Journal of Social Issues最新文献

Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a renewed and more mainstream attention to systemic racism emerged. Critical Race Theory (CRT) has permeated the larger public discourse around race more than ever before. Yet, social, scientific, and political backlash intended to silence conversations about the systemic and power-driven nature of racism have also characterized these years. 30+ years have passed since CRT's introduction as a critical analysis of how the legal system fails minoritized groups; 20+ years have passed since CRT's introduction into the social psychological field. Although psychology provides a strong foundation for the CRT tenets, incorporating CRT into the field of psychology has lagged behind many other fields (e.g., sociology, education). In two installments, this special issue (re)introduces psychological researchers to CRT and Psychological Critical Race Theory (PCRT), underscores CRT's importance and limitations in the context of psychological research, features novel applications and directions in CRT, and addresses the current political climate of opposition to discussions of CRT. This second installment looks outward highlighting psychological research applying (P)CRT frameworks to advance racial justice. We conclude with reflections on the history of CRT and PCRT and the shifts necessary in our scholarship-activism to dismantle systems of racial oppression.

Using autoethnography and a Critical Race Theory framework, I recount how I experienced racism denial in my son's school district during 2019–2020 (his kindergarten year). To build this counternarrative, I analyzed multiple data sources (e.g., field notes, personal journal entries, public documents) and, across three chapters, describe my interactions with key school district gatekeepers while advocating for racial equity-oriented school policies. These policies included: a school desegregation program (Chapter 1), a plan to incorporate critical race education into one school's curriculum (Chapter 2), and a district-level endorsement of critical race and ethnic studies K-12 curriculum in California schools (Chapter 3). In responding to this advocacy, the district professed surface-level support for racial equity, but I saw this form of support as racism denial merely masquerading as support for racial equity. I explain why I interpreted the district's responses in this way, and how I experienced these responses from my perspective as a mixed Black mother, scholar, and activist. I end by reflecting on how these experiences forced me to integrate my mother-scholar-activist identities in uncomfortable and productive ways, and with recommendations for how psychological researchers and K-12 schools can support racial equity.

Psychological Critical Race Theory (PCRT) was introduced in 1998. PCRT illustrates the integral connection of psychological research and theory to the legal framework of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Five tenets of PCRT were described: (1) Spontaneous and persistent influence of race; (2) Fairness is derived from divergent racial experiences; (3) Asymmetrical consequences of racial policies; (4) Paradoxes of racial diversity; and (5) Racial identity requires a multidimensional approach. These tenets are reviewed and updated. A new set of seven PCRT principles are proposed that provide a broad framework within which to examine the PCRT concept and its role in reframing critical approaches to racial justice. Principle 1: Race and culture make each other up; Principle 2: Meaning Matters; Principle 3: Multilevel analysis is critical to unraveling Systemic Racism; Principle 4: Activism is a lever for social change; Principle 5: Power drives racial inequality; Principle 6: Storytelling disrupts status quo narratives; Principle 7: Diversity does not ameliorate systemic racism. PCRT is a 100-year enterprise of psychological science, offering a complex and comprehensive framework for understanding and ameliorating persistent racial inequality. The comprehensive network of ideas, methods, goals, and strategies can engage and guide this work for years to come.

Increased anti-Blackness, including interpersonal racist encounters and macro forms such as extrajudicial killings by the state, have demonstrated that Black communities and their psychological well-being are in a precarious position. Extant research has revealed that increased encounters with anti-Blackness are related to excessive psychological stress. However, the role of stigma awareness, its relationship to anti-Blackness and psychological stress, and our understanding of the relationship among subgroup identities (e.g., gender) remain underdeveloped. Appropriately, the current work adopted critical race psychology and minority stress theory and explored Black individuals’ (N = 410) experience with anti-Blackness, stigma awareness, and their relationship to psychological stress. Results demonstrated that experience with anti-Blackness was positively associated with increased physical, emotional, and cognitive stress; however, stigma awareness mediated only emotional stress. In addition, among the sample, Black men and Black individuals with increased education (e.g., received a college degree) reported increased levels of psychological stress compared to Black women and less educated Black individuals.

Despite consensus that parent involvement is integral to children's educational success, Black parents’ involvement remains largely characterized from a deficits-based perspective. Using critical race and critical consciousness theories, this study explored parents’ analysis of educational inequities and their school engagement. Using interview data from a sample of Black parents (n = 20), emergent understandings of parents’ thoughts, motivations, and actions to engage with their child's school were explored. Findings revealed that Black parents held both critical and traditional views, expressed themes of internal and external efficacy in their motivation, and engaged critically and traditionally in their child's education. Results are consonant with literature on Black parents’ engagement and to the nascent understanding of how parents' beliefs about structural racial oppression within schools impacts how they engage in that space.