Institutional Racism Research Articles

Pandemic Racism in Australia: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to diverse manifestations of racism in Australia, from everyday attacks against Asian Australians to discriminatory policies towards temporary migrants. Since the start of the pandemic, considerable knowledge on pandemic-related racism has been produced. This knowledge has yet to be consolidated, leaving questions about the nature, forms, impacts and trajectories of racism during the pandemic. This paper presents a systematic review and synthesis of research on racism during the pandemic, with an emphasis on pandemic-specific racism. We searched the databases Scopus, MEDLINE and PsycINFO for research published between January 2020 and July 2022. Eighteen research studies were included in the review, along with reports of routine data collection by five organisations. The research reviewed collected data mainly around the pandemic’s ‘second wave’ in Australia (June-October 2020), focusing largely on Asian Australians and temporary migrants nationally and in Victoria. Widely studied forms of COVID-racism were verbal abuse, physical attacks, exclusion and Othering, and institutional racism involving governments, media and employers. We examined the pandemic’s health and socio-economic impacts, and variations in experiences of racism over time between ethnic groups. As Australia emerges from the pandemic, we consider the review’s implications for pandemic response, anti-racism practice and policy, and future research.

A National Evaluation of Social Justice and Antiracism Within School Psychology Graduate Preparation Programs

As school psychologists, we have an ethical responsibility to engage in social justice and antiracist action. Specifically, graduate education programs have a significant role to play in preparing future school psychologists as social justice change agents. To facilitate effective change, graduate educators must confront potential biases in university training programs and themselves, act in culturally affirming ways, and commit to using psychological science to prepare future school psychologists to engage in advocacy and combat systemic racism within youth-serving systems. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore training efforts aimed at promoting social justice, antiracism, and multiculturalism consistent with best practices within school psychology training programs. Additionally, this study aimed to identify how programs and individual faculty members were responding to increasing calls for racial justice and social justice and the impact of the “dual pandemics” of COVID-19 and racism on their training efforts. Finally, the researchers sought to identify facilitators and barriers to training and pedagogy focused on social justice, antiracism, and multicultural issues in graduate psychology training programs. Impact Statement As graduate educators, we must examine the extent to which school psychology graduate preparation programs are using the multicultural, social justice and antiracist practices recommended in the literature. With proper training, school psychologists wield significant power in dismantling structural oppression and praxis in schools and strengthening the adoption and implementation of culturally relevant academic and social-emotional and behavioral supports. However, social justice awareness, knowledge, skills and dispositions need to be explicitly taught and cultivated as areas of competency. Graduate educators and accrediting bodies should focus on improving the quality of preservice training for school psychologists so they may successfully navigate the myriad challenges associated with systemic change and act as effective change agents in bringing about racial and social equity in schools. This study provides a snapshot of graduate training efforts in these areas to help in identifying current practices, needs, strengths and future directions for the field.

Describing skin health and disease in urban-living Aboriginal children: co-design, development and feasibility testing of the Koolungar Moorditj Healthy Skin pilot project

BackgroundIndigenous children in colonised nations experience high rates of health disparities linked to historical trauma resulting from displacement and dispossession, as well as ongoing systemic racism. Skin infections and their complications are one such health inequity, with the highest global burden described in remote-living Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander (hereafter respectfully referred to as Aboriginal) children. Yet despite increasing urbanisation, little is known about the skin infection burden for urban-living Aboriginal children. More knowledge is needed to inform service provision, treatment guidelines and community-wide healthy skin strategies. In this pilot study, we aimed to test the feasibility and design of larger multi-site observational studies, provide initial descriptions of skin disease frequency and generate preliminary hypotheses of association.MethodsThis project has been co-designed with local (Noongar) Elders to provide an Australian-first description of skin health and disease in urban-living Aboriginal children. In collaboration with an urban Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service), we conducted a week-long cross-sectional observational cohort study of Aboriginal children (0–18 years) recruited from the waiting room. Participants completed a questionnaire, skin examination, clinical photos, and swabs and received appropriate treatment. We assessed the feasibility and impact of the pilot study.ResultsFrom 4 to 8 October 2021, we recruited 84 Aboriginal children of whom 80 (95%) were urban-living. With a trusted Aboriginal Health Practitioner leading recruitment, most parents (or caregivers) who were approached consented to participate. Among urban-living children, over half (45/80, 56%) of parents described a current concern with their child’s skin, hair and/or nails; and one-third (26/80, 33%) reported current itchy skin. Using a research-service model, 27% (21/79) of examined urban-living participants received opportunistic same-day treatment and 18% (14/79) were referred for later review.ConclusionsThis co-designed pilot study to understand skin health in urban-living Aboriginal children was feasible and acceptable, with high study participation and subsequent engagement in clinical care observed. Co-design and the strong involvement of Aboriginal people to lead and deliver the project was crucial. The successful pilot has informed larger, multi-site observational studies to more accurately answer questions of disease burden and inform the development of healthy skin messages for urban-living Aboriginal children.

Equity, Empowerment, and Social Justice: Social Entrepreneurship for Formerly Incarcerated Individuals

The high incarceration rate and systemic racism in the United States, along with entrenched social barriers, highlight the need for creative solutions to help formerly incarcerated individuals (FIIs) reintegrate successfully. This paper highlights social entrepreneurial ventures (SEVs) as powerful agents of social change, underscoring the significance of holistic approaches in successful reentry and transformation of FIIs. We delve into the potential of SEVs as catalysts for social justice within the critical HRD (CHRD) framework, examining SEV’s role in advancing learning, challenging power dynamics, empowering marginalized communities, and propelling grassroots-led social change. In doing so, we also emphasize the significance of experiential learning and dialog in cultivating collective knowledge and action within these social movements. We analyze the structural, organizational, and individual factors that demonstrate how HRD and social entrepreneurship complement and broaden modes of engagement. Ultimately, we highlight the promising synergy between SEVs and the CHRD perspective, presenting a transformative approach for both HRD scholars and practitioners and argue that by embracing the values of empowerment, equity, and social justice, HRD can play a pivotal role in fostering more inclusive, equitable, and empowering organizational landscapes.

‘A lack of cultural understanding and sometimes interest’: Towards half a century of anti-racist policy, practice and strategy within probation

In 2021, HM Inspectorate of Probation published a long awaited and highly critical report – Race equality in probation: the experience of black, Asian and minority ethnic probation service users and staff. The inspection upon which it was based was conducted in the Autumn of 2020 and was therefore set against the background of the death of George Floyd in the United States, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement worldwide. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement laid down a challenge on many levels, stating that black, Asian and minority ethnic people must be accepted and respected as equal citizens and nowhere is this more urgently needed than within the operation of the criminal justice system. However, its follow up report (HM Inspectorate of Probation 2023) reported being disappointed in the lack of progress made by the Probation Service in addressing the issues raised in its earlier report. The article seeks to move beyond the conclusions and recommendations of the Inspection report using the lens of Critical Race Theory to engage in a discussion of systemic racism in society. To do this we have used three levels of analysis – macro, meso and micro – to situate contemporary probation within the wider structures of a post-colonial society.

Racial Inequalities in the Health Establishment Access to the Treatment of COVID-19 in Brazil in 2020.

The Brazilian health system simultaneously allows for the existence of the public and private sectors, which often imposes financial barriers to access to services and affects the health of exposed groups. Studies have shown evidence of higher lethality risks among Black/Biracial and Indigenous People admitted to hospitals due to COVID-19 during the pandemic when compared to White People. This paper evaluated the association between access to treatment for COVID-19, race, and COVID-19-related deaths among the five macro-regions of Brazil in 2020. We conducted a retrospective, cross-sectional observational, and population-wide study. Logistical models were used including first-order interactions between race and the health establishment administration sector using deaths as outcome, adjusted for covariates. The lethality risk, defined as the percentage of deaths among hospitalized patients, of Black/Biracial and Indigenous People was up to 78% (in the Midwest) and 29% (in the South) higher when compared to White People, respectively. The association of the race/access interaction with COVID-19-related deaths suggested the possibility of institutional racism in health establishments. The results highlight the need to guarantee adequate funding to the public health sector to improve equity in access to healthcare and the constant development of educational activities and increased participation of racialized minorities in the healthcare workforce at influential positions for health workers on topics such as racism.

The Penalty of Party on Black Homeownership: The Impacts of Judicial Institutional Settings on the Black Political Economy

Black homeownership declines across the U.S.A. at significantly higher rates than white, Hispanic, or Asian homeownership. Although the cost to own a home is lower in Republican states, Black Americans are much less likely to maintain homeownership in those areas. This article attempts to gain leverage on the following question: “what is the penalty of political parties on Black homeownership in America?” The findings presented here provide support to the notion that there is a nationwide penalty of political parties on Black homeownership. The variation in this penalty is dependent on a given state’s opportunity structure for institutional racism, which changes based on the state’s foreclosure laws and partisan leanings. To support the nationwide findings, this article provides a case study on Black homeownership across the state of New York’s judicial districts with 221 partisan-elected judges, revealing that there remains a penalty in Republican judicial districts. Previous scholarship has analyzed the relationship between parties and foreclosures, as well as the relationship between race and foreclosures. This article assesses the intertwined relationship of parties, race, and foreclosures.

Disparities in Cytomegalovirus Infection Rates by Race and Ethnicity among Pediatric Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Recipients at a Single Center

Previous literature has reported cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection rate disparities among racial/ethnic groups of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) recipients. Because race and ethnicity categorizations are social constructs unlikely to affect biological systems, it is likely there are covariates on the pathway to CMV detection, known as mediators, that can explain the observed disparity. Recent developments in mediation analysis methods enable the analysis of time-to-event outcomes, allowing an investigation of these disparities to also consider the timing of CMV infection detection relative to HCT. This study aimed to explore whether racial and ethnic CMV infection disparities existed within a population of HCT recipients at our center, and whether clinical covariates explained any observed association. The study cohort included all recipients of allogeneic HCT performed at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia between January 2004 and April 2017 who were CMV PCR-negative pretransplantation, had known donor/recipient CMV serology, and were under blood CMV PCR surveillance. Subjects were followed for 100 days post-HCT. Accelerated failure time models using subject's reported race/ethnicity, dichotomized into non-Hispanic White (NHW) and non-NHW, and exposure and time to CMV detection as outcomes examined whether selected clinical factors-donor/recipient CMV serostatus, recipient age, indication for HCT, hematopoietic cell source, match quality-mediated any identified exposure-outcome association. The analysis included 348 HCTs performed in 335 subjects, with 86 episodes (24.7%) in which CMV was detected via PCR analysis. The accelerated failure time model without mediators estimated that non-NHW subjects had fewer CMV-free survival days (time ratio, .21; 95% confidence interval, .10 to .44). Any hypothesized mediator mediated at most 5% of the total association between race/ethnicity and time to CMV detection. Non-NHW HCT recipients had fewer CMV-free survival days than NHW recipients; none of the clinical factors hypothesized to mediate this association accounted for a significant component of total association. Further research should focus on nonclinical factors influenced by systemic racism to better understand their effect on CMV infection among HCT recipients.

Sports activism and the racial status quo: disentangling individuals’ conceptualization and perceptions

ABSTRACT These last few years have been marked with a new wave of sports activism with a wide array of professional athletes drawing attention to racial injustices and calling for policy reform to address racial inequalities. While extant research has made some progress in developing our understanding of professional athletes' political influence, we have limited knowledge of this new wave of sports activism. Building on research on sports history, system justification, racial order, and racial threat, we develop a Sports Activism and Racial Status Quo (SARSQ) theory asserting that sports activism is associated with racial justice topics and approval of sports activism is related to support for disrupting the racial status quo. Using survey and interview data, we find evidence that provides some support for this theory. Sports activism is associated with professional athletes making statements that raise awareness of racial injustices such as innocent Blacks dying in the hands of the police. Some favor sports activism because they approve of athletes, regardless of race, stepping out of their social arrangement, raising awareness of institutional racism, and prompting sociopolitical change. Further, members of racially minoritized groups do not provide outright approval of sports activism, speaking to the importance of continued research in the area.

A Review of the Biden Administration's Racial Redress Policy under the Limits of American Democracy

Racism in the United States has a long history, and over time, it has evolved in new ways. Despite the efforts of successive American governments to address racism, the results have been minimal. This paper analyzes, from the perspective of systemic racism theory, why the social policies implemented by the Biden administration to improve domestic race relations cannot fully resolve the issue of racism and why racism is deeply entrenched in the American democratic system. In reality, the groups that hold national power represent only a minority of the population, excluding lower-class white individuals and ethnic minorities. Racism is merely a form of psychological wage created by the elites to compensate for the economic losses experienced by lower-class white individuals. While the Biden administration has pursued policies to promote racial equality, without altering the framework of American democracy, these policies are unable to eradicate racism and may instead exacerbate the problem, setting the stage for future outbreaks of racial movements.

Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease-Related Outcomes Among Cancer Survivors in the United States: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States (US). Cancer survivors have increased risks for CVD and CVD-related mortality due to multiple factors including cancer treatment-related cardiotoxicity. Disparities are rooted in differential exposure to risk factors and social determinants of health (SDOH), including systemic racism. This review aimed to assess SDOH's role in disparities, document CVD-related disparities among US cancer survivors, and identify literature gaps for future research. Following the Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies (PRESS) guidelines, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Scopus were searched on March 15, 2021, with an update conducted on September 26, 2023. Articles screening was performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) 2020, a pre-defined Population, Exposure, Comparison, Outcomes, and Settings (PECOS) framework, and the Rayyan platform. A modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to assess the risk of bias, and RAW Graphs for alluvial charts. This review is registered with PROSPERO under ID #CRD42021236460. Out of 7,719 retrieved articles, 24 were included, and discussed diverse SDOH that contribute to CVD-related disparities among cancer survivors. The 24 included studies had a large combined total sample size (n=7,704,645; median=19,707). While various disparities have been investigated, including rural-urban, sex, socioeconomic status, and age, a notable observation is that non-Hispanic Black cancer survivors experience disproportionately adverse CVD outcomes when compared to non-Hispanic White survivors. This underscores historical racism and discrimination against non-Hispanic Black individuals as fundamental drivers of CVD-related disparities. Stakeholders should work to eliminate the root causes of disparities. Clinicians should increase screening for risk factors that exacerbate CVD-related disparities among cancer survivors. Researchers should prioritise the investigation of systemic factors driving disparities in cancer and CVD and develop innovative interventions to mitigate risk in cancer survivors.

A Hybrid Pragmatic and Factorial Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial for an Anti-racist, Multilevel Intervention to Improve Mental Health Equity in High Schools

Systemic racism is pervasive in US society and disproportionately limits opportunities for education, work, and health for historically marginalized and minoritized racial and ethnic groups, making it an urgent issue of social justice. Because systemic racism is a social determinant of health prevalent across multiple social and institutional structures, it requires multilevel intervention approaches using effective designs and analytic methods to measure and evaluate outcomes. Racism is a fundamental cause of poor health outcomes, including mental health outcomes; thus, mental health services and programs that address racism and discrimination are key to promoting positive mental health of racial and ethnic minority youth. While multilevel interventions are well-suited for improving outcomes like youth mental health disparities, their evaluation poses unique methodological challenges, requiring specialized design and analytic approaches. There has been limited methodological guidance provided to researchers on how to test multilevel interventions using approaches that balance methodological rigor, practicality, and acceptability across stakeholder groups, especially within communities most affected by systemic racism. This paper addresses this gap by providing an example of how to rigorously evaluate a hypothetical, theoretically based, multilevel intervention promoting mental health equity in three US school systems using an anti-racist approach intervening at the macro- (i.e., school system), meso- (i.e., school), and micro- (i.e., family and student) levels to improve mental health in adolescents. We describe the design, sample size considerations, and analytic methods to comprehensively evaluate its effectiveness while exploring the extent to which the components interact synergistically to improve outcomes. The methodological approach proposed can be adapted to other multilevel interventions that include strategies addressing macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of influence.

‘Real National Work’: The Politics of Nazi Race Science in Upper Silesia, 1934–1942

Abstract This article analyses the political and scientific controversy surrounding a race science project undertaken by the anthropologist Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt under National Socialism. Beginning in 1934, Eickstedt and his team of assistants conducted a series of racial studies on the population of Upper Silesia, a contested borderland in East Prussia. Motivated by a nationalist desire to counter the work of Polish anthropologists in the region, Eickstedt argued that the population of Upper Silesia belonged predominantly to the so-called ‘Nordic race’ and that the territory was thus fundamentally German. Nazi officials, however, viewed the Silesian studies with alarm, since the results also appeared to show that people in the area were a racial mixture and that the ‘Nordic race’ made up less than 40 per cent of the population in some locales. They worried that Eickstedt’s studies could undermine Germany’s territorial claims in the region and threaten national unity. The ensuing controversy presents a case in which the anthropological concept of ‘race’, rather than serving its usual role in Nazi thinking as the biological underpinning of the Volk (or people), threatened to undermine its coherence. The reaction to Eickstedt’s Silesian studies demonstrates a lack of consensus on race within the Nazi system, suggesting that understandings of race in Nazi Germany were neither as coherent nor as uniform as the paradigm of the ‘racial state’ has assumed.

Wage Disparities in Academia for Engineering Women of Color and the Limitations of Advocacy and Agency

The devaluation of women of Color (WoC) by way of gender discrimination and systemic racism is well documented. For WoC in engineering a chief cause is the observable wage gap. Women who identify as Asian, Black/African American, Latina/Chicana, Indigenous/Native American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Native Alaskan, and/or multiracial have reported stark wage disparities. In this paper, we offer a phenomenological study of how WoC engineering faculty across U.S. academic institutions describe the challenges and practices associated with wage disparities and how they navigate these disparities. This study, which is based on participant interviews, is guided by three research questions: (1) What do WoC engineering tenure-track faculty perceive about wage disparities based on their race and gender? (2) How do WoC faculty understand the institutional practices that contribute to wage disparities? and (3) How do WoC engineering faculty respond to and address wage disparities? Using structural racism and intersectionality as our guiding conceptual framework, we interviewed 32 self-identified WoC who identified structures and systems of institutional racism related to the maintenance of wage disparities. In terms of findings, we note that WoC have two primary strategies to respond to wage disparity: advocacy and agency. The experiences of WoC engineering faculty in our study highlight unsatisfying institutional responses, and thus WoC often rely on their own agency to advocate for themselves and to advocate for and mentor other WoC faculty. We found a few notable cases where men advocated for women to help close the wage gap. Our work reveals that pay inequity for WoC is often coupled with other forms of exclusion and marginalization.Reducing wage disparities in academia is critical to advancing diversity efforts and ensuring equitable support for WoC faculty. Our findings suggest that institutions can work diligently to rectify wage inequality, including making sustainable structural and salary modifications and sharing the burden of combatting wage inequities. Finally, our findings also highlight the importance of making policy changes to reduce pay inequalities, such as providing transparent pay information and more opportunities to earn merit raises.

From News to Disinformation: Unpacking a Parasitic Discursive Practice of Czech Pro-Kremlin Media

ABSTRACT This paper examines a “parasitic discourse behavior,” a strategy used by the Czech antisystem media. A working hypothesis about the nature of parasitization was drawn from close reading: the antisystem media, while creating a false impression of mainstream journalism, attempt to reframe events with a set of recurrent associations. This hypothesis was tested with a combination of three quantitative methods: (1) Keyword analysis for identification of prominent topics, which are further analyzed by (2) Companions and (3) Market Basket Analysis (MBA). Companions, a new method comparing occurrences of keywords in time, reveals antisystem’s imitation of the mainstream, and MBA shows its production of distinct associations to frame trendy news items. As a proof of concept, four instances of parasitization were identified during May–August 2020 – topics that attracted public attention for a sufficiently long timespan to come under the radar of our methods: Belarus presidential elections, followed by brutality on the protesters, the police killing of George Floyd in the US, and the subsequent events against systemic racism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the dispute over the WWII monuments in the Czech Republic. Associations accompanying all these topics weave a set of consistent narratives: anti-West, pro-Kremlin, and a strong anti-Ukrainian stance.

Intersections of Trauma: War, Systemic Racism, and Higher Education

Intersections of Trauma: War, Systemic Racism, and Higher Education

Black Feminist Theory as an Approach to Therapeutic Growth and Healing

Black American women are uniquely positioned to experience systemic racism and oppression due to their intersecting identities of gender, race, sexuality, and class. Black feminist therapy (BFT) provides empirically proven strategies to promote the psychological health and well-being of Black women and foster their empowerment, liberation, and radical healing. Through an examination of the principles and concepts of feminist theory, Black feminist theory, and BFT, a model of growth and healing is presented. A case example is provided as evidence of the process and effectiveness of BFT in working with Black women.

Long Shadows of Racism and Genocide: Learning from Erich Fromm’s Social Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT As a psychoanalyst, Fromm felt compelled to speak to the social and political crises of his time. Fromm’s social psychoanalysis was a radical departure from the Freudian mainstream and has important implications for how psychoanalysis can address social and political forces today. What is less known and often neglected is the way in which Fromm was himself shaped by the traumatic events of racial discrimination and genocide that marked the twentieth century, particularly the rise of Nazism, virulent anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. This article will weave together Fromm’s life-experience, and that of his family, with his development of key ideas relating to the threat of authoritarianism and racial narcissism. To illustrate the relevance of Fromm’s work in the present moment, I consider the reality of systemic racism and the long shadow of genocide. Drawing on my work as practicing psychoanalyst, I address the racial discrimination experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada. In the process, I examine how the psychoanalysis and the therapeutic setting is embedded in society and inevitably implicated in the structures of systemic racism.

"Even if we are the caring hand": Black doctors and structural racism in the context of primary health care.

This study scrutinizes structural racism's influence on the training and work of Black professionals in primary health care (PHC) in Rio de Janeiro, particularly focusing on the experiences of Black female physicians. Employing a qualitative approach via a Focus Group, conducted in November 2022, we adopted symbolic interactionism to interpret racism-related experiences. Our findings encompass two primary dimensions: the manifestation of structural and institutional racism within the Unified Health System (SUS), and how racism permeates health work processes and consequences. Results highlight enduring impacts, spanning education to PHC roles, hindering healthcare process recalibration. Participants identify institutional and structural racism, from managerial neglect to territorial violence and physician scarcity, constraining comprehensive care. It is crucial to unveil and grasp racism's structural essence within healthcare, aligned with the vision of health as a fundamental right.

Violence and vulnerability: the everyday life of black youth in suburbs of two Brazilian state capitals

Violence and vulnerability: the everyday life of black youth in suburbs of two Brazilian state capitals