Exploring Resources of Black Youth in the Midst of a Double Pandemic

• In Event: Disentangling the Reproductive From the Liberatory: Trauma-Informed Practice for Racially Just Systemic Teaching

Abstract

For the past 16 months, Black youth across the country have experienced what is referred to some as the “double pandemic,” COVID -19 and systemic racism (Author, 2019). Both of these issues undoubtedly have resulted in various levels of stress and trauma for many Black youth. Youth experiencing high levels of trauma and stress have an increased risk of depression, social isolation, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse—risk factors known to severely impacts students’ academic performance and outcomes (Cleverley & Kidd 2011). While research shows that positive school culture can mitigate some negative risk factors (Moore et al. 2018), little research has explored the informal networks that Black youth establish in order to reach their academic potential. Drawing from Yosso (2005) Community Cultural Wealth Framework this paper explores the resources that youth experiencing stress and racism use in pursuit of their academic goals.

Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth Framework (CCW) outlines “six forms of capital that comprise community cultural wealth and most often go unacknowledged or unrecognized” (Yosso, 2005, p. 70), particularly as they pertain to marginalized groups. This inquiry uses CCW to understand the resources and networks that Black youth experiencing race-based trauma during the midst of the pandemic use in order to get the academic, social, emotional, and tangible supports needed to be successful academically.

The study uses semi-structured interviews with 20 self-identified Black male and 20 self-identified Black female high school current and former high school students who experienced the double pandemic of 2020 while enrolled in high school. The study deployed three cycles of

coding and analysis using CCW’s six forms of cultural capital, to identify common themes within each participant’s narrative (Saldana, 2015).

Participants’ narratives showed that for Black students experiencing various trauma and racial stressors relied on Black teachers, school staff, and mentors from community-based organizations with helping them to pursue academic goals. However, the majority of the participants’ mentors were unaware of federal educational policies established to support students experiencing homelessness, and thus several participants did not receive any formal resources from their respective school districts.

This paper expands the use of Community Cultural Wealth to explicitly locate navigating racial trauma and provides researchers another anti-deficit framework to explore the resources (or lack thereof) supporting the academic success of a vulnerable population; Black students. Moreover, the findings underscore the importance of raising awareness of educational policies designed to support Black youth, particularly for teachers and community-based organizations.

Author

• Tyrone C. Howard, University of California - Los Angeles