Racisms of Commission and Omission in Educational Psychology: A Historical Analysis and Systematic Review

• In Event: Calling in Motivation Researchers: Employing Multicultural and Critical Approaches in Pursuit of Responsible Scholarship

Abstract

Through its association with other racist institutions and through direct (in)action of education policymakers, stakeholders, and practitioners, the institution of education materializes and perpetuates racism, particularly anti-Black racism (Dumas 2016). To explain and address racial inequity, Ray (2019) explains that, although there is wide agreement among scholars that racism is “‘structural’ or ‘systemic’ (Bonilla-Silva 1997; Feagin 2000; Ture and Hamilton 1967), the role of organizations in institutionalizing race remains under-theorized” (p. 30). That may be particularly true in education where attention to macro-level racism (e.g., standards and curriculum) as well as the animus and behaviors of micro-level actors (e.g., teachers as they discipline students) have precluded a close examination of meso-structures (i.e., organizations). Here, we take up Ray’s call and position educational psychology as a meso-structure that has influence over both the institutional landscape of education policy and practice as well as the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of individual school-based professionals.

Like other organizations (Ray, 2019), educational psychology has gone underexamined in terms of its role in and contributions to racism and antiblackness (DeCuir Gunby & Schutz, 2014). We began by exploring primary sources to trace the role the history, content, norms, and practices of educational psychology have played in creating and sustaining white supremacy and racial inequity. We then describe the contemporary complicity of the field in sustaining racism through the omission of Black lives, perspectives, and scholarship in teaching, research, and publishing. Our systematic review focused on five journals in the field, chosen for their recognizability and citation authority: Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Experimental Education, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, and Educational Psychology. We limited our search to the 10 years of 2011-2021 and reviewed all published articles in the selected journals in this timeframe (n = 2,621). Initially, we identified 284 articles (10.84%) for further analysis because the title or abstract made mention of race, racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, or justice. For each of those 284, we evaluated the entire manuscript to determine whether there was an explicit focus on Black people or anti-Black racism. We ultimately identified 41 articles that directly address anti-Black racism or Black populations with regard to equity and diversity work.

We argue, based on this systematic review, the field of educational psychology continues to perpetuate a racism of omission. Black people and studies of anti-Black racism are, by and large, absent from the literature. In the past 10 years for these five major journals, 98.44% of published articles did not address these topics at all. Of those that did, most took up deficit-oriented, individualizing, and categorical perspectives that, as others have argued (Zuberi 2003; Zuberi and Bonilla-Silva 2008), can further reify whiteness and antiblackness. We conclude with a call for educational psychologists to turn toward critical frameworks, to center equity and justice in their work, and to grapple honestly and intentionally with our collective racist history.

Authors

• Kamden Strunk, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author

• Carey E. Andrzejewski, Auburn University
  Non-Presenting Author