Browsing by Subject "Racial discrimination"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Race-related stressors, racial identity, and activism
(2022-05-05) Thompson, Kathleen Robin; Varner, Fatima A.; Kim, Su Yeong; Benner, Aprile; Bañales, Josefina
Black American individuals experience race-related stressors that are not always direct, including witnessing racial discrimination (i.e., vicarious racial discrimination) and anticipating future racial discrimination. Participating in or orienting towards activism may be a response to combat these race-related stressors (Hope & Jagers, 2014; Hope et al., 2019). In addition, researchers have argued that racial identity (i.e., racial centrality, private regard, and public regard) has been distinctly connected to ways that Black individuals react and respond to race-related stress. These responses have historically included activism (Szymanski & Lewis, 2015). The Sociopolitical Development Theory (Anyiwo et al., 2018; Lozada et al., 2017; Watts et al., 1999) was used as a guiding framework to understand relations between race-related stressors, activism behaviors (i.e., past participation in activism) activism orientation (i.e., likelihood of participating in future activism), and racial identity of Black American parents. Overall, the findings from the current study indicated that Black American parents’ demographic and family characteristics, as well as their race-related stressor experiences, are related to their past activism behaviors, as well as their orientation towards future forms of activism. There were different patterns of associations based on the type of race-related stressor. Black American parents’ anticipation of racial discrimination was indirectly related to their activism behavior, as well as high-risk and formal activism orientation through their beliefs about how others view their racial group. Parents’ private regard and racial centrality did not modify the associations between public regard and activism behavior or orientation.
School-based racial discrimination experiences, high-effort coping, and African American adolescent mental health
(2019-08-19) Jelsma, Elizabeth Burke; Varner, Fatima A.; Benner, Aprile D; Lorenzo-Blanco, Elma I
Experiencing racial discrimination at school from teachers and peers is a common occurrence for African American adolescents, and researchers have found direct associations between African American adolescents’ reported racial discrimination at school and higher psychological distress. The purpose of the current study was to illuminate how an effortful approach to coping with racial discrimination (high-effort coping) buffers the relations between school-based racial discrimination and African American adolescent mental health. Using data from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study (MADICS), a longitudinal study of an economically diverse sample of African American adolescents, the current study tests these relations across middle to late adolescence. Moderation by gender and socioeconomic status (SES) was also examined. High-effort coping reduced the magnitude of the association between teacher-perpetrated racial discrimination and increased anger among females and high-SES adolescents. High-effort coping also buffered against the influence of teacher-perpetrated racial discrimination on suicide ideation for low-SES adolescents. As the first study to examine the role of high-effort coping for African American adolescent mental health, the present findings demonstrate this may be an effective coping strategy for dealing with school-based racial discrimination for certain youth. Implications for health outcomes and school-based interventions are discussed.
Uncovering the black box : the hiring of Black educators for principalship positions in suburban contexts
(2024-05) Clarida, Kimberly Danielle ; DeMatthews, David; Jabbar , Huriya; Green, Terrance L; Williams, Sheneka; Reyes, Pedro
Researchers have long recognized that common hiring practices are racially biased (Avery, 1979; Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2003). However, in education, few studies examine the hiring and placement policies and practices for school principals at the district level (Palmer & Mullooly, 2015). Equitable hiring practices are essential for ensuring equal opportunity for Black educators, who are underrepresented in the principalship despite the increasing number of Black students in K-12 (Williams & Loeb, 2012). The principal representation gap is especially alarming when Black students are consistently disenfranchised within U.S. public schools (Lomotey, 2019). Better educational opportunities for Black students are achievable and tied to hiring racially diverse and equity-focused principals (Bartanen & Grissom, 2019) - specifically Black principals (Kelley, 2012; Lomotey, 2019; Williams & Loeb, 2012). This dissertation uses a mixed method multiple case study design to analyze hiring practices within two suburban school districts through the lens of racialized organizational theory (Ray, 2020). The study starts with investigating the “black box” of districts’ hiring policies and practices using document analysis, hiring observations, and interviews with district officials and employees who participate in principal selection committees. Then, application data is analyzed to identify the rate at which Black candidates apply for principal positions compared to the rates at which they are hired and the demographics of schools where they are placed. Finally, interviews with Black educators in each district were used to understand how hiring policies and practices can improve for principals based on their experiences. This study allows researchers to conceptualize what is happening within the application pool process at the district level and provide school districts with insights on how equitable hiring structures and practices can further promote the hiring of Black principals.
Who, what, where? : how segregated contexts and gender influence the association between racial discrimination and racial socialization messages
(2022-04-14) Scott, Lorraine Elaine; Varner, Fatima A.; Kim, Su Yeong; Benner, Aprile
Racial discrimination is still an ever-present race-related stressor in the lives of Black families, and is significantly associated with how parents communicate racial socialization messages to their adolescents. However, various contextual factors can modify how Black parents perceive and respond to racial discrimination. Specifically, neighborhood, school, and job racial composition, along with parent/adolescent gender dyad composition, provide important, contextual understandings of the communication of these messages. Using a national sample of Black parents (N = 565), the current study explored the relations between parent-reported personal and adolescent racial discrimination experiences and parental communication of cultural socialization and preparation for bias messages. Then I tested to see if the strength of these relationships differs according to the racial composition of the neighborhood, school, and workplace. After testing the direct effects and interactions between each moderator and independent variable, I conducted multi-group analyses on the original model by parent-child gender dyads. All analyses were conducted in Mplus 8.2. Parents’ racial discrimination experiences were significantly associated with their communication of high cultural socialization and preparation for bias messages to adolescents. Parents’ perceptions of adolescents’ racial discrimination experiences were also positively related to preparation for bias messages. The interaction between parent racial discrimination experiences and job composition was significantly related to parental communication of preparation for bias messages. Specifically, parents experiencing high amounts of racial discrimination communicated higher levels of preparation for bias messages if they worked in less Black workplaces, but not if they worked in more Black workplaces. Also, there were no parent-child gender differences in the association between racial discrimination and communication of preparation for bias and cultural socialization messages. Study findings demonstrate that Black parents vary in their communication of racial socialization messages based on their family’s various social positions and experiences.