Journal of Social Issues最新文献

One of the major tenets of Critical Race Theory, the interest convergence hypothesis postulates that policies promising improvements for Black Americans are enacted only to the extent they advance White Americans’ interests. We elaborate and update Bell's argument by demonstrating that current diversity commitments in higher education are another example of interest convergence. First, we present empirical and theoretical evidence that ubiquitous approaches to diversity serve the psychological interests of White Americans more than those of Black Americans. Second, we advance a systemic framework for how social psychological processes intersect with normative ideologies in the law and in universities’ operations to facilitate the prioritization of White over Black interests. In so doing, our goal is to illuminate the primacy of White identity and power as fundamental to shaping American society's collective embrace of diversity.

The years since George Floyd's murder in 2020 have been characterized by both a renewed attention to systemic racism and a backlash intended to silence conversations about race. Critical Race Theory (CRT), in particular, has become a larger part of the public discourse around race than ever before. Although CRT developed in the 1980s as a critical approach in legal studies and was incorporated into social psychology in the 1990s, psychology's engagement with CRT has been much more limited than that of other fields. In two installments, this special issue aims to (re)introduce psychological researchers to Critical Race Theory (CRT), to underscore CRT's importance and limitations in the context of psychological research, to feature novel applications and new directions in CRT, and to address the current political climate of opposition to discussions of CRT. The first installment looks inward to examine how psychology can more effectively advance racial equity within the field and the research we conduct by continuing to incorporate a CRT lens throughout higher education and research. The second installment looks outward to highlight psychological research that uses CRT frameworks to advance racial justice in society.

The college transition can challenge students’ sense-making of diversity, race, and oppression. Yet prevailing neoliberal discourses touting the market value of diversity can thwart this potential by promoting color-evasive messaging that avoids reckoning with racism. Guided by Critical Race Theory, we explored incoming students’ sense-making of diversity (n = 421) after being exposed to either color-evasive transition stories or more critical stories that discussed intersecting experiences with oppression. Using discourse analysis, we observed that Black, Latinx, and Native students and their Asian and white counterparts reproduced common neoliberal logics emphasizing the educational benefits of diversity. However, critical stories reminded Black, Latinx, and Native students of the limits of diversity to change structures. For Asian and white students, critical stories elicited more aversive reactions and more endorsements of how diversity broadens equal access. Understanding students’ diversity discourses can inform how universities engage conversations about difference to counteract neoliberal talk that undermines racial justice.

Recently there has been an uptake in the call for research that explores race and racism within the context of psychology. Researchers can use Critical Race Theory (CRT) to do so. However, scholars within the field of psychology may confront growing pains when integrating psychology research with CRT due to their respective inquiry worldviews—postpositivism and critical—which result in several tensions pertaining to the framing of research and methods. These tensions may limit the uptake of CRT in psychology and may cause people to struggle to understand CRT. Therefore in this article, we describe (a) CRT and related frameworks, (b) tensions when integrating CRT into psychology, and (c) strategies to attenuate the tensions. Additionally, we highlight the importance of identity and the political choice of using CRT. It is critical for psychology researchers to challenge dominant postpositivist research inquiry worldviews and deconstruct what is considered “legitimate knowledge.” By doing so, we can (a) validate experiences and vast forms of knowledge that shape the reality of People of Color and our families, communities, and cultures and (b) challenge systems of oppression.

Despite the fact that evidence of racial inequality in the U.S. criminal legal system has become overwhelming, the field of legal psychology has largely ignored issues of race and systemic racism. Although legal psychology focuses on a system that has disproportionately affected certain racial groups, and much of the field questions the fairness of the system, its research seems to rarely take a critical approach to account for racial and systemic factors that may shape an individual's psychological experience. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to analyze the lack of attention to race and racism in legal psychology, document the extent to which the field has historically attended to issues of race and systemic racism, and provide best practices for future research to embrace a critical race legal psychology. To document inattention to race and systemic racism, we query, code, and analyze all articles published in two of legal psychology's most influential journals (Law and Human Behavior and Psychology, Public Policy, and Law), finding, indeed, a dearth of articles on these topics.

Acknowledging systemic racism, a key tenet of Critical Race Theory (CRT), may be threatening to many Americans but it can also reduce racial biases. However, anti-CRT legislation prohibits learning about racism, thus highlighting the mutually reinforcing relationship between systemic racism and the production of ignorance. We assessed White Americans’ knowledge about CRT through participant-generated definitions (Study 1, N = 199) and via a true/false questionnaire (Study 2, N = 194), and its relation to opposition to CRT. Opposition to CRT was associated with a less accurate understanding of CRT, even when controlling for political orientation. Content analyses revealed that opponents of CRT deny anti-Black racism, believe CRT harms Whites, and view discussing race as divisive. Based on these themes, we developed a meta-cognitive corrective intervention in Study 3 (N = 289). Participants who received corrective feedback after taking a multiple-choice test about CRT showed a larger decrease in their opposition to CRT than those in the control condition.

Critical race theory (CRT) guides insight into structural and institutional discrimination for identifying causes of race disparities in the United States social and political systems. Disparities are pronounced in the criminal justice system (CJS) for Latinx people, and negative attitudes exist about those incarcerated. LatCrit theory promotes an examination of unique issues creating disparities for Latinx people. Given historical, negative stereotypes of Mexican Americans as a criminal type, even exonerees face the taint of criminalization, and this influences perceptions of them. Following LatCrit theory, we examined the relationship between negative Mexican American stereotypes and perceived internal and external culpability with mediation from defendant rights attitudes for a Mexican American exoneree. With data from a national, adult online sample (N = 120), negative stereotypes about Mexican Americans predicted internal culpability with partial mediation from defendant rights beliefs, but the relationship was not found for external culpability. Negative stereotypes were associated with beliefs in the Mexican American exoneree's inherent criminality. With a LatCrit approach, quantitative findings lend insight into the legal decision making process to produce bias. Results highlight the need for continued focus on Latinx people's unique experiences and for change in methods to improve post-carceral reintegration and eliminate structural and systemic race bias.

The field of human development and family science (HDFS) conducts interdisciplinary research that has substantially benefited children and families. However, like other disciplines, in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery in 2020, HDFS has begun to deeply reflect on its relationship to race and racism. In this paper, we aim to help with this process. We do so by summarizing the history of HDFS and its present relationship with race and racism. We then introduce Critical Race Theory and highlight two foundational tenets of the framework—social construction of race and structural racism—that serve as the motivation for a set of 12 actionable recommendations to enhance the study of race in HDFS and promote racial equity within the research and publication process.

How do persons negotiate the relevance of historic racial injustice for contemporary concerns? In this paper, I show that persons could develop and use racial categorizations in association with family relations to make salient (or not) the relevance of past racial injustice for contemporary concerns. I examined how people construct and orient to racial group membership as implying historical oppression, and its relevance for contemporary interracial relations in the form of supporting or opposing Critical Race Theory (CRT) teaching in the United States public school system. I examined debates and discussions on CRT televised in the American news media using discursive psychological approaches. Findings show that race categories were developed and used in relation to one's ancestors: parents, aunts and uncles, and distant generations. This was done to raise the salience of past racial injustice, which otherwise would involve offering historic or other social structural arguments. The use of family derived race categories at once personalized and enhanced the credibility of the speaker, and countered possible implications for taking responsibility for past actions. These family-derived race categories were then a resource speakers could use to negotiate their position on CRT. These findings are discussed in relation to the relevance of time for negotiating racism. Further arguments are developed in relation to how an ethnomethodological approach can illuminate critical arguments on race and racism.

Confronting whiteness could complement and amplify the study of Critical Race Theory and enhance psychologists’ capacity to effectively study and address health and social issues. Whiteness is a racialized social system and a set of beliefs that uphold White American social supremacy and the oppression of populations of color. We discuss how prior scholarship has addressed whiteness and we illustrate how whiteness can harm health and well-being among White Americans and broader society. By documenting the negative effects of whiteness, we encourage divestment from the construction of reality that inequitably produces power and privilege, and ultimately, threatens society. Understanding how whiteness operates will aid the development of interventions and policies that reduce the inequity that results from whiteness and the enduring nature of racism. Finally, we call on psychologists to actively divest from systems of whiteness within our field; otherwise, we are complicit in how whiteness hurts society.