Black Joy as a Form of Racial Healing in K–12 Schools

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session One
  In Roundtable Session: Student and Teacher Perspectives on Learning, Well-Being, and Resilience in Schools (Table 14)

Abstract

The neoliberal marketplace has tapped into today's need for healing, creating a wellness industry centered around the illnesses people feel day to day. Schools are complicit in this shift as well. "Self care", "social emotional learning" (SEL), "trauma-informed care", "restorative practices" and "mindfulness" have become popular discourse used in elementary schools to address healing. While the theories alone may sound good, they fail to acknowledge the pervasiveness of anti-blackness in schools. This presents the question: What are the possibilities for healing in a school rooted in anti-blackness? This paper explores how investing in Black joy preserves Black humanity and affords opportunities to make what we can only dream...the realities that healing work in education must become.

Author

• Asha Omar, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author