Commentary: attachment theory goes to school.

Abstract

The topic of this special issue linking attachment theory and research on racism could not be more timely. This past year has been a watershed moment in history. Almost without warning, our country was hit by a coronavirus that reached pandemic proportions, an economic downturn that suddenly left millions of Americans unemployed, and social unrest precipitated by anti-Black police brutality, along with the nationwide reckoning that systemic racism runs deep in our society. We also know that the negative health consequences of COVID-19, educational and employment consequences of an economic downturn, and societal consequences of systemic racism fall disproportionately on people of color, including African American children, adolescents, and their families. As we seek to alleviate pandemic-related challenges and affirm that Black Lives Do Matter, the time is particularly right for new theorizing and research on the ways in which established theories of development can shed fresh light on the meaning of racism in this society, who it most impacts, and what can be done to mitigate its sometimes deadly consequences. The special issue begins with a conceptual article by Mikulincer and Shaver arguing that attachment security might be a protective factor for those who are targets of racism, just as attachment avoidance might be a risk factor that exacerbates the downstream negative consequences of race-related discrimination. The papers that follow probe the role of attachment style of Black participants in such diverse contexts as neighborhoods, families, the rural South, and psychotherapy, with a focus on multiple race-related outcomes including mental health, emotion regulation, and our physiological control systems. It seems evident across all of these studies that being securely attached – having a close and meaningful relationship with a significant other – can buffer the challenges associated with racism among Black parents, children, and adolescents. Collectively, the articles in this special issue underscore that context is important in studying attachment–racism linkages in children and adolescents. Yet missing from the approaches is attention to school, which is probably the most important context for development outside of the family. Virtually all American children under the age of 17 are enrolled in school and students spend more than one-third of their waking hours each week in school or schoolrelated activities (Larson, 2001). Pre-pandemic, the typical American student spent 6–7 hours a day in school over 180 school days a year. Close relationships of the type described in the attachment literature are formed with peers in school, and as children get older they spend twice as much time with peers as with parents (Brown & Larson, 2009). Moreover, in the García-Coll integrative model, which remains the most influential conceptual analysis of