From Beckham until now: Recruiting,retaining,and including Black people and Black thought in school psychology

Systemic racism and discrimination, disenfranchisement, devaluing, and destruction of Black lives by US institutions and practices such as slavery, racial terror lynchings, Jim Crow laws (i.e., state and local laws that enforced racial segregation during the late 19th and early 20th century), and mass incarceration have been central features of the US (Bryant-Davis et al., 2017; Graves, 2009; Hargons et al., 2017). Exclusionary and oppressive practices and actions targeting Black Americans have also been enduring features of the US educational system—from primary schools to higher education (Morris, 2016; Proctor et al., 2021). The Black Lives Matter Movement and public outrage over the police killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in Summer of 2020 have spurred examination of the persistence of racism and racial injustice in America from people within the US and around the world (Brown, 2022).

The racial injustices that take place in larger society do not fade away when Black children enter the school doors. For instance, Proctor et al. (2020) reported that Black children are sometimes indirectly or directly exposed to police violence against Black people and fear that they will become targets of such violence. Black students are also subjected to systems of oppression such as policing in schools that have resulted in physical and emotional harm to them (Turner & Beneke, 2020). Additionally, Black children and youth are victims of teachers’ explicit and implicit biases that result in unfair assessment of their work, lower expectations for their academic achievement (Chin et al., 2020), and perceptions of them as older than they are (i.e., adultification; see Epstein et al., 2017). Recently, school psychology has begun grappling with issues of racism, particularly related to the treatment of the Black students and families in PK-12 schools, and Black graduate students and professionals within the field (García-Vázquez et al., 2020; Jimerson et al., 2021; McKenney et al., 2020).

One theoretical framework that is helpful for naming, defining, describing, and deconstructing how racism creates systems which harm Black people is Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Brown, 2022). Understanding of CRT provides a useful tool for interrogating why Black people have been historically marginalized and excluded from school psychology. More specifically, CRT may help explain lack of efforts to recruit, retain, and include Black people in the profession. CRT was conceptualized in the 1970s in the legal field to be used as a tool for interrogating the persistence of racism in social institutions in response to the limited gains of the Civil Rights Movement (Brown, 2022). Using CRT as a lens, legal scholars and activists, such as Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, and Mari Matsuda, asserted that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist and that race is a social construct used by white people to further their political, financial, and social interests at the expense of people of color (Brown, 2022). CRT is now widely used across fields. Some key tenets of CRT include: (1) race is a social construction; (2) racism is normal and permanent in the US.; (3) dismantling racist systems requires counter-narratives that center the voices of marginalized people; and (4) white people care about advancing anti-racism to the extent it advances their own self-interest because of the privileged status that whiteness creates (i.e., interest convergence) (Brown, 2022).

As noted, the counter-narratives tenet calls for the centering of voices and experiences of the people racism impacts the most. Graves’ (2009) article on Albert Sidney Beckham presents a powerful example of a counter-narrative. In this germinal article, Graves (2009) acknowledges the racism that Beckham—the first Black person with the title of school psychologist—experienced in his professional life, he names the racist systems Beckham worked within, and he documents the research Beckham conducted which aimed to change dominant discourse about Black children at a time when the scientific community, as a whole, conceptualized Black people as intellectually inferior and not deserving of care, equity, and opportunities (Guthrie, 2004; Newell et al., 2010; Truscott et al., 2014).

The purpose of this current article is to reflect on key ideas in Graves (2009) that are relevant to starting a conversation about inclusionary practices (i.e., providing equal access to opportunities or resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized) for Black people in school psychology. While the state of research related to recruitment and retention of Black people in the school psychology will be reviewed, the ultimate goal of this article is to inspire deeper reflection on ways school psychology can become an inclusive profession in which Black people enter and thrive. Thus, the article begins with a critique of the field's lack of engagement with the ideas Beckham introduced in the 20th century. Then, the article discusses issues that Black school psychologists are engaging today through their research and practice to illustrate the critical need for inclusion of Black thought and Black people in school psychology. Next, the article offers a brief review of extant research related to the recruitment and retention of Black people in school psychology. The article concludes with implications for the recruitment, retention, and inclusion of Black people in school psychology.

Importance of Black thought to early intellectual diversity of school psychology

Graves (2009) noted that Beckham grew up in the southern US during the early 1900's, a period characterized by “legalized and government sanctioned segregation and widespread discrimination against African Americans” (p. 7). This, too, was the context in which Beckham began his career as an educator, although he tried to minimize the impact of racial segregation on his education and career by seeking opportunities in the northern US, where Jim Crow laws were less likely to be enforced (Luxenberg, 2019). In 1921, Beckham was employed as a teacher in New York City (NYC) Public Schools with a diverse population of students, including those from Jewish and Italian heritages (Graves, 2009). It was then that he compared students’ abilities, coming to the conclusion that “African American children were as intelligent and displayed as much potential as any ethnic group’’ (Graves, 2009, p. 8). Beckham's early work in NYC Public Schools informed his later work from 1935 to 1964 as a school psychologist for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), where he established the first school psychological clinic in public schools at DuSable High School—a school with primarily African American students that served the largest public housing complex in the US (Graves, 2009). As one who embraced what later would become known as the scientist-practitioner role, Beckham published 21 or more articles during his employment with CPS (Graves, 2009).

Much of Beckham's research focused on two areas: childhood behavioral disorders and intelligence testing (Graves, 2009). Regarding the latter, Beckham understood the eugenics orientation of IQ tests (Graves & Aston, 2016), but believed in their utility and sought to use IQ tests to show the effect of environmental factors (e.g., family socioeconomic level and school and community level enrichment opportunities) on Black students’ IQ scores. In this work, he aimed to debunk the common eugenics-based argument that Black children were inherently intellectually inferior to white children because they performed less well on IQ tests. Instead, he put forth what scholars today might view as more of a structural analysis of Black children's performance on IQ tests; that is, due to the systemic racism Black people in the US experienced, Black children lacked the environmental opportunities afforded to white children that led to the type of knowledge that correlated with better performance on IQ tests (Graves, 2009).

Given IQ tests’ deep connection to the eugenics movement and their later use to justify within school segregation of Black children after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) mandated school desegregation, some may find Beckham's belief in the utility of IQ tests problematic (Gerken, 1978; Graves & Aston, 2016; Proctor et al., 2012). In fact, Black, feminist scholar Audre Lorde (1984) warned us, “The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house” (p. 110). Certainly, more radical positions (e.g., advocating for abolishing IQ tests’ use with Black children altogether due to the harm they have caused Black students by contributing, for example, to their overrepresentation in special education) on IQ testing emerged later and continue to exist today (Aston & Brown, 2020; Graves, 2009; Larry P v. Riles, 1979). Yet, Beckham represents the earliest of Black scholars in school psychology who challenged the dominant narrative put forth about Black children and their intellectual capabilities. Likely, his conceptualization of the problem of IQ test use with Black children, including his ability to reconcile in his scholarly work how systems of oppression interacted to deny Black children similar opportunities as their white peers, was influenced by his experiences as a Black person whose own opportunities were restricted because of his race.

Indeed, Beckham was not questioning if the profession should use IQ tests with Black children, instead he was determined to use these very measures to debunk the dominant, deficit-focused narratives about Black children that were common at the time. If inclusionary practices were employed in the profession at the time, Beckham's work could have shifted how school psychologists thought about Black children away from an individual deficit model to one in which environmental and systemic factors were considered. However, the field was far away from envisioning the profession as a space and place for engaging Black people or their intellectual thoughts (Gerken, 1978; Truscott et al., 2014). As described in Graves (2009), Beckham had difficulty obtaining a school psychologist position in CPS, even after taking the psychologist examination and ranking number one on the applicant list. Beckham was eventually offered the position after the National Urban League pressured the Chicago Board of Education to hire him (Graves, 2009). This suggests that there were no strategies engaged to recruit or retain Beckham into his school psychologist position, and certainly no efforts put forth to include him in the larger profession (Graves, 2009).

By all historical accounts, school psychology was not ready to engage ideas such as those Beckham brought forth. The most striking evidence to support this conclusion was there being no discussion of diversity issues, including the recent Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, at the Thayer Conference in 1954, despite the conference's main goal of establishing training and professional standards to shape the future identity of school psychology as a profession (Newell et al., 2010; Proctor & Truscott, 2013). Although during Beckham's years as a school psychologist, school psychology (as an organized profession) was in its infancy, it is evident that recruitment, retention, and inclusion of Black people and Black thought in the profession was not a priority of the time. It is also likely that given CRTs assertion of that racism is normal and permanent in US institutions, leaders within the profession at the time did not consider exclusion of Black people or Black thought from school psychology of concern (see Guthrie, 2004 for a discussion of early Black psychologists whose contributions to psychology were not acknowledged by the white psychology establishment). As described next, the 21st century brought slow, but steady progress in how school psychology responded to diversity as more Black people began entering the profession and influencing the field's scholarship and practice.

Influence of Black thought into 21st century school psychology

Although the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) was founded in 1969, it did not begin collecting demographic data on its membership, via membership surveys conducted every five years, until around 1990 (Lewis et al., 2008). These membership surveys represent NASP's first systematic efforts to document the percentages of Black and other racially minoritized ¹ school psychologists. Importantly, scholars have cautioned that the NASP demographic data may under-represent the percentages of racially minoritized school psychologists, as many do not hold membership in NASP (Lewis et al., 2008). The NASP data indicate slow progress with increasing the percentage of Black school psychologists over the years (i.e., 1.9% during 1989–1990 school year to 4% during 2019–2020 school year) (Goforth et al., 2021; Proctor et al., 2014). Still, during the latter part of the 20th century and into the 21st century influential Black scholars and scientist-practitioners emerged in the field, including Deborah Crockett who served as the first Black president of NASP (see Crockett, 2020 for chronology of Crockett's professional life); Antoinette Miranda, whose early work identified the lack of diversity research in school psychology and pushed the field to examine the diversity-training experiences among school psychologists (e.g., Miranda & Gutter, 2002); Janine Jones, who offered the field a foundational and essential book on multicultural school psychology service delivery (Jones, 2009); and Frank Worrell, who is the current President of the American Psychological Association and has contributed substantial thought to research related to Black racial identity development (e.g., Worrell et al., 2001).

By the first decade of the 21st century, a newer cohort of Black scholars entered academia and began contributing to the school psychology research. For instance, Jamilia Blake's interdisciplinary scholarship regarding the impact of adultification on Black girls (e.g., Epstein et al., 2017); Scott Graves’ research regarding assessment of Black children (e.g., Graves et al., 2020); Sherrie Proctor's investigations into the attrition, recruitment, and retention of Black school psychology students (e.g., Proctor et al., 2018); Amanda Sullivan's research related to disproportionality in special education (e.g., Sullivan, 2017); Markeda Newell's work focused on multicultural consultation (e.g., Newell et al., 2013); and Stacy Williams’ research related to promoting race pedagogy in higher education (e.g., Williams et al., 2020). All of these Black scholars established a national presence through their research, teaching, and/ or significant service to the profession.

A third wave of Black scholars’ whose work related to minoritized populations is now influencing the field, including Kizzy Albritton's work on early childhood literacy interventions for racially minoritized preschoolers (e.g., Albritton et al., 2021); Tai Collins’ research focused on improving social-emotional outcomes for children attending urban schools (e.g., Collins et al., 2018); Erin Harper's work on school-based preventive intervention for Black, adolescent girls (e.g., Harper et al., 2021); Tamika LaSalle's scholarship on school climate (e.g., LaSalle et al., 2020); Charity Griffin's research on racial fairness and school engagement for Black students (e.g., Griffin et al., 2020); Celeste Malone's leadership as the President-Elect of NASP and research around multicultural competency in school psychology training (e.g., Malone & Ishmail, 2020); and Desireé Vega's research regarding the assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse students (e.g., Vega et al., 2019).

There has also been an emergence of Black school psychologist practitioners who have cultivated voices as Black thought leaders in the profession, notably Charles Barrett and Byron McClure. Barrett's leadership with the NASP Exposure Project and training of school psychologists on how to assess English Learners and McClure's social-emotional learning work have garnered national attention. These two Black male school psychologists, like Beckham, are models for how to use school psychology practice to influence outcomes for children of color. Importantly, this type of modeling may be critical to the retention of Black people in the profession given that school psychology is a predominantly specialist level profession and, as such, many Black people enter with an explicit aim to be practitioners who give back to their Black communities in a professional capacity (Proctor & Truscott, 2012; Truscott et al., 2014).

Currently, much of the work the Black thinkers above are doing is being accessed to help the profession understand how to prevent and correct acts that have been harmful to the academic, social-emotional, and overall wellness of Black school-aged populations and Black people who enter the field of school psychology. Perhaps because of the national conversation that is happening around racial justice for Black people in the US, school psychology has engaged concerted efforts to identify the work of Black scholars, acknowledge their contributions to the field's current research base, and encourage more work focused on Black people by Black people (García-Vázquez et al., 2020; Jimerson et al., 2021; Williams et al., 2021).

The inclusion of, and engagement with, scholarship generated from Black thinkers in school psychology is essential to school psychologists’ capacity to respond to racial justice issues relevant to Black PK-12 students (Proctor et al., 2020), but is also key to recruiting and retaining Black students in school psychology programs given their interest in culturally relevant curricula, teaching, and practical experiences (Chandler, 2011). The next section reviews some of the research that specifically addresses recruitment and retention of Black people in school psychology.

Recruitment and retention of Black people in school psychology

Implications for recruitment, retention, and inclusion of Black people and Black thought in school psychology

Conclusion

Albert Beckham's time in school psychology was characterized by challenges related to anti-Black racism. Consistent with CRT assertion that racism is normal and permanent in US institutions, Black people in school psychology continue to experience anti-Blackness and racism. Efforts to recruit and retain Black people in the profession must be engaged along with efforts to make the profession one in which Black people feel fully included. Valuing the contributions of Black people and Black thought in school psychology can help move the field's anti-racism work forward, but can also contribute to helping others see the field as a place where Black people can enter and thrive.