Implications of Racial Healing as Prevention for Poor Socio-Emotional Well-Being in Schools

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Abstract

Objectives and Perspectives
This paper presents perspectives from K-12 educators, parents, and youth on the role of racial healing in preventing poor socioemotional well-being and the role of schools. Decades of institutionalized racism and injustices have created longstanding racial trauma and stress for K-12 Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) youth, educators, and families resulting in serious socioemotional disparities over the life course. BIPOC individuals encounter an array of daily racialized stressors impacting their socioemotional well-being. Racial healing offers an opportunity to address the ever-growing oppressive and White hegemonic stresses experienced by BIPOC individuals. Racial healing is the process of recognizing, unlearning, and engaging in proactive individual action to overcome one’s internalized messages about their race and others. It can also lead to the fostering of individual and collective agentic action towards systematic reforms. Best practices in treating racial trauma and stress emphasize the role of healing, transformation, liberation, and empowerment as conduits for remedial action from the racialized cycles of stress and trauma. No studies to date have explored the role of racial healing in schools as a preventative strategy against poor socioemotional well-being and addressing youth’s mental health challenges. This study addresses this gap through reference to the perspectives of educators, parents, and students aged 12 to 18.
Methods and Data Sources
Themes were drawn from 17 focus group discussions from November 2020 to March 2021 (n=88 educators, parents, and youths). Participants were recruited from the state-funded Healing Illinois project through its listserv and snowball sampling. An exploratory, inductive semantic qualitative analysis, in which themes are derived directly from the data, was used to analyze participant responses. Five independent coders were employed in the coding process. The coding and study of intercoder reliability was done using Atlas.ti v9.
Results
Findings suggest that racial healing can prevent poor socioemotional well-being following racialized trauma and stress. Youth wanted adults and schools to be more aware and facilitate dialogue on racial issues. Parents were willing to converse about race and believed that schools should expand socioemotional practices. Educators felt unprepared and overwhelmed about addressing race in the classroom. Participants identified four strategies for implementing racial healing as prevention against poor socioemotional well-being: (1) develop diversity-oriented competencies; (2) coordinate open community dialogues; (3) improve socioemotional climate in schools, and (4) develop macro-level systems of support. Attention is needed to enhance the capacity of schools to promote racial healing among its educators, parents, and youth.
Significance
Racial healing must be the focus of school programming and intervention efforts to promote socioemotional wellness. Fostering the capacity of adults—educators and parents alike—to facilitate racial healing conversations must be the first step of action. Our findings suggest the importance of explicitly addressing racial trauma and stress incurred through chronic racial oppression to ensure that prevention programs positively impact youth. Given the insidious nature of racism, school-based programs should no longer be race-neutral. Instead, they should focus on racial healing of youth, educators, and parents first to positively impact both individuals and schools.

Authors

• Kevin Tan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Jenna Mahoney, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeanna Campbell
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tiffany Laursen
  Non-Presenting Author

• Durriyyah Kemp
  Non-Presenting Author

• B. Elizabeth Kim, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author