Anti-racist Perspective Research Articles

Incorporating Anti-racist Principles Throughout the Research Lifecycle: A Position Statement from the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM).

Biomedical research has advanced medicine but also contributed to widening racial and ethnic health inequities. Despite a growing acknowledgment of the need to incorporate anti-racist objectives into research, there remains a need for practical guidance for recognizing and addressing the influence of ingrained practices perpetuating racial harms, particularly for general internists. Through a review of the literature, and informed by the Research Lifecycle Framework, this position statement from the Society of General Internal Medicine presents a conceptual framework suggesting multi-level systemic changes and strategies for researchers to incorporate an anti-racist perspective throughout the research lifecycle. It begins with a clear assertion that race and ethnicity are socio-political constructs that have important consequences on health and health disparities through various forms of racism. Recommendations include leveraging a comprehensive approach to integrate anti-racist principles and acknowledging that racism, not race, drives health inequities. Individual researchers must acknowledge systemic racism's impact on health, engage in self-education to mitigate biases, hire diverse teams, and include historically excluded communities in research. Institutions must provide clear guidelines on the use of race and ethnicity in research, reject stigmatizing language, and invest in systemic commitments to diversity, equity, and anti-racism. National organizations must call for race-conscious research standards and training, and create measures to ensure accountability, establishing standards for race-conscious research for research funding. This position statement emphasizes our collective responsibility to combat systemic racism in research, and urges a transformative shift toward anti-racist practices throughout the research cycle.

Anti-Chinese Racism and the Structure of White Supremacy: An Anti-essentialist Antiracist Perspective on Canadian History

Racisms are among the social structures that shaped Canada’s past and are shaping Canada’s present. Anti-essentialist antiracism accounts for these structures by recognizing that there are many different racisms, but all racisms meet conditions of racialization, of the organization of racializations into exclusions, and of the enactment of negative consequences on the excluded. These conditions lead to strategies for antiracist research, which are key to rebuilding the linkages between people that racisms destroy. This paper builds a theoretically informed argument while examining the historical and present-day experiences of Chinese Canadians. Engaging with present-day realities, moving beyond common-sense explanations that individualize racism, and building on the sources of the racialized and excluded make evident the structure of racism. Chinese language sources document the “apartheiding” of Canada and its effects. They also enable the dialogical re-reading of dominant sources to pinpoint moments of organizing this structure into the world. Today, historically produced cultural narratives and the cultural landscapes of modern cities mark those racialized as Chinese as people who either do not belong or whose presence needs explanation. These narratives and landscapes are the products of the anti-Chinese racism that was built into the settler colonialism that made Canada.

Follow the citations: Tracing pathways of “race as biology” assumptions in medical algorithms in eGFR and spirometry

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the concept of 'race' as a biological unit continues to persist in various scientific disciplines, notably in the field of medicine. This paper explores the persistence of 'race as biology' in medical research via examining select citational practices that have perpetuated this problematic concept. Citations serve as a cornerstone in scientific literature, signifying reliability and expert affirmation. By analyzing citation threads and historical patterns, we aim to shed light on the creation and perpetuation of false scientific truths and their impact on medical research, training, and practice. We focus on two prominent examples, eGFR and Spirometry, and trace key articles’ citational histories, highlighting the flawed evidence in support of racial corrections in medical assessments. The eGFR equation incorporates 'race' as a factor based on the erroneous belief that Black individuals have higher muscle mass than white individuals. Our analysis reveals that key cited sources for this belief lack robust and well-developed datasets. Similarly, Spirometry measurements incorporate racial correction factors, relying on questionable evidence dating back to the Civil War era. Citations serve as a cornerstone in scientific literature, signifying reliability and expert affirmation. They play a crucial role in shaping theoretical positions and validating data and assumed knowledge. Evaluating citation threads and key articles consistently referenced over time can reveal how falsehoods and erroneous assertions are constructed and maintained in scientific fields. This study underscores the need for critical examination of citational practices in medical research and urges a shift toward a more cautious approach when citing sources that support 'race as biology.' The paper calls for a reevaluation of pedagogical approaches and assigned readings in medical education to prioritize an anti-racist perspective in future research endeavors.

Core Competencies of an Anti-racist Physician: Elective Course for Undergraduate Medical Students.

Medical schools seeking to correct and reform curricula towards anti-racist perspectives need to address anti-Black forms of racism specifically and teach students critical upstander skills to interrupt manifestations of racism. We developed a course to teach preclinical medical students basic anti-racism competencies including recognition and awareness of anti-Black racism in medicine and upstander skills to advocate for patients and colleagues. In 2021 and 2022, we designed, implemented, and evaluated an elective course for second-year medical students (N = 149) to introduce competencies of anti-racism focusing on upstander skills for addressing anti-Blackness. We designed three patient cases and one student-centered case to illustrate manifestations of anti-Black racism in medicine and used these cases to stimulate small-group discussions and guide students toward recognizing and understanding ways of responding to racism. We designed pre- and postassessments to evaluate the effectiveness of the course and utilized anonymous feedback surveys. Participants showed significant improvement in pre- to postassessment scores in both years of the course. The anonymous feedback survey showed that 97% of students rated the course at least somewhat effective, and the qualitative responses revealed five core themes: course timing, case complexity, learner differentiation, direct instruction, and access to resources. This course reinforces upstander competencies necessary for advancing anti-racism in medicine. It addresses a gap in medical education by reckoning with the entrenched nature of anti-Black racism in the culture of medicine and seeks to empower undergraduate medical students to advocate for Black-identifying patients and colleagues.

Nursing shortage and migration: Insights into the current situation in the Federal State of Saxony, Germany

This paper summarises two qualitative studies that examined the issue of recruiting migrant workers for the healthcare sector in the Federal State of Saxony, Germany. Given the shortage of skilled nursing staff, investigations were conducted to understand the situations and conditions that migrant caregivers are likely to encounter when working in the nursing and care work sectors in Dresden and in the district of Görlitz. These regions were characterised by sparse migrant populations and limited intercultural collaboration at the workplace until 2014/2015, when they witnessed an influx of refugees. To gather relevant data on the issue, problem-focused interviews were conducted with a number of white, German actors engaged in older people's care and in hospitals. A grounded theory-based approach and content analysis were used to analyse the responses. Findings highlighted the presence of racism in exchanges with migrant caregivers. Further, in a field of labour governed by economic constraints, racist practices fostered exclusions, especially when time and human resources were not invested in promoting teamwork. Thus, the working conditions of migrant caregivers can be potentially regarded as precarious, problematic and in need of anti-racist and employee-friendly practices. This work addresses a research gap by examining an issue that is relevant to labour sociology and nursing science in Germany from an anti-racist perspective while analysing specific working conditions. It also offers recommendations for a more promising collaboration that are based on the findings.

Teaching Art through Engaging Anti-racist Viewpoints: Privileging an Indigenous Lens

Art teacher educators have obligations to prepare preservice art teachers and researchers to be culturally competent, to understand how to respectfully and knowledgeably include silenced voices into the classroom. Through this paper, we share a collaborative project we engaged with two arts-based researcher student groups toward approaching art learning from an anti-racist perspective using the lens of an Indigenous Pedagogy We demonstrate an Anti-Racist teaching cycle we applied that begins with cultural competency and leads to cultural relevancy. The project culminated with the development of anti-racist lesson plans toward a museum exhibition that utilized recommendations shared by four contemporary Native American Artists. Our purpose was to explore a method for changing the narrative by inserting multiple Indigenous artists’ voices into the classroom conversation.

Health Equity Cannot Be Sought Without the Consideration of Racism In Equity-Focused Urban Health Initiatives.

Given that racism is present worldwide, we believe it is imperative to address racism in the pursuit of health equity in cities. Despite the strengths of global urban health efforts in improving health equity, these initiatives can be furthered by explicitly considering systemic racism. Because racism is a major contributor to health issues, utilizing critical race theory (CRT) and taking an anti-racist perspective can help key players understand how racial health differences are initiated and sustained, which will subsequently inform solutions in seeking to address urban health inequities. Applying CRT within policymaking can happen in a variety of ways that are explored in this article. Ultimately, by acknowledging and responding to the effect of racism on groups within cities and the increased difficulties racialized minorities face, international players may use their power to transfer data and resources to cities that could benefit from specialized support.

Anti-Racist Perspectives of Sustainabilities

This Special Issue centers on anti-racist and decolonial perspectives of sustainability [...]

Critical Reflections on the Western Welfare State, Racial Capitalism, and Migratory Movements

This article presents a theoretical reflection on the structural causes that lead people to engage in migration processes from an anti-racist perspective. It looks at the historical context and the present times of neoliberal capitalism as a long term system, with its origins in the colonial enterprise. This is relevant as it gives rise to the asymmetries of power between North and South; to the racial division of labour; to the border control that turns immigrant people into the dangerous other, classifies people according to their origin, and grants them differential rights.

Response to Solano-Flores: How Serious are We About Fairness in Testing and How Far are We Willing to Go?

ABSTRACT It Ain't Near 'Bout Fair: Re-envisioning the Bias and Sensitivity Review Process from a Justice-Oriented Antiracist Perspective was intended to facilitate conversation in the field about the bias and sensitivity process, specifically. I argue that our current approaches rely far too heavily on fear-based notions to the exclusion of justice-based aims. As Dr. Solano-Flores points out, however, this conversation must be considered in concert with a larger conversation around principles of equity and justice in the assessment design and development process in order for the necessary transformational change to occur. In this paper, I consider Dr. Solano-Flores’ ideas and suggest a path forward with these ideas in mind.

Students' perceptions of the didactic-pedagogical experience of rewriting judicial decisions from feminist and anti-racist perspectives

Resumo O objetivo do presente artigo é analisar a percepção de estudantes que participaram dos projetos de reescrita de decisões judiciais em perspectivas feministas entre 2021 e 2022 sobre os impactos da experiência na formação jurídica. Elencamos os efeitos que estudantes de graduação e pós-graduação perceberam que foram produzidos pelo projeto em suas instituições de ensino e na sua formação como juristas. O estudo foi qualitativo e se valeu de um questionário em formato virtual para coleta dos dados. A revisão bibliográfica que informa o presente estudo, considerou a literatura que aborda a dimensão pedagógica dos projetos de reescrita feminista em vários países e os estudos que discutem os desafios da formação jurídica crítica no Brasil. Os resultados da análise confirmam o potencial das atividades de reescrita feminista em favorecer a formação crítica e interdisciplinar de estudantes de direito.

PRESIDENTIAL SYMPOSIUM: THE INTERSECTION OF AGE AND RACE: IMPACT ON REIMAGINING AGING

Abstract In this BSS Presidential Symposium, we address the conference theme of “Embracing our diversity; enriching our discipline; reimagining aging” by attending to the intersection of age and race. In our panel, speakers will address the intersection of age and race as it relates to experience of ageism and its effects on individuals’ opportunities to live meaningful lives. Researchers who apply an intersectional lens to their study of aging, ageism, and productive aging among diverse populations will share relevant theoretical concepts, methodological approaches, and associated findings. Links between racism, ageism, and health hold practice implications across health care, work, leisure, and other community settings. Researchers link life course influences, including discrimination, and cognitive health (Muñoz) and productive aging (Gonzales); Robinson-Lane presents a health care model of Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services Standards designed to reduce racism and improve care; and, Muramatsu offers practice and policy recommendations to reduce structural racism experienced by older persons and those paid to care for them. Presenters will address the following as we discuss how to reimagine aging from an anti-ageist, anti-racist perspective: 1. Evidence of the intersection of age and race in the experience of ageism. 2. Research models that attend to the intersection of age and race.3. Efforts to reduce ageism as it intersects with race in order to reimagine aging through practice and policy.

A call for curricular reform: Recognising the importance of race-based medical education.

The social uprising of 2020 led to the redoubling of efforts to recognise and eradicate racist practices in all aspects of the US social system, including the health care complex. The medical school system is no exception. Traditionally, medical school curricula have focused on the treatment of medical ailments with little emphasis on the considerable influence social factors—particularly race and ethnicity—have on treatment outcomes. In fact, a 2016 study reported that both medical students and residents held false beliefs about biological differences between Black and White individuals (e.g. Black people have thicker skin and feel less pain than White people).1 We recognised that for medical students to become physicians committed to mitigating the negative effects of racism, radical reform of our curriculum's portrayal of race and racism with strategic ingraining of anti-racism teaching is vital. Three second-year medical students developed a landmark educational intervention—Race-Based Medical Misinformation: History's Impact on Today's Medical Practices. We aimed to increase knowledge about racial disparities and provide tools to mitigate implicit biases that underscore discrimination in patient care. Using a teaching module, we explored the relationship between the historical origins of racialised medical mistruths and present-day health disparities. To encourage engagement and discourse, the lecture was paired with a case-based exercise that highlighted various clinical consequences of specific medical mistruths. The impact of the educational programme was assessed using a pre-survey and post-survey completed at the beginning and end of the intervention. By explicitly addressing the sordid history of race, racism and medicine and recognising the connection between past deeds and present-day health care disparities, we believe that medical students will gain essential knowledge and an anti-racist perspective that will benefit future patients. This educational intervention—now a formal course within the M1 curriculum—proved effective in increasing knowledge regarding medical mistruths. Still, students' expressed comfort levels discussing race, and their attitudes towards race-related constructs remained unchanged, perhaps because established beliefs more often shift when people are exposed to different environments, cultures and ideologies. In a feedback survey, numerous students regarded the intervention as eye-opening and were shocked at the poverty of education on this topic throughout the curriculum. However, there were students who found the material to be too extreme, too far-fetched and too focused on the impact of racism on the health outcomes of Black patients. These comments highlight that changing ingrained beliefs requires ongoing interventions. For substantive change, institution-driven escalation of these efforts is necessary. Medical schools must create environments that normalise exploring and discussing the impact of internalised, interpersonal and institutional racism in medicine. Nevertheless, our experience has shown us that, when given the opportunity and the resources, medical students are responsive to curricular reform and are, in fact, eager to learn more about the topic of race and racism in medicine.

Equity and justice in science education: Toward a pluriverse of multiple identities and onto‐epistemologies

AbstractConcepts in science education such as “science identity” and “science capital” are informed by dominant epistemological and ontological positions, which translate into assumptions about what counts as science and whose science counts. In this theoretical paper we draw on decolonial and antiracist perspectives to examine these assumptions in light of the heterogeneous onto‐epistemological and axiological values, cultural perspectives, and contributions of nondominant groups, and specifically of those who have been historically marginalized based on their gender, race, ethnic, age, and/or social class identity. Building on these arguments, we critique deficit‐based approaches to science teaching, learning, and research, including those that focus on systemic injustice, yet leave intact dominant framings of the scientific enterprise, which are exclusionary and meritocratic. As an alternative, we offer a design of science teaching and learning for the pluriverse—“a world where many worlds fit”. This alternative allows us to reconstruct science and science‐related “outcomes,” such as identity, in the service of cultural, epistemic, and linguistic pluralism. We close the paper with the idea that because mainstream theories reproduce deficit framings and educational injustices, we must engage with decolonial1theories of pluriversality and discuss different onto‐epistemologies to be able to grapple with existing social, racial, environmental injustices, and land‐based devastations.

Grief, Tradition, and Settler Colonialism: Recommending Karen McBride’s Crow Winter

Presenter: Daniel Green, English Language and Literature
 Faculty Supporter: Professor Petra Fachinger.
 Students reading Indigenous texts is (or should be) of increasing priority in schools across Canada. As we look for Indigenous narratives to assign, “accessibility” for young, non-Indigenous students, should be considered, as well as what will allow for a non-didactic learning experience. My presentation focuses on why Karen McBride’s Crow Winter would be the optimal text to recommend to a teenage relative or friend. While plenty of other texts explore certain aspects of Indigenous lived experience from a more explicitly anti-racist perspective, Crow Winter will teach students about Algonquin Anishinaabe culture as well as life in general. Overall, McBride’s linguistic talent and her engagement with grief, loss, and death is riveting and universally comprehensible, thereby making it most accessible largely because of its focus on said universal themes. The novel does not aim to push an agenda, or explicitly educate about Indigenous Peoples—the learning experience and educational aspects of Crow Winter are seamless. By the end of the novel, I found that I had learned more about Anishinaabe tradition and ceremony from Crow Winter than from any other text. I would recommend Karen McBride’s Crow Winter to a teenager because of her use of Nanabush, the compelling portrayal of the effects of settler colonialism, and her powerful expression of grief.

Critical political geographies of slow violence and resistance

Engaging Rob Nixon’s conceptualisation of slow violence, this special issue provides a critical framework for how we understand violence relevant to political geography. In this introduction, we highlight three key contributions of the collection that build upon and extend Nixon’s framing of slow violence. First, we attend to the spatialities of slow violence, revealing how the politics of disposability and racialised dispossession target particular people and places. Next, we foreground critical feminist and anti-racist perspectives that are largely absent in Nixon’s original account. And third, through engaging these approaches, the papers together employ an epistemological shift, uncovering hidden and multi-sited violences that prioritise the accounts of those who experience and are most affected by slow violence.

Disrupting White Supremacy in Assessment: Toward a Justice-Oriented, Antiracist Validity Framework

ABSTRACT In this article, we propose a justice-oriented, antiracist validity framework designed to disrupt assessment practices that continue to (re)produce racism through the uncritical promotion of white supremist hegemonic practices. Using anti-Blackness as illustration, we highlight the ways in which racism is introduced, or ignored, in current assessment and validation processes and how an antiracist approach can be enacted. To start our description of the framework, we outline the foundational theories and practices (e.g., critical race theory & antiracist assessment) and justice-based framings, which serve as the base for our framework. We then focus on Kane’s interpretive use argument and Mislevy’s sociocognitive approach and suggest extending them to include an antiracist perspective. To this end, we propose a set of heuristics organized around a validity argument that holds justice-oriented, antiracist theories and practices at its core.

WITHDRAWN – Administrative Duplicate Publication: Critical political geographies of slow violence and resistance

Engaging Rob Nixon’s conceptualization of slow violence, this special issue provides a critical framework for how we understand violence relevant to political geography. In this introduction, we highlight three key contributions of the collection that build upon and extend Nixon’s framing of slow violence. First, we attend to the spatialities of slow violence, revealing how the politics of disposability and racialized dispossession target particular people and places. Next, we foreground critical feminist and anti-racist perspectives that are largely absent in Nixon’s original account. And third, through engaging these approaches, the papers together employ an epistemological shift, uncovering hidden and multi-sited violences that prioritise the accounts of those who experience and are most affected by slow violence.

Working toward anti-racist perspectives in attachment theory, research, and practice

ABSTRACT Recent social movements have illuminated systemic inequities in U.S. society, including within the social sciences. Thus, it is essential that attachment researchers and practitioners engage in reflection and action to work toward anti-racist perspectives in the field. Our aims in this paper are (1) to share the generative conversations and debates that arose in preparing the Special Issue of Attachment & Human Development, “Attachment Perspectives on Race, Prejudice, and Anti-Racism”; and (2) to propose key considerations for working toward anti-racist perspectives in the field of attachment. We provide recommendations for enriching attachment theory (e.g. considering relations between caregivers’ racial-ethnic socialization and secure base provision), research (e.g. increasing the representation of African American researchers and participants), and practice (e.g. advocating for policies that reduce systemic inequities in family supports). Finally, we suggest two relevant models integrating attachment theory with perspectives from Black youth development as guides for future research.

Attachment perspectives on race, prejudice, and anti-racism

ABSTRACT Central to attachment theory is the idea that behavior in close relationships can best be understood in context. Although decades of research have illuminated cross-cultural patterns of caregiving and attachment, there remains a critical need to increase research with African American families, examine the specific sociocultural context of systemic anti-Black racism, and integrate the rich theory and research of Black scholars. The goal of this special issue is to bring together attachment researchers and scholars studying Black youth and families to leverage and extend attachment-related work to advance anti-racist perspectives in developmental science. The papers in this special issue, highlighted in the introduction, illuminate pathways of risk and resilience in Black children, adolescents, and families and point to the protective power of relationships (and the limits of such protection) for mental and physical health. We highlight critical questions to guide ongoing dialogue and collaboration on this important topic.