in Maryland recommending that Tidiani Epps Jr. receive a psychological evaluation for drawing a lynching of a Black man).


5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view: Promoting “mindsets and behaviors” (ASCA, 2014) for academic success is a school counseling mandate. However, as school counselors are implored to implement culturally relevant approaches to achieve the aforementioned outcomes, the epistemological foundation (e.g., Eurocentric worldview) upon which the profession is founded remains shrouded. Decolonized school counseling recognizes this and encourages Black students to use their critical consciousness to expose the colonial origins of schooling and school counseling as a way of wielding their own power (Love, 2019).

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work: Although the “imperialistic impulses” (Marsella, 2015, p. ix) precipitating anti-Blackness in education have been adeptly highlighted, similar connections between these “imperialistic impulses” and school counseling have yet to be made. Ideally, a decolonized view of school counseling would supplant the predominant view in schooling that sees Black students’ lack of success on standardized tests as evidence of presumed deficiencies that must be improved (Dumas, 2016; Love, 2019; Wun, 2015).

Author

• Ahmad Rashad Washington, University of Louisville