“It’ll Never Be the White Kids,It’ll Always Be Us”

Abstract

We examine how Black high school students, participants in a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) program, understand issues of racial discrimination and inequality in their schools. Through semi-structured individual interviews conducted early in the program, eight students (six boys and two girls) recount experiences of racial stereotyping, discrimination from teachers and staff, lack of institutional support for a positive racial climate, and lack of racial diversity in curricular offerings. Further, through evolving critical analysis supported by the YPAR experience, these students describe rationale for and implications of such negative race-based educational experiences. Findings reveal how Black adolescents interpret the racial discrimination and inequality they experience in school and the implications of parental and community socialization on the development of a critical understanding of race-based social inequalities.

Keywords

education racial discrimination critical analysis racial climate school climate Black youth

Adolescence is marked by identity exploration, where young people consider who they are in relation to the world around them. During this time of discovery, adolescents refine their own personal identity and beliefs in multiple areas of functioning including academics, morality, and social relationships, which inform future decision making and behavior (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). According to Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of human development, social and psychological changes during adolescence take place in the context of interpersonal and institutional interactions and experiences across historical time and within individual developmental timing (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Thus, adolescents form their identity within the context of family, friends, schools, culture, and history. Cultural and historical contexts are particularly relevant as economic, political, and social factors have consequences for adolescent educational, social, and emotional development (Ginwright, 2010). Moreover, during adolescence and emerging adulthood, young people begin to think more critically as they expand and refine their social and political identities (Finlay, Wray-Lake, & Flanagan, 2010). Given the complex history of social, economic, cultural, and political marginalization of Blacks in America, this is a particularly important task for Black American youth. While adolescents may experience interpersonal discrimination, they may not yet adequately understand the historical and institutional contexts of how racism is embedded in larger sociopolitical systems.

Racial Discrimination and Adolescence

The historical and contemporary marginalization of Blacks through traditional political and social systems in the United States includes limited access to political power, economic resources, and social capital. Such marginalization can occur as a function of racial discrimination: when members of a dominant racial group engage in actions that have differential or negative effects on members of non-dominant racial groups (Williams, Neighbors, & Jackson, 2003). Black youth begin to understand and apply such negative racial stereotypes as young as 6 years old, and they expect to experience racial discrimination as young as 8 years old (Pauker, Ambady, & Apfelbaum, 2010; Rowley, Burchinal, Roberts, & Zeisel, 2008). Unfortunately, recent research suggests that racial/ethnic discrimination is a common experience for adolescents of color in schools and other public settings given the overabundance of negative stereotypes that situate Black and Brown youth as dangerous and threatening to society (Nicolas et al., 2008; Rose, 1994). Black youth in particular are viewed with suspicion and subjected to surveillance in public spaces (e.g., streets) and institutions (e.g., stores and schools). In addition, both peers and adults have been found to be perpetrators of discriminatory practices against youth of color (Benner & Graham, 2013; Rosenbloom & Way, 2004). Given the amount of time adolescents spend in school, the discriminatory practices that occur there are particularly relevant. In the school context, Black students report unfair or abusive verbal, psychological, and physical treatment by peers. Teachers have been reported to give lower grades and use harsher disciplinary practices with students of color than with White students (Gregory, Skiba, & Nogerra, 2010; Settles, Copeland-Linder, Martin, & Lewis, 2006). While recent attention has appropriately highlighted race-related discrimination aimed at Black adolescent males, studies suggest that their female counterparts experience frequent discrimination as well (Cogburn, Chavous, & Griffin, 2011).

Experiencing discrimination has been shown to have a range of deleterious effects on Black youth. This includes undermining academic achievement and psychological adjustment (Brody et al., 2006; Cogburn et al., 2011; Seaton & Yip, 2009; Wong, Eccles, & Samaroff, 2003), and increasing problem behaviors (Brody et al., 2006; Copeland-Linder, Lambert, Chen, & Ialongo, 2011; Green et al., 2006). In addition, the source of discrimination can have differential impacts on youth. The experience of teacher discrimination has a negative effect on academic performance, while peer discrimination contributes to psychological adjustment problems. The unique impact of school-based discrimination on academic and psychological adjustment highlights the importance of better understanding how Black adolescents make sense of the discrimination they face in the school context.

School as a Context for Racial Discrimination

School climate is a multi-faceted construct that includes individual perceptions of the academic and social culture of the school, as well as structural and organizational elements of classrooms, schools, and school districts. An important thread across each dimension of school climate is respect for diversity and individual difference based on social identity indicators such as race, gender, and culture (Cohen, 2013). Scholars have underscored the importance of considering the meaning of race and diversity in schools, particularly given the prevalence of race in the lives of many racial minority groups (Booker, 2006; Byrd & Chavous, 2012). When racial discrimination occurs in schools, it can signal to students that they are devalued as members of the school community, and thus society at large, because of the color of their skin.

To develop a deeper understanding of how race functions in schools, scholars have begun to conceptualize and study school racial climate. School racial climate includes perceived norms and values of race and racial diversity within a school setting and is understood across four dimensions: interracial interactions, stereotypes, equitable treatment, and institutional support for positive racial climate (Byrd & Chavous, 2012; Chavous, 2005). Both the quantity and quality of interactions of people from different racial groups are indicators of the school racial climate. Another indicator is the stereotypes, or beliefs and attitudes that members of the school community hold about a given racial group. The third dimension considers equitable treatment or discrimination against members of the school community based on their racial group membership. The final component is institutional support, and whether school structure, administration, and teaching encourage racial diversity and celebrate, rather than deemphasize, racial differences. The current study builds on this work by considering the perspectives of Black high school students and their interpretation of the school racial climate in two neighboring school districts. Through a deep exploration of the experiences of these high school students, we seek to understand how students interpret and assign meaning to the racial climate of their schools.

Critical Analysis of Race and Schools

Critical analysis of issues of race is an important developmental task for Black youth. In the Strengths and Coping Model for Black Youths, Nicolas and colleagues (2008) suggest that critical consciousness is an individual level coping mechanism that Black youth can leverage to combat barriers to healthy and optimal development such as racial discrimination. Indeed, scholars suggest, “Adolescents who are aware of racism and the history of racial oppression are better prepared to cope in a racist environment” (Stevenson, Reed, Bodison, & Bishop, 1997). This proposition is rooted in a Freirian ideology of critical consciousness—critical reflection on the social forces that both aid and thwart one’s liberty as a precursor to students becoming active change agents within their schools and communities (Freire, 1970). Through developing an understanding of institutional discrimination, individuals and communities can advocate for changes that bring about a more just and equitable society.

Scholars posit that schools function as mirrors of broader societal inequities and can be one of the first experiences students have with various race- and class-based inequities and related discriminatory practices (Fine, Burns, Payne, & Torre, 2004). Through critical analysis, youth have an opportunity to reflect on the social and political conditions within their school environment, especially conditions that may disproportionately inhibit educational opportunity and academic success. Critical analysis of schooling and consideration of the impact of structural oppression on education processes and outcomes may lead youth to become civically involved in seeking to improve how local institutions such as schools address their personal and community needs and goals. This is particularly important given the history of and potential for alienation and marginalization of youth of color within and through the educational system. Given the prevalence of identity exploration, adolescence marks a critical period for scholars to understand and examine adolescents’ critical analysis of race-based experiences in schools. Since there is fairly little research on adolescents’ experiences of racial discrimination through the lens of the adolescent, we investigate how adolescents perceive and critically analyze experiences of racial discrimination within the school context.

Opportunity Structures for Critical Analysis

The consideration of distinct sociopolitical contexts and historical timing is relevant with regard to identity development and behavior. Cultural norms, political structures, and economic resources can guide normative sociopolitical acts and resistance or activist behavior. Proximal contexts also shape development in meaningful ways. Scholars note that it is imperative to identify proximal contexts that help support critical analysis in safe and developmentally appropriate ways (Diemer & Li, 2011). One term for this type of environment is opportunity structure—a context that provides moments and occasions to practice behaviors that promote critical analysis and positive societal involvement (Watts & Gueouss, 2006). Such behaviors include, but are not limited to, critical thinking, understanding history of institutional discrimination, and leadership training.

Scholars have begun to investigate youth organizing efforts such as youth participatory action research (YPAR) programs as an opportunity structure that gives students the context to explore the ideas of discrimination and hegemony during out-of-school time (Schensul & Berg, 2004). During the beginning of a YPAR program, youth begin by exploring their own identity and forming a group identity through building relationships with others in the program and considering the various racial, gender, and sexual identities that are represented among youth participants. Once students explore these issues, they learn how to perspective-take and evaluate various forms of evidence. They learn how to navigate both the social and academic world—how to work together to create and use knowledge in the most effective manner. Once youth have formed these group norms, they begin learning about various research methodologies, ways to take action, and power dynamics within their community to think of their own research project that they would like to conduct. After thinking of a research topic, they form a hypothesis and select the appropriate research methodology to answer their question(s). Finally, they decide on a way to take some form of action about how to use the knowledge that they created. Throughout the entire process, youth are engaging in reflection about the process (Berg, Coman, & Schensul, 2009; Schensul & Berg, 2004).

Study Aims

Power structures exist within an ecological framework at proximal levels (e.g., families, schools) and more distal levels (e.g., local, state, and federal government agencies) that function to create and maintain social hierarchies that promote the well-being of some groups at the expense of others. Schools are uniquely positioned such that these social inequities that are preserved through macro-level systems not only exist within schools but are also replicated through the micro-level systems of public schooling as implicated by the school racial climate (Fine et al., 2004). The integration of this ecological framework with critical analysis has been termed eco-critical analysis (Berg et al., 2009) and has only recently considered critical reflection and dialogue within interventions aimed for adolescents of color.

It is well understood that Black students experience racial discrimination in schools with negative implications of academic, psychological, and physical well-being (e.g., Wong et al., 2003). Moreover, scholars suggest that interrogating social inequality, or critical analysis, may serve to buffer the effects of such racial discrimination for adolescents of color. However, there has been limited research on how Black youth employ an “eco-critical analysis,” critical analysis of the social conditions of their schools, giving attention to experiences of racial inequity and discrimination. This study seeks to help fill this gap and connect existing research literatures by shifting the focus to the perspectives of these youth and their critical analysis of racial discrimination in their own lives. We take up these considerations among Black adolescents who have an opportunity structure to make meaning of these ideas and experiences through a YPAR program. Specifically, we seek to understand the following:

How do Black adolescents recount and perceive systematic oppression in their schools?

How do these students understand race to operate in these marginalizing experiences?

How do these students understand the implications of racial discrimination on their own academic and general life chances?

Method

Participants

Participants in this study were eight high school students. Each of the participants identified as Black with six participants being male and two female. They ranged in age from 14 to 17 years and were in the 9th through 12th grade. All students attended high school in two public school districts, Harbor School District and Youngers School District, in Southeastern Michigan and were participants in an out-of-school time YPAR program.

The first set of interview respondents attended one of two high schools in the Harbor School District, Skyview and Harper High. Skyview has a large student population (greater than 1,000) with 59% of students identifying as White, 17% as African American, and 1% as Latino. Skyview does not qualify for Title 1 status, but approximately 18% of the student body qualifies for free/reduced lunch. Harper High School is also in the Harbor School District with the following demographics: student body greater than 2,000, 60% White, 18% African American, 3% Latino. Twelve percent of the student population qualify for free/reduced lunch; however, Harper High does not qualify as a Title 1 school.

The second district, Youngers School District, only has one high school within district—Youngersville High School. Sixty-four percent of the Youngersville high school population qualify for free/reduced lunch, and approximately 68% identify as African American, 28% as White, and 3% as Latino. This high school does qualify for Title 1 status.

Participant Selection and YPAR Programming

The participants for our study were high school students who were referred by two after-school program facilitators (one male, one female) to join our pilot YPAR. The after-school program facilitators recommended these students because they had demonstrated leadership skills and had taken part in dialogue about social justice issues in their communities and schools. Participating students engaged in the participatory action research process during a 14-week Saturday program. Through a series of weekly discussions on media forms and their influence on their own thinking and mind-sets, students established the question, “How does youth culture act as a mechanism to stimulate critical consciousness?” During the program, students reflected on and analyzed various forms of oppression and competing socializing influences that affect youth of color and developed a conceptual model of this phenomenon as it relates to media influence. More specifically, these student-researchers investigated the ways rap music lyrics and videos portrayed racial identity, gender roles, ageism, stereotypes, and youth violence. The chronology of the program lessons and activities is outlined in Table 1.

Table 1.

Chronology of Youth Participatory Action Research Curriculum.

Week	Program lessons and activities
Weeks 1 and 2	Introductions. What is YPAR? Why are we here? What is Youth Culture? How do we bond together and build relationships? What are media influences?
Weeks 3 and 4	Developing a research framework, building conceptual models, reflection
Weeks 4 and 5	Exploring the ideas of hegemony and oppression
Weeks 6 and 7	Gender roles, ageism, and social norms
Weeks 8 and 9	Learning about racial identity, deconstructing stereotypes, racism, and discriminatory practices while relating these ideas to media portrayal
Weeks 10 and 11	Norms, lyrical analysis, understanding commentary, reflecting on what type of hip hop sells and why
Weeks 12, 13, and 14	YPAR project work time and completion

Note. YPAR = Youth Participatory Action Research.

Participant Interviews

Initial semi-structured interviews were conducted by a university graduate student who identified as White and Latina. The interviews were aimed at engaging participants in narratives about their past and present understandings of their social identities in relation to their experiences in schools, neighborhoods, and families. The interview protocol was divided into four sections: Gender Identity, School, Neighborhood, and Family. The semi-structured interview protocol included open-ended questions that allowed participants to share narratives about life experiences and elaborated on personal perceptions and concerns (see the appendix).

All student interviews were conducted within the first month of the YPAR program with the exception of one interview that was conducted during Week 6 of the YPAR program. Each respondent was interviewed at a location of his or her convenience outside of school and program time. The interviews were between 60 and 75 minutes long. Since participants were actively involved in the program when interviews were conducted, we expected that their narratives would include some of the concepts that emerged during the limited number of activities and group discussions that had taken place in the first weeks of the program. However, it is important to note that while the program may have given students additional language to organize and express their ideas, youth made it clear in both interviews and program sessions that the focal program concepts were concepts they were aware of, had thought about, and had discussed with peers in informal settings. For example, one of the youth introduced the notion of hegemony in one of the group discussions about the state of existing social and race relations. As such, we felt that the program offered a safe setting for us to support youth in further exploring and developing increasingly complex and nuanced ideas and language to express their growing understanding of their experiences in their schools and communities.

Data Analysis

The university institutional review board approved the interview protocol. All interviews were audio recorded and later transcribed for coding purposes. Interview transcripts were uploaded into ATLAS.ti for data management purposes. For data analysis, the first and second authors implemented inductive thematic coding procedures (Braun & Clarke, 2006). First, we familiarized ourselves with the data by reading through the interview transcripts independently, taking informal notes about possible codes or themes. Next, we independently generated initial codes and then discussed and combined our initial codes to form our codebook (see Table 2). After generating our codebook, we independently coded one interview to achieve consistency in coding. We compared coding, examined discrepancies, and refined the codebook to achieve reliability. Once we achieved consensus, we each independently coded the remaining interviews. After coding all of the interviews, each coder independently searched for themes within the data. Finally, we came together to review the themes and determine coherent patterns within the data. We conducted within-case and between-case analyses, with consideration for themes with high frequency within and between cases, as well as meaningful and distinct themes within only one or two cases (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Finally, we used the comparative between-case analysis to provide a foundation for subsequent between- and within-district analyses. Because this was an exploratory qualitative project, inductive processes were employed based on the high school students’ responses to investigate emerging themes in the data. Themes of prominent (both positive and negative) relationships emerged in addition to evidence of critical consideration of experiences in respondents’ schools and communities. There were few differences between cases and between-district divergence is discussed.

Table 2.

List of Initial Codes and Code Definitions.

Code	Name	Definition
Code family: Perceptions of schooling
SA	School Affect	Any talk of positive or negative feelings toward one’s school, teachers, counselors, etc.
STI	Specific Teacher Influences	Any talk of specific teachers being valuable resources OR confidantes for students
EEE	Expectations of Educational Experience	Any talk of what the interviewee expects out of his or her education
PP	Perceptions of Peers	This is a broad category that can include affect of peer relationships
P-IN	Peer Influence	Broad to include pressure of any kind to engage in drug use, sexual activity, and/or alcohol
TSR	Teacher-Student Relationships	Any talk of teacher-student relationships; how teachers motivate students/interact with students AND/OR teachers negative interactions
PTB	Perceived Teacher Beliefs	Any talk of perceptions of teacher attitudes/beliefs toward students education, groups of students
RC	Racial Climate	Talk about the racial climate at school
SC	School Context	Any of the aforementioned codes that are within the school day or school building
DAA	Disciplinary Action Anecdotes	Anecdotes of disciplinary action
P-INV	Parental/Caregiver Involvement	Any mention of parents (or caregivers) making contact with or visiting school
Code Family: Worldview and Ideology
PNC	Perceptions of Neighborhood/Community	Neighborhood defined as geographic location. Any description of, and/or social/community norms
WV-F	Fairness (neighborhood)	Talk about fairness in neighborhoods. This includes talk about equity and equality in and between neighborhoods and communities.
WV-FS	Fairness (school)	Talk about fairness in schools and school districts. This includes talk about equity and equality in and between schools and school districts.
WV-T	Trust (general)	General talk about trusting or not trusting institutions or people broadly outside of school (excluding interpersonal relationships, i.e., parents, partners etc.)
WV-TS	Trust/Mistrust (school)	Talk about trusting or mistrusting teachers, administrators, tests, school systems, or public education.
Code Family: Agency
A-PA	Political Action and Empowerment	References to ability to act in politics and government. Capacity to change social and political conditions.
A-SA	School and Academics	Ability to act in school contexts. Capacity to achieve academically and receive ideal learning conditions.
Code Family: Race
RI	Racial Ideology	Beliefs how African Americans (possibly other races) should act and behave
RSN	Race social norms	Observed characterizations/descriptions of how certain members of a race do act and behave
RI-S	Salience	Text revealing the relevance of race to the participant’s self-concept (in reference to situation)
RI-C	Centrality	Text revealing how much race is a part of the participant’s core self-concept
RI-PUR	Public Regard	Text revealing the extent to which the participant thinks outsiders view African Americans positively or negatively
RI-PRR	Private Regard	Text revealing the extent to which the participant feels positively or negatively about his or her race
R-NC	Race in Neighborhood Context	Talk about race and experiences of race in neighborhoods.
RD	Racial Discrimination	Description of race-based micro-aggression/racial hassle and discrimination

Results

Discrimination in Schools

Past research has established that students’ interactions with teachers play a pivotal role in the development of achievement and social competence (Pianta, 1999; Pianta, Hamre, & Stuhlman, 2003; Thijs, Koomen, & Leij, 2008). Moreover, teachers serve as key agents of school-based racial socialization, as Black youth receive messages about what it means to be both Black and a student through their interactions with their teachers (Hughes, McGill, Ford, & Tubbs, 2011). Students from each school district indicated at least one personal experience in which a teacher or school staff member treated them unjustly based on race. More specifically, instances in which Black students were targeted as the instigator of a classroom management issue provided the most obvious point of contrast between the ways that teachers treated Black and White students. Nathan, at Skyview High, explained,

Um where, I was in eighth grade, and I was with a teacher that was being really, really unfair. And um I think she might have been racist, but also sexist . . . I felt she was being really racist to me because there was some white girl talking, and then I started talking, and then the teacher yelled at me. And then the white girl kept talking, and I, she was a friend of mine, and I just told her to be quiet. And she, the teacher, took it as an offense and she said, “Don’t talk to her that way or I’ll send you out. Don’t.”

Nathan demonstrated a cognizance of his teacher’s racial and gender bias as indicated by her classroom management. Past work has demonstrated that as students get older, they become more sensitive to teacher cues and their perceptions of their teachers’ expectations become more accurate (Weinstein, Marshall, Sharp, & Botkin, 1987). Additionally, research on teacher perceptions suggests that teachers are more likely to hold negative judgment for ethnic minority students than White students in terms of classroom behavior (Saft & Pianta, 2001). Nathan was able to interpret his teacher’s behaviors and critically reflect on whether he was singled out because of his race, but also speculated that gender bias might be operating. Subsequently, he finished this personal recount with the following quote, situating his analysis within a historical context as a form of critical reflection. Nathan, one of the younger students, has globalized this experience and indicated disappointment not just with his teacher’s behavior but also with the broader society that justifies it—an eco-critical analysis. This form of critical reflection can be used as a protective mechanism or strategy in navigating the school context that has not only labeled him as a behavior problem and threatened excessive punishment for a minor infraction but is also propagating racialized messages that Black students are deviant:

That, it’s really, this, it just, it hurts that people think they’re better than somebody else, or they think that they’re lesser than somebody else just because the color of their skin, or their, whether they’re a boy or a girl, like you said sexism. Um like Dr. King said, you know, don’t judge me on the color of my skin, judge me on the content, context of my character. Cause that’s what I would rather be judged by you know, you’re not, you’re gonna think somebody is bad just cause they’re darker than you. That’s really immature, and also just, in my opinion, inhuman cause. (Nathan, Grade 9)

John, another student at Skyview High, illustrated two instances of interpreting a teacher’s cue in terms of management and general affect toward students. Here we see a balanced analysis in that he acknowledges that the manner by which staff reprimands student behavior could be justified if it were universally applied among all students, but is negatively skewed to affect Black students.

I don’t know ’cause she probably just doesn’t like us, or just, I mean I never see her reprimanding white kids, I only see her reprimanding Black kids honestly. I mean it’d be one thing if she was doing it to everybody else, then she’d just be like unpleasant, but it’s only us. (John, Grade 11)

John continues with a critical analysis by taking the “what” and extrapolating why Black student behavior is targeted as deviant within the school. Additionally, John comments on broader school norms and values that further indicate the pervasiveness of negative stereotypes and related attitudes and behaviors toward Black students, regardless of the race of the teacher. This is an indicator of the established negative school climate toward Black students as a homogeneous group without consideration for within-group differences in student behavior.

I mean, they think we’re, they always think we’re the ones who like trash up the place and we’re the ones that like break stuff and do all of this. I mean there’s really, I mean we’re always gonna be that stereotype. Even the Black, even the Black faculty thinks we’re the ones who do it.

I: How do you know that?

Uh cause, I mean there are some African American students who you know are like hoodlums or something like that, and just like act a fool but uh a lot of us aren’t. And just like we never get the benefit of the doubt, just like the white kids do. Like it, it’ll never be the white kids, it’ll always be us. (John, Grade 11)

Youngersville students were also able to recall past experiences with school and classroom management procedures that problematize Black students as a part of the school culture.

I: Why did you change schools?

Racists.

I: And why, how do you know they were racist?

There was thing that would be done, if um a white person, we was in an academy so therefore we had to wear uniforms, which was strictly color based. You can wear any solid color polo, any solid color pants, and gym shoes, cool. But the only thing was your shirt must be tucked in. And we would notice that the Black people have their shirts tuck, tucked out and then they’ll be all, and there’ll be all types of hollering and yelling going on, well you need to get your shirt tucked in. Or they’ll have, we’ll have Black girls who you know have a little bit more package than a Caucasian girl would have and there’ll be an argument about oh your pants is too tight. But a White girl can come in there with some skinny tight pants on and there’ll be nothing said. Or a white guy would be walking around in school cussing and the principal will laugh and all this other stuff with ’em, and as he’s cussing, but if we were to say anything of that nature it would be a problem. (Jamal, Grade 12)

Students also indicated a perceived difference in teachers’ expectancy beliefs with regard to students’ academic achievement. Terek, another 11th-grade student at Skyview High, explained his general perception of teachers’ expectancy beliefs in terms of Black students’ academic motivation and his method of combating these beliefs in the classroom. Terek demonstrates an understanding of what teachers believe, attributing that belief to the stereotype that Black students are not intelligent. He attempts to combat that stereotype by amplifying what he perceives to be the in-class behavior teachers want to see:

Yeah. Um, I think some teachers, if you’re like a Black student they have lower expectations for you . . .But I always try to like on the first day to like make sure they understand that like I mean business . . .I just try to answer as many questions as I can in class, and just show them that I’m like intelligent and have . . ..

I: Do you think other people or other races feel the need to do that?

Not, not as much probably. (Terek, Grade 11)

Kendall, a Harper High student, explains a classroom situation in which she perceived racial discrimination to be occurring. There were both classroom management and academic expectation issues when thinking about her relationship with this teacher. In this excerpt, Kendall makes clear attributions that this differential treatment was based on race rather than ability but does not go further in her reflection.

So I had this um teacher where she taught basically all my subjects, and um she would give, I noticed my math for instance, I noticed that she would be giving the Caucasian students different math work than me. So she just assumed like I didn’t have the ability to do what they were doing. So she would always like . . ..

I: Was it just you?

Just me, I was like the only person who had different work and I would work so hard in her class, like I did everything I was suppose to do, but then when it comes to like parent teacher conferences: oh she’s horrible, and she has an attitude problem, and she never does her work, she never turns in anything. And my mom’s like hummm . . .. (Kendall, Grade 11)

(Lack of) Institutional Support for Positive Racial Climate

Students in both Youngersville and Harbor also commented on the lack of institutional support for a positive racial climate. Institutional support can come in a variety of ways, including the curriculum, school-based programming, and institutional norms. The most common observation from the students was that the curriculum did not support instruction of either historical or contemporary topics of race, culture, and diversity. In addition to noting the missing curriculum, students in both districts expressed a desire to engage in that type of course content. In Harbor, Nathan explains how social studies instruction is limited and also unbalanced at Skyview. He also notes that some teachers may attempt to teach these concepts but he views these attempts as insufficient:

I: But do teachers teach you about concepts like that, like concepts like hegemony and oppression?

Um some teachers try to, but I, not, I don’t think they teach us all about it. Yeah, they teach us about some of it. For example, like umm, I don’t believe I’ve been taught about what actually happened to the Indians and when I say Indians I mean the Native Americans. For example, I’ve never been taught about that, even though I know about it, I just want to be taught more. I’ve been taught about slavery, I’ve been . . . I sort of wish I was taught about the Mayan, the Aztec empire, you know the um, all those Mexican, yeah, all those Mexican and South American tribes. I wish I was taught more about those. I just know a little bit, and assume a little bit. I just wish they taught those. (Nathan, Grade 9)

Jamal, from Youngersville, noted a similar experience with the curriculum as Nathan. Again, the students find that the curriculum is insufficient in terms of exposure to racially diverse history within the curriculum and how multi-cultural education is integrated into instruction. Jamal also attributes that the schools do not value such expansions of the curriculum as indicated through existing courses being offered as electives, rather than fulfilling mandatory graduation requirements.

I: So in your history classes have you talked about oppression?

Briefly touched it, not enough to explore and get the full concept.

I: Do you think it’s important for hegemony to be taught in school, or no?

I think hegemony and um, um racism, and um the treating of African Americans and Jews . . . they should be brought to a wider scale so you can open up the eyes of the people who think that the world was just, is just a beautiful place, that everybody is treated equal. Because when you open up that um, that can of opportunity a lot of people will start to really open their eyes to see like wow this is what really went through- what these people went through . . . But majority of the time you just hear how beautiful the Caucasians live, um and how glorious the, the Republican party is. But you don’t get to hear about the Democrats, or the Blacks, or the Mexicans, or the Asians, or the Jews. Because each one of those people have been oppressed in some type of way.

I: Okay, so in school you don’t necessarily hear . . ..

Unless you wanna take another class. But they don’t waste mandatory class time in history, in a history class of all things, um, when you think that that’s where you would get from. (Jamal, Grade 12)

Jamal also expounds on the state of the curriculum, emphasizing how schools and content of instruction may serve as reproduction agents of social inequity and uneven notions of power and privilege based on race.

I: Why, why do you think they only give that one perspective?

Um hum, I don’t know. To be honest, I can’t really put a finger on that. I can just, you know, say that maybe they do it because they feel like uh they don’t want the white man viewed in a negative eye.

I: Who is they?

Um, the people who set the curriculum.

I: Okay

They don’t want the white man to be viewed in a negative eye. Because if you look back and you recall some of the events that do take place, a lot of um Caucasian people have something to do with treatment of certain people. And they don’t want to be viewed. Because they would say whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s not the image that we want to see because the right way is the white way, in other words. (Jamal, Grade 12)

Inequities Between School Districts

While all students spoke broadly about how their local schools and education may not adequately meet their educational needs, only Kendall highlighted educational inequities between the districts represented in the study. All of the students had attended school in other districts, but Kendall was the only student to attend school in both Harbor and Youngersville. She described her transition from Youngersville schools into Harbor schools during middle school:

It was a huge change, as far as education it was a huge change cause, change because um Wyatt (in Youngersville) was so far back, like in education. We were on fractions in 6th grade, that is way off. And then when I went into 7th grade (in Harbor) they were graphing and doing equations and I was just like I didn’t learn how to do this. So I had to do a lot of catch up, and tutors and catching up so, cause Harbor schools are way advanced, well basically where they’re suppose to be than Youngersville schools.

Like I never understood like if the district knew they were behind why did they never try to make an effort to put the kids on track, and they wonder why so many kids never graduate, or never make it to a good college. (Kendall, Grade 11)

Kendall was aware of the disparity of academic rigor between the two school districts, and how Youngersville’s lack of rigor was to her academic detriment. She was aware that she was “academically behind” after transferring middle schools. As Kendall finished her think aloud, it is apparent that she is questioning and critically examining the reasons behind the disparities. She also attributes issues of student success to systematic failures on the part of the district by asking, “Why did they never try to make an effort to put the kids on track, and they wonder why so many kids never graduate, or never make it to a good college.” Additionally, she noticed a further incongruence in academic expectations for students. Below, she describes the grading systems for each district:

Cause in Harbor if you have a C and lower they, that’s failing, that’s not even passing. But if you’re at Youngersville and you have a D, that’s passing, and a C is passing. And I feel like I, at first when I went to Harbor schools I felt that was so dumb, cause you cannot tell me that a C is not passing, like how am I failing a class with a C. But that has grown on me and I’ve grown to like it because if your mind frame should be set that A and B should be passing. (Kendall, Grade 11)

Burgeoning Critical Consciousness: Counterclaims to a Post-Racial Society

Through their own lived experiences and the lived experiences of others, students in both Harbor and Youngersville recognize that racism, discrimination, and oppression are persistent societal forces with which they must contend. It is almost like an awakening, where students understand that their race does not serve as a legitimate basis for unequal treatment, but their lived experiences serve as counterclaims to the myth of a post-racial society.

. . . in this day and time where racism is suppose to be dead . . . And it just seems like times have really switched . . . But you would think now times would be a little bit more easier. But it seems like it’s taken the reverse effect. A child that young, six and seven years old is being told that another child his age is being said, Black people are bad. That really hurts that child, cause he’s young and he doesn’t understand that . . . Like wow, are we really stepping back further into history, going backwards instead of moving forward? (Jamal, Grade 12)

Jamal and Nathan both recognize through several instances that there continues to be many forms of interpersonal and institutional racism that they face as Black youth, that other youth, particularly White youth, might not have to contend with.

I: Do you see hegemony at all today? You keep saying back in the day. Is hegemony over?

Well yes, no, no hegemony is definitely not over. It’s went to new levels. Now it’s went from just being in oppressed people as in Black, to being oppressed people of a broke, um you can be oppressed on um school, different just different things now. It’s more, it has expanded into more categories than what it was originally for. (Jamal, Grade 12)

I: Do you think other teenagers think about injustice in their lives?

Um, that’s a good question . . . I’m not trying to sound racist or anything, but it seems like that would be more of a case that’s pressed by minorities, everybody other than somebody who is white. I think that would be something that would be on their mind, I think.

I: And why do you think that white teenagers may not necessarily think as much about injustice than minorities?

Um because maybe they think they’re the founding people, and why should the, the founding people suffer the rules that they put up. Um, its not them, they, that person thinks that they may not have to worry about the rules that they put and set up, it should be the other people that are not them who should worry about that. Cause, cause they basically made those rules for people like them, I’m guessing maybe. Yeah. (Nathan, Grade 9)

Jenna also has been exposed to racial socialization from her father in preparation for academic success despite negative stereotypes of Black students. Scholars suggest that preparation for bias is a strategic form of racial socialization that parents implement to provide children with an understanding of discrimination and tools to cope with discriminatory experiences (Hughes et al., 2011; Hughes et al., 2006). For Jenna, her father offers academic success as a coping mechanism to buffer against the negative impacts of racial bias in education as well as the importance of higher education for overall success and well-being.

Yeah my dad talks about it (stereotypes and what it means to be Black).

I: Okay, what does he say?

Um he will talk about um what Black people have to go through, and that, how the economy is, how we have to, like I said, put ourselves out there more. Cause like there’s a stereotype saying that um, white people are better than Black people still going on. So we have to put ourselves out there actually you know, try, that’s why they have to get good grades and go to college. And they said college is no option, you have to go so. (Jenna, Grade 11)

Further, Jamal offers that he will socialize his children to understand that people are equal no matter their “status.” This is similar to Nathan’s response recounting experience of teacher discrimination in the classroom and recalls Martin Luther King’s speech where he emphasized the judgment of character, not skin color. While Harbor and Youngersville students aspire toward a society where race is not a tool to minimize human existence, they also recognize that this society does not yet exist for them.

Because in all actuality you’re no more different than any other person. Your skin tone might be a little bit darker, but you are still people, you are still human. It’s your personality, in other words, that makes you different than that person. But you’re no better, and you’re no worse than anybody else. Everybody in my eyes, and that’s how I would tell my children, no matter what our status is, if we’re rich, if we’re poor, if we’re wealthy, um you are no better than nobody else, you are people. (Jamal, Grade 12)

Discussion

Despite purported changes in societal attitudes and behaviors toward race, the legacy of racism and related prejudice and discrimination continues to play a significant role in defining the lived experiences of and future possibilities for Black youth. As such, understanding how race affects interpersonal and institutional settings becomes an important developmental task for Black children and adolescents. This begins early, as children as young as third grade are aware of racial discrimination (Rowley, Kurtz-Coates, & Cooper, 2010). Findings from this study highlight adolescence as an opportune time to use newly developed abstract and higher order thinking skills to engage deeply in critical analysis and reflection on issues of race. This is an essential and protective developmental task that helps adolescents cope with race-based discrimination and integrate beliefs about society and their role and value as citizens into their own identity. School can play an important role in this developmental process as it represents a space to examine working assumptions about race relations through interactions with teachers and fellow students. Byrd and Chavous (2012) offer that the racial climate of schools is reflected in interracial interactions, stereotypes, equitable treatment, and institutional supports for a positive racial climate. These interrelated dimensions of the school racial climate serve as reflections of broad cultural norms and might also reproduce structural inequities (Fine et al., 2004). From race-based schooling experiences, youth come to understand the normative value of their race and the role they are expected to fulfill in society (Hughes et al., 2011), which therein determines how youth integrate race into their identity and interact as citizens.

While Black children are aware of racism at an early age, schooling experiences and new advance cognitive abilities during adolescence allow for a prime opportunity to interrogate race, racism, and discrimination. This opportunity for critical analysis of discrimination can be maximized through programs such as YPAR that intentionally explore ideas of structural inequity. The youth in our study were participants in one such program. As evidenced by our findings, this program provided youth with (a) a safe space to openly discuss issues and experiences of race, (b) perspective-taking and evaluation skills to interrogate these experiences, and (c) space to learn and practice language to describe these experiences. Youth were recommended to our program because of their interest in social justice issues in their communities and schools. These students indicated an interest in investigating issues of equality and race, and the YPAR program provided a structured space to engage. This critical exploration of race also served as a form of racial socialization, providing the youth with a method for constructing and deconstructing messages they received about being Black from their experiences in schools and communities. Within the first month of programming, the youth were already beginning to integrate social justice language from the program into their explanation and understanding of events they had experienced in school. While Black youth are experiencing racism, are aware of discrimination, and are even thinking about the implications, programming contexts with a focus on social justice provides a unique but essential opportunity to engage with those ideas and experiences.

Youth Perspective: Experiences and Implications of School-Based Racial Discrimination

There are several key findings of this work that emphasize the complex ways that Black youth use critical analysis to decode their own experiences of racism and discrimination in schools. Students remarked across three of the four dimensions of school racial climate (Byrd & Chavous, 2012): stereotypes, equitable treatment, and institutional support for positive racial climate. There was a general desire by the students in our study for an egalitarian approach to race in the broader society and in their schools—one that does not ignore race, but appreciates diversity and does not limit expectations or rely on stereotypes to define individuals. These young people view discrimination as “immature” and as potentially painful for those who experience it. They pointed to the ways in which they are discriminated against in school and work settings. Each of the high school students in this study could readily describe situations in which they felt discriminated against due to their racial group membership. They also were acutely aware of the implications of negative race-based stereotypes and discrimination experiences on their current and future academic careers.

Some of these experiences were instances of inequitable classroom discipline practices, such that they, a Black student, were treated unfairly in comparison with White classmates. In this sense, our respondents perceived themselves as “not getting the benefit of the doubt”—assumed to be causing trouble or deserving of harsher punishment. Their analyses pointed to gross stereotypes that teachers held about Black students—regardless of the teacher’s own racial background. Their views are consistent with the mounting research evidence on the disproportionate use of exclusionary discipline tactics with Black students (Gregory, Cornell, & Fan, 2011). These data indicate that given the same infractions, Black students are more likely to receive much harsher disciplinary consequences than are their White classmates. In other instances, respondents in our study were able to point to cases where their academic ability was questioned, both implicitly and explicitly. This included the observation that lower expectations and academic standards exist in predominately Black and underresourced schools when compared with predominately White schools. Students acknowledge that there are some Black students who are not engaged in school and describe efforts to quickly distinguish themselves from this segment of the student population by displaying exaggerated academic behaviors to signal high academic intelligence and motivation.

Students were also able to connect these personal experiences to inadequate treatment of race, class, and culture in the core social studies and history curriculum. This curricular inadequacy deprived them and their classmates of academic content and related classroom discussions that would demonstrate the school’s commitment to diversity and provide information and skills that could help improve the current racial school climate. The students view this as a missed opportunity for personal and collective growth. Indeed, recent research has found that civic education is related to increased sociopolitical outcomes among Black youth (Hope & Jagers, 2014). On the other hand, the students in our study point to received and planned parental racial socialization aimed at strengthening racial coping focused on self-worth and overcoming racial barriers. These are important strategies but are largely person centered. Black students may be limited in their capacity to bring about the institutional change needed to improve the quality of the school climate without shared understanding and collective commitment to overcoming racial discrimination and oppression in the school.

Limitations and Future Directions

Through this investigation, Black high school students describe distinct and predominately negative aspects of the school racial climate through a critical lens. This critical understanding is an important component of their adolescent development and maturation as citizens with a positive impact on society. However, this study is not without limitation. One such consideration is generalizability and selection bias. Our sample are students who were recommended to us based on demonstrated leadership potential and were in the early phases of a YPAR program that focused on understanding and addressing local problems faced by young people. As such, these students represent a segment of the Black adolescent population that has been exposed to structured discussion and conversation about systematic racial and economic oppression. While this work highlights the capacity for youth to engage in a critical commentary of their social conditions and race-based schooling experiences, scholars should continue to explore this phenomenon among Black youth with varied geographic, economic, and educational backgrounds. We also had limited representation of girls in our study. Future work should consider, more explicitly, the schooling experiences of Black girls with attention to the intersection of race and gender (Chavous & Cogburn, 2007). Finally, in our work, we focused on high school students. Given some work that has shown that youth begin to understand race and discrimination as early as the third grade (Rowley et al., 2008), future work may want to examine the connections between critical analysis of social inequality children and early adolescents. The older adolescents in our sample were able to use more complex cognitive skills to think through and discuss social inequality. Research should consider how younger adolescents might be able to engage with these concepts and ideas through structured programs and contexts.

Taken together, we found that Black adolescents have relevant race-based experiences in schools and are able to describe these experiences through a broad lens that considers interpersonal and systematic oppression and discrimination. Participants in a YPAR program, these youth were able to take a critical stance about how those marginalizing experiences can and do affect their own lives. They also interrogate how schools can be improved to provide more education around race, racism, and oppression and how they must conduct themselves to navigate the system and negotiate discriminatory practices in schools. We find support for past work that suggests that schools may be reproductive tools of societal oppression through undervaluing Black students in the classroom and curriculum. In light of these barriers, the students in our study expressed a clear desire to incorporate understanding and valuing of culture and race as a part of their education. These findings are encouraging and highlight that Black adolescents are not only aware of racism but are also willing and able to engage in a critical interrogation of the negative implications of racism and solutions for their schools and society, particularly when given the opportunity and safe space to do so.

Footnotes

Appendix

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context funded by the National Science Foundation (Grant 0820309).

Author Biographies

Elan C. Hope, PhD, is a William T. Grant foundation postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. Her research examines individual and contextual influences on the academic and civic lives of Black youth, with a focus on how identity, ideology, and critical social analysis affect academic and civic outcomes.

Alexandra B. Skoog is a doctoral candidate in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan. She examines in- and out-of-school time positive youth development programs and its impact on teachers and students.

Robert J. Jagers, PhD, is an associate professor in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan. He investigates the complex connections among culture, race, and class and their impact on the social-emotional development of urban youth.

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