The Promise of Racial Healing to Achieve Health Equity Through School-Based Prevention

In the wake of the American Public Health Association’s formal declaration of racism as a public health crisis, there is an urgent need for more approaches to promoting the socioemotional well-being of K–12 Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) students, educators, and families.¹ Cumulative exposures and reexposures to direct and indirect acts of racism can adversely affect emotion regulation and the ability to sustain meaningful relationships, disrupting socioemotional health and well-being.² Race-based stress can lead to racial trauma, and merely perceived experiences of racial discrimination can produce such stress.²

Household and community-level experiences of racial trauma have effects similar to those of other adverse childhood experiences,^3,4 and calls to address racism within K–12 schools by interrupting and preventing the transmission of intergenerational cycles of trauma at the systemic, institutional, and individual levels are well placed.^5,6 Such action will need to counteract the whitewashing of the public K–12 curriculum, evident through the censoring of antiracist books and the movement to ban the teaching of accurate US history about race, exacerbating generations of systemic disadvantage in BIPOC communities.⁷

ANTIRACISM AND SCHOOL-BASED APPROACHES

Theory and research highlight the critical role of schools in promoting socioemotional wellness through culturally responsive programs and practices⁸; efforts to eradicate racism in our schools must be a priority. Interracial dialogue and programs aimed at fostering perspective taking can catalyze antiracism action and promote overall school socioemotional well-being.⁹ Broadly, best practices in addressing racial trauma and stress emphasize the role of radical healing, transformation, liberation, and empowerment as conduits for remedial action from the racialized cycles of stress and trauma.^10,11

Social-emotional learning programs are a vital response, and they have been widely implemented across K–12 schools to address individual well-being.⁸ Yet, many existing programs fail to explicitly address interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism—manifested in a spectrum of racist acts and policies—and their harm to social-emotional well-being.¹² Critics have described social-emotional learning programs that focus on interpersonal skills at the individual level without countering the ills of institutional and structural racism as promoting “White supremacy with a hug.”¹³ Evaluations of school-based prejudice reduction programs demonstrate that simply reducing prejudice among ethnoracial majority students does not change social behaviors.¹⁴ More attention is therefore needed on strategies that challenge the system of racism. The need for more work that promotes antiracism and socioemotional wellness among K–12 populations is urgent.

THE PROMISE OF RACIAL HEALING AS PREVENTION

We believe that racial healing can offer promise as a prevention tool by directly addressing the ills of racism at both the interpersonal and broader institutional and structural levels. Racial healing is recognizing and unlearning to overcome one’s internalized messages about one’s own ethnoracial identity and those of others. It can promote student, educator, and parent socioemotional well-being and foster individual and collective agentic action toward dismantling White supremacy.¹⁵

Racial healing is a process that is both introspective and interpersonal. It begins with exploring our internalized racism and cycles of racial socialization in ways that bring about an integrated awareness of our own ethnoracial identities as a means of challenging privilege and fostering collective healing and systemic reforms.¹⁵ For BIPOC individuals, this may involve rejecting norms around White superiority; celebrating cultural heritage, traditions, and identities; and fostering hope and strength through solidarity with other BIPOC individuals. Among White individuals, this process could mean unlearning and challenging their own privilege that stems from White supremacy toward interrupting and disrupting cycles of interpersonal and institutional racism.^15,16

Given the insidious nature of racism, schools should no longer be neutral toward racism. Instead, schools should directly address the racial healing of students, educators, and parents to positively impact individuals and communities. Much like the restorative justice work that engages all parties involved to heal and restore what is broken,¹⁷ racial healing should engage both BIPOC and White individuals in healing from historical trauma we have incurred collectively through racism. Restorative justice brings together those who have created harm with those who have been harmed in efforts to promote sustainable growth toward collective healing for the betterment of society.¹⁷

Relatedly, racial healing seeks to foster “emergence and integrative awareness”^15(p20) among White individuals to deal with how they benefit both historically and contemporaneously from structural racism, but also how much they lose as a result of racism. A true recognition is necessary that undoing racism and letting go of the privilege gained at the expense of BIPOC suffering does not create new racial hierarchy with White individuals at the bottom. In fact, this recognition will liberate them from racial resentment stemming from guilt and shame.¹⁸ Racial healing, thus, can address the harms of racism collectively while seeking to repair and restore relationships in working toward a vision of a racially diverse, just, equitable, and harmonious country.

To clarify, racial healing work is not to create space for BIPOC individuals to educate and empathize with White individuals. To emphasize, this work cannot and should never be used as another mundane “diversity training” that focuses on White individuals’ learning while silencing BIPOC voices. Instead, racial healing is about bringing diverse individuals together to explore their lived experiences while developing restorative actions within individuals and society.

Our research team from the School of Social Work and Cooperative Extension at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign received funding from the state’s Healing Illinois⁹ initiative to explore the promise of racial healing as an essential strategy to promote socioemotional wellness (details on Healing Illinois are provided in the Appendix, available as a supplement to the online version of this article at http://www.ajph.org). Between December 2020 and March 2021, we hosted 17 focus groups centered around racial healing involving 88 Illinois students (aged 12–18 years), parents, and educators. The project aimed to understand the need, desire, and capacity for racial healing of the students, parents, and educators.

Groups were organized based on status (students, parents, and educators) and separated by their ethnoracial identity: White only, BIPOC, and mixed (both White and BIPOC individuals). The purpose of organizing groups based on status and ethnoracial identities was to explore whether themes associated with racial healing and student socioemotional needs would differ.

Overall, our study revealed the need to center students’ voices in furthering this work around racial healing. Participants generally recognized the socioemotional impact of the dual stresses of the pandemic and racial reckoning on young people. However, students, parents, and educators alike were unprepared to talk about their fear, vulnerability, and suffering induced by racism and the political divide. Repeated calls were also made across all our groups for parents and educators to be accepting of, comfortable with, and trained in racial healing. Nonetheless, despite the hesitation to engage in racial healing and to engage in the difficult conversation on racism, we found hope in the promise of racial healing.

Students were notably far more optimistic than parents and teachers that the ills of racism can be overcome, and this optimism was particularly strong in the group of mixed White and BIPOC students. A student in this group noted that “I think [to make positive change] we need to be more self-aware with each other and be more open.” One student in the BIPOC group noted that “There’s been, like, a huge spark in everyone just trying to educate themselves and, like, bring awareness to everything, and it’s just really good to see how many people are just willing to hop on that.” Another BIPOC student emphasized that “If we are not better ourselves right now, we are bettering for our future generation.” Still another student in the mixed-race group noted that addressing the harms of racism was significant not only for young people but also for parents and educators: “I think they [adults] just need to do better.”

Our experience highlights the incredible resilience of students in the face of racial stress and trauma. Despite their fear, vulnerability, and suffering, they displayed a restless desire to bring about change, illustrating the importance of focusing on student voices in furthering racial healing work. Students demanded more of both themselves and adults to do something about racism, for now and for the future. The expectation is that engaging students in racial healing dialogues will cultivate a sense of optimism for the future, as indicated by our participants, consistent with preexisting approaches to addressing racial stress and trauma such as radical healing, transformation, and liberation.^10,11

HOW TO PROMOTE RACIAL HEALING

Given our work in school settings, we fully recognize that multiple challenges exist in implementing the process described here in schools. For example, individuals generally rarely engage in conversations around interpersonal racism and its harms,¹⁵ teachers commonly struggle with high workloads and burnout,¹⁹ and significant institutional and structural barriers exist with respect to discussing the impact of racism with students in K–12 schools specifically.²⁰ If racial healing is to occur, it must move beyond the traditional delivery of school programming efforts and be interwoven into day-to-day conversations with our young people. We provide four strategies to promote racial healing in schools based on our study findings.

Develop Diversity-Oriented Competencies

Many participants highlighted the need for educators to develop cultural competencies. One White student called for greater inclusion and infusion in teaching curricula concerning race, religion, and “everything.” White students suggested that social media etiquette be taught, and all students stated that it is important to include young people in conversations. White parents and one BIPOC parent suggested that educators teach positive race relations through cultural competency and cultural humility. According to one White parent, students could learn that “there is diversity” that goes beyond appearance and relates to “identities, customs, and traditions.” White and BIPOC parents further suggested teaching students coping skills, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution strategies while promoting racial healing.

Coordinate Open Community Dialogues

BIPOC educators, and sometimes White educators, suggested that schools host community dialogues focusing on diverse race relations and socioemotional wellness. As part of their outreach in bridging the home–school interlinkage, schools can consider hosting racial healing workshops to provide parents with the necessary skills and support to mitigate the adverse impacts of racialized trauma and stress within their households. Attention to the composition of a school’s student body and teaching and administrative force and to the quality of the school climate is critical in promoting racial healing and open conversations about race.⁷

BIPOC educators cautioned that BIPOC students appeared “a little bit more hesitant” when discussing “extremely touchy and sensitive topics” with White teachers. Echoing this, a BIPOC parent described conversations as necessary but “uncomfortable” and, in advocating for community dialogues, highlighted the need to acknowledge “our own humanity.” Creating a safe space for BIPOC students is needed, and this means that societal and mainstream racism within non-BIPOC communities must be addressed.

Improve Schools’ Socioemotional Climate

Although all groups highlighted the need to improve schools’ socioemotional climate, BIPOC and White educators were more inclined to suggest it. One White educator lamented, calling out insufficiency and requesting more flexible and culturally responsive curricula, “I don’t have a lot of time to diverge from [standard] content. But I also don’t want to completely ignore current events.” White parents wanted more communication from educators and school administrators (e.g., resources such as electronic newsletters and emails that would help parents navigate sociopolitical issues with their children). BIPOC students suggested promoting conversations about politics, assemblies to enhance awareness of diversity and civil rights, and structured time for diverse classmates to come together.

In this push to improve the school socioemotional climate, it is also essential to protect BIPOC students, educators, and families to ensure that such initiatives do not impose a “minority tax.”²¹ In our focus groups, we observed a sense of weariness among BIPOC individuals, an example of what is known as “Black fatigue”: physical and mental strain faced by BIPOC individuals as a result of the persistent and intergenerational impact of racism.²² As mentioned, racial healing cannot levy the added burden on BIPOC individuals. If true liberation and empowerment are to occur through racial healing, White individuals should proactively engage and stand up as allies with intentional learning and unlearning. Racism cannot be undone without White individuals so far as we live in a White supremacist world.

Develop Macro-Level Systems of Support

All the groups suggested macro-level systems of support in advancing the need for racial healing. Participants highlighted the importance of increasing the number of mental health and counseling professionals in schools who can support the process of racial healing. Suggestions included creating parent–teacher apps to improve communication, increasing support, including funding and resources to allow difficult classroom discussions and conversations about race, and adding trained professionals to help in implement these suggestions. A BIPOC educator aptly summarized: “Looking ahead, there’s just so much unknown. We don’t know how [current events are] going to impact these kids…I think just really having those resources ready, the professionals out there that can help us navigate some of these difficult situations.” Another BIPOC educator addressed why we need preventive strategies intersecting race relations and socioemotional well-being in schools: “The suicide rate is up, drug use is up, alcohol use is up; we have got big issues coming.”

The benefits of developing systems of support for BIPOC individuals were evident in our study. At the end of our focus groups, our BIPOC participants, despite sharing that they felt overwhelmed, often expressed appreciation for the conversation and relief that it had occurred.

RACIAL HEALING AND BEYOND

We believe that schools should play an essential role in addressing the impact of racial trauma and stress and engaging in antiracism efforts across the spectrum of interpersonal, institutional, and structural barriers,²⁰ and participants in the dialogues seemed to agree. Although there are significant challenges in K–12 schools in addressing the impacts of racism,²⁰ we need to redouble efforts to prevent poor socioemotional outcomes caused by racial stress and trauma. Given Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s recent decision to prevent the teaching of Black history in schools, urgent attention is needed to curb the impact of such structural assaults on teaching about racism; there is a strong likelihood that other states will follow suit with similar policies.²³

These types of backlash further demonstrate the need for collective racial healing. We, as a country, are suffering from divisive thinking that in countering racist history, we somehow diminish the accomplishments of this country. Learning from history and standing against racism will be an enormous feat as a society. Legislative action at the federal level is necessary to elicit support and protection for racial healing work. Lobbying legislators to take a stand on racism and support racial healing is necessary. Most important, White and BIPOC individuals must work together toward racial healing. We all need to heal.

Racial healing must come first to achieve socioemotional well-being among all students. This truly is the first step toward achieving health equity among school-aged children, and this healing must occur across ethnoracial groups, students, and adults. As the students held firm to their hope in our focus groups, we must be as hopeful as they are that schools can be sites of healing and liberation and catalysts for societal changes. Our young people deserve nothing less.