Systematizing Racial Justice in Educational Institutions (Poster 13)

• In Event: Friday Poster Session 4:55
  In Invited Poster Session: 2024 AERA Undergraduate Fellows Research Poster Fair

Abstract

Racism in educational institutions manifests in school structures, policies, cultures,
curriculum, racial hierarchies, and practices. While the existing literature on the pervasiveness of
racism in schools is exhaustive, there is less research on interventions that aim to systematize
racial justice in schools from an organizational framework. Anti-racist initiatives are often
implemented in a limited, almost short-sighted manner, which highlights the need to construct
school-wide efforts that attend to complex processes of systemic disruption and redesign. We
leverage organizational change theory to closely examine how systems change involves
intentional choices that work against embedded practices. Drawing on a two-year case study of a
New York City High School, the analyses center both the shortcomings and successes of racial
justice efforts schoolwide to investigate the effectiveness of anti-racist initiatives integrated at
Mills Creek (a pseudonym). Given the complexity of schoolwide processes, routines, and
structures, we pulled from qualitative data sources (e.g. interviews and observations). We
conducted a trajectory analysis in the hopes of understanding what structures, policies, and
practices are successful in not only pursuing anti-racist change, but maintaining it. For example,
Mills Creek Equity Team members sought to implement organizational change from the start.
The equity team established a clear direction towards an anti-racist continuum, which framed and
qualified their progress throughout the course of the study. Mills Creek provides compelling
evidence of the diversity of anti-racist initiatives employed to disrupt racism in schools. The
school’s efforts in systematizing racial justice was evident through shifts in their school culture.
Mills Creek committed time and resources into a variety of racial justice efforts, from initiatives
that fostered buy-in to more sustained school routines (i.e. systems work). In investigating the
initiatives most effective in yielding anti-racist work, the findings will contribute to the growing
scholarship in the anti-racist transformation of school systems.

Author

• Danielle Shariff, University of California - Irvine