Racial Consciousness Research Articles

Leveraging Human-Centered Design to Promote Community-Level Antiracism Efforts: A Pilot Study of the Innovation Change Lab

ABSTRACT The present study piloted Innovation Change Lab (ICL), a novel intervention to promote antiracism and human-centered design (HCD) in a rural community. Data included (1) a pre- and post-survey of antiracist attitudes; (2) post-workshop feedback surveys, and (3) a focus group at the end of the training. Participants (n = 14) identified their race as White (n = 7), Latine (n = 3), Multiracial (n = 1); and their genders as cisgender women (n = 12) and cisgender men (n = 2). Attitude change was analyzed using one-tailed t-tests. Qualitative analysis of open-ended survey questions and focus group data was conducted using content analysis. Participants reported that, with some exceptions, the curriculum was feasible and acceptable. They reported increasing their knowledge about antiacism concepts and critical racial consciousness. ICL showed evidence of shifting individual attitudes toward antiracism and increasing one’s confidence in taking action on social justice. Learning about microaggressions, cross-group discussions about socialization and race, and conducting empathy interviews with folks impacted by racism were the most impactful aspects of the curriculum. Challenges arose around taking action to change systems implicated in sustaining racism. Despite challenges, findings suggest HCD may offer strategies to support intra- and inter-personal change necessary to move toward antiracist action.

Beyond accreditation: unraveling the narrative of public health through a critical race praxis lens

IntroductionRecognizing and addressing health inequities among minority populations are pivotal to public health. Further, public health strives to understand the complexities between race and health without limiting discussions around race as a trivial variable. This commitment toward equity demonstrates considerable similarities to Critical Race Theory (CRT) which led to the creation of the Public Health Critical Race (PHCR) Praxis to instill CRT within public health. However, the literature on how public health education incorporates critical race studies remains limited. The goal of this study was to examine how public health curriculum currently aligns with the PHCR praxis and meets public health's goal of health equity.MethodsThis qualitative study employed document analysis to evaluate academic syllabi from CEPH-accredited MPH programs. Stratified random sampling was applied across two sampling pools, Schools of Public Health (SPH), and Public Health Programs (PHP). Course overviews, course objectives, course curricular information, and course policies were identified and extracted from each syllabus for analysis. A total of 53 syllabi were obtained from a final sample of nine public universities and one private.ResultsThrough inductive and directed content analysis, a priori themes of Structural Determinism, Voice, Critical Approaches, Ordinariness of Racism, Social Construction of Knowledge, Intersectionality, Disciplinary Self-Critique, Primacy of Racialization, Race as a Social Construct, Race Consciousness, and their respective categories arose as salient. Two new themes, Antiracism Practices and Culture of Inclusivity, were also present.DiscussionThis study is the first to explore public health education's current curricular practices concerning CRT and antiracist praxes. The results confirm the interwoven nature of public health education with critical race studies, as all principles of PHCR praxis were present. However, the prevalence of these principles varied, suggesting gaps in the alignment of public health curricula and CRT. It is essential that public health educators ensure that the foundational competencies students are expected to display align with public health's goal of health equity. This work can equip MPH programs and public health educators with the ability to revise or bolster their current curricular and instructional efforts to support the pursuit of health, racial equity, and social justice.

Black identity from the Afro-American and British African perspectives in selected novels by Toni Morrison and Caryl Phillips

The aim of this study is to explore how Black identity is portrayed in the novels by Morrison and Phillips. It seeks to understand the thematic concerns, narrative strategies, and character development employed by both novelists to articulate the Black experience. The article is a comparative qualitative study that employs a textual analysis methodology. The selected novels are meticulously examined focusing on themes such as racial consciousness, cultural heritage, oppression, and resilience. The article draws on post-colonial theory, feminism, critical race theory, and diaspora to provide a strong analytical framework. The comparative approach is essential, as it facilitates the understanding of the differences and similarities in the depiction of Black identity by an Afro-American author and a British-African author. The findings suggest that the narratives of Morrison and Phillips diverge in the portrayal of communal versus individual struggles, the impact of colonial history, and the role of memory and storytelling. Morrison’s work emphasizes community ties and historical trauma, whereas Philips often explores the fluidity and hybridity of identity in a post-colonial British context. In conclusion, this comparative study illuminates the distinct yet interconnected ways in which Afro-American and British-African authors navigate the complexities of race and identity.

Remaining in the wake: towards an endarkened paradigm for critical studies of whiteness

ABSTRACT Critiquing how critical whiteness studies (CWS) in US education has strayed towards a predominant focus on how white people understand their relationship to whiteness and away from understanding how whiteness oppresses People of Colour, Matias and Boucher articulated a Black whiteness studies approach to the critical study of whiteness that eschews white epistemological standpoints, engages the works of Scholars of Colour and expands beyond a focus on developing white people’s racial consciousness. However, their articulation of a Black whiteness studies falls short of addressing Black communities’ specific racial positioning, the unique ways Black people suffer under whiteness and the situated knowledges of Black communities. In this paper, I theorise at the intersections of CWS, endarkened feminisms and afropessimsim to extend Matias and Boucher’s work to propose an endarkened paradigm for critical studies of whiteness.

Grappling with Whiteness: Latent Profiles of White Racial Consciousness and Affect’s Impact on Critical Reflection

Grappling with Whiteness: Latent Profiles of White Racial Consciousness and Affect’s Impact on Critical Reflection

Police’s attribution of racial inequality in the criminal justice system: a case of non-binary color-blindness

ABSTRACT This study critically examines how police officers attribute racial disparities within the US criminal justice system. For this inquiry, the study used in-depth interviews with 65 police officers from 4 police departments in a midwestern county. The findings revealed that 17 of these police officers invoked structural explanations to account for racial disparities prevalent in the US. However, this apparent racial awareness prompted them to underscore the pervasiveness of racism beyond the realms of criminal justice. Consequently, they attributed racial inequities within the criminal justice system to structural racism entrenched in non-criminal justice institutions, thereby rationalizing the current policing institution. This finding highlights the efficacy of a non-binary notion of color-blind ideology to elucidate the flexible and adaptable cultural frameworks that sustain racial hierarchies. Moreover, it enriches the scholarship on racialized organizations, occupations, and work by discussing the ideological limits of change in fostering racial equity within an occupation.

Hurston’s Art of Controversy in Dust Tracks on a Road

Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, has generated controversy since its publication in 1942. Critics either dismiss the work for its alleged celebration of liberal individualism and its denial of race consciousness, or else they argue that the book deconstructs its apparent meanings or is essentially ironic in tone. Countering such polarized reactions, this essay takes seriously Dust Tracks’ overt sentiments by placing them in the context of the abstract humanism that developed at midcentury to understand the particular forms of Hurston’s transracial universalism, based on patterns of likeness and relationality. Moreover, by appreciating the ways this discourse fails—as evidenced in the many textual contradictions and inconsistencies of Dust Tracks—we gain a fuller sense of a process in which universalist ideals bear the marks of Hurston’s personal and historical position as a Black woman in a racist society.

Black male college athletes’ self-schemata and (Un)critical consciousness

ABSTRACT Extant literature on the experiences of Black male college athletes focuses on outcomes, such as their college engagement (academic, athletic, and social), graduation rates, and post-college transitions. However, there is a lack of focus on the antecedents of these outcomes. This article offers empirical findings from a study of 16 Black male college athletes’ developmental experiences at Division I historically white institutions. The study employed a constructivist grounded theory methodology and incorporated a three-stage coding analysis to make sense of data. A key finding from this study is the identification of the (Sub)Conscious Decision-Making Filter, which is comprised of the following four components: (a) Self-Schemata; (b) Critical Racial Consciousness; (c) Social Associations Related to Racial, Athletic, and Student Identities; and (d) Internal Conflict. Data analysis offers insights into the meaning-making processes of Black male college athletes as they exist in majority white spaces, which is vital for sport administrators who seek to support the optimal holistic development of this important stakeholder group.

A virtue intervention for interracial interactions increases motivation to respond without prejudice

ABSTRACT Multicultural scholars suggest that effective Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training must raise awareness of prejudice and racism while also including strategies for changing behavior by developing certain approach goals (e.g. the goal of becoming a more courageous and patient person). This study examines how virtue interventions that cultivate courage and patience may be a useful approach for increasing motivation to respond without prejudice during interracial interactions. Virtue interventions were tested in 292 White college students (69.2% female; M Age = 20.9) across four conditions (control, virtue only/no race salience, virtue and race salient, and race salient/no virtue). Results suggest that White college students receiving the virtue/race salient intervention increased internal motivation to respond without prejudice, but those who received the race salient/no virtue condition reported decreased levels of courage and decreased motivation to respond without prejudice. Findings are discussed in light of positive psychology, DEI, anti-racism training and interventions, and virtue development.

Calling racism by its name: forms of violence in the articulation or omission of racism in Ecuador

ABSTRACT In Ecuador, the ideology of mestizaje has resulted in the denial or minimization of racism against Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. This denial coexists, however, with the consciousness of racialized difference. If racism is most of the time minimized and naturalized, in this paper I propose that we need to consider the circumstances that may generate awareness of racism and a public speaking up against it. Comparing two cases involving Afro-descendant and Indigenous people in conflict with external actors, I analyze the role that different forms of violence play in the public articulation of racism. I contend that violent physical conflict may result in breaking the silence on state racism, while diffuse or slow forms of violence may result in the backgrounding of explicit denunciations of racism.

Ontario college media professor careers across five decades

ABSTRACT This exploratory research analyses the careers, teaching practices, and self-assessments of Ontario college media teachers in three parts of the Province and three time periods (those hired in the 1970s and 1980s, 1990–2007, and 2007–2022). I interviewed 15 retired media teachers and academic managers; also, 42 current instructors and academic managers answered a survey about their professional experiences. My analysis uses a feminist model of closure theory from the neo-Weberian sociology of professions (Witz, 1992) along with intersectional writing on identity to explain the gendered and racialised nature of the labour market in these geographically and historically specific areas and eras. At the beginning of the first period, privileged white middle-class men with connections to education and industry experience founded the programmes, eventually hiring privileged white women with relevant credentials, all teaching full-time. In the 1990s, the neoliberal practice of hiring substantial cohorts of non-fulltime (NFT) teachers, and a demand for graduate university credentials can be linked to the advent of joint university-college media programmes and an increase in hiring of administrative staff (Mackay, 2014). In the programmes themselves, I found that the institutionalised apprenticeship model of the early college changed to a skills-based curriculum, the current emphasis in all college programmes. In hiring, gender parity for white heterosexual women has been achieved in the central hub, and consciousness of race has grown over time. However, media teachers still do not match the intersectional diversity of their students due to credentialist and legislative professional closure in hiring and promotion among fulltimers. I theorise that this closure operates by requiring credentials for full-time positions that are not available to all, depending on intersectional class, race, sexuality, disability, neurodiversity, and age.

Race Dialogues and Potential Application in Clinical Environments: A Scoping Review.

Race dialogues, conversations about race and racism among individuals holding different racial identities, have been proposed as one component of addressing racism in medicine and improving the experience of racially minoritized patients. Drawing on work from several fields, we aimed to assess the scope of the literature on race dialogues and to describe potential benefits, best practices, and challenges of conducting such dialogues. Ultimately, our goal was to explore the potential role of race dialogues in medical education and clinical practice. Our scoping review included articles published prior to June 2, 2022, in the biomedicine, psychology, nursing and allied health, and education literatures. Ultimately, 54 articles were included in analysis, all of which pertained to conversations about race occurring between adults possessing different racial identities. We engaged in an interactive group process to identify key takeaways from each article and synthesize cross-cutting themes. Emergent themes reflected the processes of preparing, leading, and following up race dialogues. Preparing required significant personal introspection, logistical organization, and intentional framing of the conversation. Leading safe and successful race dialogues necessitated trauma-informed practices, addressing microaggressions as they arose, welcoming participation and emotions, and centering the experience of individuals with minoritized identities. Longitudinal experiences and efforts to evaluate the quality of race dialogues were crucial to ensuring meaningful impact. Supporting race dialogues within medicine has the potential to promote a more inclusive and justice-oriented workforce, strengthen relationships amongst colleagues, and improve care for patients with racially minoritized identities. Potential levers for supporting race dialogues include high-quality racial justice curricula at every level of medical education and valuation of racial consciousness in admissions and hiring processes. All efforts to support race dialogues must center and uplift those with racially minoritized identities.

Movement for Black Lives at Work? Racial Justice Spillover, Labor Organization, and New Worker Militancy

ABSTRACT Emerging from a confluence of events – including Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) – racial consciousness has intensified in recent years. In the wake of a long declining labor movement, there has also been a surprising upsurge in labor militancy. Are these two currents systematically related? Situating our analysis in the sociological literature on social movement spillover, we ask if there is evidence of racial justice spillover into and stimulating workplace militancy. Employing all known strikes and worker protests during 2021 and 2022, we find: (a) racial justice demands did, indeed, appear as part of workplace militancy during this period; (b) racial justice demands were voiced in both worker protests and strikes launched most heavily by unions but also by alt-labor/SMOs and by unorganized workers; (c) weekly time-series regression models indicate that BLM demonstrations stimulated the frequency of workplace protests and strikes with racial justice demands which, in turn, stimulated wider worker militancy over other issues; and (d) interdependency analysis of worker actions reveals that unionized worker protests served as a key catalyst driving other forms of worker militancy with racial justice demands. We discuss the implications of our findings for social movement spillover theory and for moving racial justice and labor movements forward.

School belonging mediates the longitudinal effects of racial/ethnic identity on academic achievement and emotional well-being among Black and Latinx adolescents

Social Identity Theory proposes that a positive in-group social identification fosters students' academic motivation and psychological well-being. The present study, grounded in Social Identity Theory, investigated the roles of racial/ethnicity identity (REI) in the development of school adjustment among Black and Latinx youth as well as the psychological mechanisms underlying these longitudinal associations. We hypothesized that REI would positively predict the development of academic achievement and emotional symptoms. In addition, we hypothesized that the development of school belonging would mediate the predictive effects of REI on the growth of academic achievement and emotional symptoms. Participants were 475 (n = 182 Black, 48.9% female; 293 Latinx, 47.8% female) students in Grades 7–9. Students self-reported their REI, school belonging, and emotional symptoms. Academic achievement was assessed using standardized achievement test scores. The longitudinal mediation models indicated that REI indirectly predicted the development of academic achievement and emotional symptoms through students' sense of school belonging. Specifically, higher REI embedded achievement and lower REI awareness of racism predicted higher school belonging in Grade 7. Higher Grade 7 school belonging in turn predicted faster academic growth in Grade 7 to Grade 9 as well as lower emotional symptoms in Grade 7. In addition, the three dimensions of REI also directly predicted the growth of academic achievement and emotional symptoms in Grades 7–9. The mediated effects were smaller in size than the direct effects. These findings highlight the importance of fostering positive REI and a strong sense of school belonging in promoting school adjustment among racial/ethnic minoritized, academically at-risk youth.

Chinese international students’ perspectives on Asian Americans in the U.S. racial hierarchy

This article examines how Chinese international students perceive the racial identity of Asian Americans and how they position this pan-national, pan-ethnic, phenotypical-based group in relation to other oppressed minorities. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks of the world racial system and racial triangulation, this article argues that Chinese students’ ideological socialization in their home country and college experiences in the host country jointly contribute to their knowledge of Asian Americans. To be specific, Chinese students subscribe to the racial stereotype of Asian Americans as ‘perpetual foreigners,’ and insist that they are difficult to unite but they have more racial consciousness as a minority than Asians from Asian countries. The finding further indicates, different from perceived racial stratification that Asian Americans are positioned as a ‘racial middle’ group in relation to White and Black Americans, that Chinese students subjectively think Asian Americans are (politically) positioned at the bottom in the U.S. racial hierarchy.

Transforming Science Research Through Liberatory Race-conscious Mentorship: The BUILD PODER Professional Development Modules.

BUILD is a NIH initiative designed to retain underrepresented undergraduates in biomedicine. Of the 10 BUILD sites, BUILD PODER is the only space-and-place that approaches this initiative through the framework of critical race theory (CRT). A feature of BUILD PODER's path to student empowerment is liberatory race-conscious mentorship. Researchers developed, implemented, and evaluated a quintipartite CRT-based antiracist-anticolonial online training program for biomedical educators nationwide. We review the social scientific and historical knowledge used to create these novel mentorship training modules. We describe the modular content and activities. We also report evaluation data obtained during beta-testing and outline how this information helped finalize the product. Discussed are the individual- and institutional-level implications of modularizing the developmental process of liberatory race consciousness.

ChatGPT-4 as a journalist: Whose perspectives is it reproducing?

The rapid emergence of generative AI models in the media sector demands a critical examination of the narratives these models produce, particularly in relation to sensitive topics, such as politics, racism, immigration, public health, gender and violence, among others. The ease with which generative AI can produce narratives on sensitive topics raises concerns about potential harms, such as amplifying biases or spreading misinformation. Our study juxtaposes the content generated by a state-of-the-art generative AI, specifically ChatGPT-4, with actual articles from leading UK media outlets on the topic of immigration. Our specific case study focusses on the representation of Eastern European Roma migrants in the context of the 2016 UK Referendum on EU membership. Through a comparative critical discourse analysis, we uncover patterns of representation, inherent biases and potential discrepancies in representation between AI-generated narratives and mainstream media discourse with different political views. Preliminary findings suggest that ChatGPT-4 exhibits a remarkable degree of objectivity in its reporting and demonstrates heightened racial awareness in the content it produces. Moreover, it appears to consistently prioritise factual accuracy over sensationalism. All these features set it apart from right-wing media articles in our sample. This is further evidenced by the fact that, in most instances, ChatGPT-4 refrains from generating text or does so only after considerable adjustments when prompted with headlines that the model deems inflammatory. While these features can be attributed to the model’s diverse training data and model architecture, the findings invite further examination to determine the full scope of ChatGPT-4’s capabilities and its potential shortcomings in representing the full spectrum of social and political perspectives prevalent in society.

Addressing the White problem critically: A latent profile analysis of racial attitudes

AbstractAdvancing racial justice requires changes in White people's critical consciousness, including understanding the historical, material, and cultural conditions that have given rise to and maintain racism and White supremacy on individual, interpersonal, and systemic levels. To effect such changes, we need to better understand White people's current racial attitudes and their relation to anti‐racist action. Consistent with the QuantCrit framework, this study explored White Americans’ (N = 531; mean age = 34.4; 60.8% female) racial attitudes using Latent Profile Analysis with indicators selected from measures categorized within four themes: empathic connection in cross‐racial relationships, affective awareness of white privilege, blatant colorblind racial attitudes, and structural awareness. LPA resulted in four profiles based on patterns in participant responses to indicator items: Uncritical, Ambivalent, Incongruous, and Critical racial attitudes. Analyses of demographic differences between profile members indicated that participants with higher levels of critical racial consciousness were more likely to be women, trans, or non‐heterosexual, and have more friendships with People of Color. Members of profiles with higher levels of critical reflection also had significantly higher scores on racial justice action outcomes.

Changing US Support for Public Health Data Use Through Pandemic and Political Turmoil.

Recent legislative privacy efforts have not included special provisions for public health data use. Although past studies documented support for public health data use, several global events in 2020 have raised awareness and concern about privacy and data use. This study aims to understand whether the events of 2020 affected US privacy preferences on secondary uses of identifiable data, focusing on public health and research uses. We deployed two online surveys-in February and November 2020-on data privacy attitudes and preferences using a choice-based-conjoint analysis. Participants received different data-use scenario pairs-varied by the type of data, user, and purpose-and selected scenarios based on their comfort. A hierarchical Bayes regression model simulated population preferences. There were 1,373 responses. There was no statistically significant difference in the population's data preferences between February and November, each showing the highest comfort with population health and research data activities and the lowest with profit-driven activities. Most subgroups' data preferences were comparable with the population's preferences, except African Americans who showed significant decreases in comfort with population health and research. Despite world-changing events, including a pandemic, we found bipartisan public support for using identifiable data for public health and research. The decreasing support among African Americans could relate to the increased awareness of systemic racism, its harms, and persistent disparities. The US population's preferences support including legal provisions that permit public health and research data use in US laws, which are currently lacking specific public health use permissions.

Power Dynamics Perpetuate DEI Inaction: A Qualitative Study of Community Health Clinic Teams.

Despite increased clinician awareness of systemic racism, lack of substantial action toward antiracism exists within health care. Clinical staff perspectives, particularly those of racial-ethnic minorities/persons of color (POC) who disproportionately occupy support staff roles with less power on the team, can yield insights into barriers to progress and can inform future efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI, also referred to as EDI) within health care settings. This qualitative study explored the perspectives of staff members on race and role power dynamics within community health clinic teams. We conducted semistructured 45-minute interviews with staff members working in community health clinics in a large urban health care system from May to July 2021. We implemented purposeful recruitment to oversample POC and support staff and to achieve equal representation from the 13 community health clinics in the system. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed over 6 months using a critical-ideological paradigm. Themes reflecting experiences related to race and role power dynamics were identified. Our cohort had 60 participants: 42 (70%) were support staff (medical assistants, front desk clerks, care navigators, nurses) and 18 (30%) were clinicians and clinic leaders. The large majority of participants were aged 26 to 40 years (60%), were female (83%), and were POC (68%). Five themes emerged: (1) POC face hidden challenges, (2) racial discrimination persists, (3) power dynamics perpetuate inaction, (4) interpersonal actions foster safety and equity, and (5) system-level change is needed for cultural shift. Understanding the race and role power dynamics within care teams, including experiences of staff members with less power, is critical to advancing DEI in health care.