Racism In Academia Research Articles

Exploring How Systemic Racism Affects African American Students’ College Choice Decisions: A Comparative Case Study Analysis

A lot of attention has been given to the problem of institutionalized racism in academia lately. From a young age, the road to success in school has not always been an easy route for African American students. According to Bottiani, Bradshaw, and Mendelson (2016), students' perceptions of differential treatment, exclusion, and discrimination by teachers and adults in school appear to play a significant role in the poor outcomes among the youth of color. The climate change surrounding racial issues and U.S. economic downturn have had a significant impact on students of color as regards to their commitment to higher education (Karkouti, 2016). This paper attempts to answer the overarching research question such as: How does systemic racism play a role in African American students' college choice decisions? The results from this paper are displayed in critical race theory, as it is a crucial factor in the analysis of choice theory.

Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Professional Associations: Experiences from Security Studies

AbstractThe International Security Studies Section (ISSS) of the International Studies Association aims to promote the study of global, international, regional, and national security—broadly conceived. Over the past decade, ISSS has also sought to improve diversity and inclusion for its membership, culminating in its Taskforce on Diversity in Security Studies. In this forum, taskforce organizers, researchers, and participants examine the ways in which ISSS has collected data and then acted to improve both experiences and outcomes for historically excluded scholars, using an intersectional approach but with a specific focus on race. By critically reflecting on the role of professional associations in combatting racism in academia, using the case study of ISSS, the forum has two aims. First, we hope that by sharing ISSS experiences and processes, we may encourage other professional associations to self-reflect on how they may contribute to racial injustice, as well as how they can reveal and counteract racial oppression. Second, rather than solely focusing on goals and outcomes, the forum also gives voice to personal perspectives of researchers and participants to highlight how it is people who ultimately make up the heart of efforts to challenge racism and discrimination.

Diversifying Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology: A Change Gonna Come

ABSTRACT Objectives Workforce diversity is an ongoing challenge in the field of clinical child and adolescent psychology. This article discusses individual, institutional, and nonspecific factors that contribute to a lack of diversity among clinical child and adolescent psychologists and offers suggestions to diversify and advance the field of clinical child and adolescent mental health. Method Seventeen professors, licensed psychologists, faculty, and clinicians in the field of clinical child and adolescent psychology answered questions about workforce diversity and who is permitted access to the field. No formal research was conducted. Results Individual factors included: racial discrimination and microaggressions, feelings of isolation, otherness, and not belonging. Institutional factors included: racism in academia, racial underrepresentation, ethnocentric and culturally-biased training, biased admissions selection processes, financial barriers, and lack of institutional commitment. Nonspecific factors were: values misalignment, hidden expectations, suboptimal mentoring, and limited research opportunities. Conclusions Drawing on recent scholarship and the Contexts, Actions, and Outcomes (CAO) Model, we recommend institutional changes in programs, policies, practices, resources, climate, partnerships, and inquiry to improve diversity in the field of clinical child and adolescent psychology.

Dear Health Promotion Scholar: Letters of Life From, for, and About Black Women in Academia.

Black women are change agents actively working within their power to combat systemic racism in academia, while constantly battling injustices. Understanding lived realities and experiences of racial ethnic minority women as "outsiders within" is crucial for confronting long-standing racism embedded within academic spaces. Institutions may be outwardly addressing racial injustice, and perpetuating injustices internally, whether known or unknown. Using a relational dialectics framework and letter writing style, the purpose of this commentary is to describe the complexities present in experiences of Black women as they navigate academia as change agents, from the perspectives of tenure track and tenured faculty members in predominately White institutions. Black women academics contend with the push and pull of being in relationship with students, colleagues, and predominately White institutions; these tensions illuminate the experience of both/and-ness creating a constant presence of uncertainty/certainty, pushing/pivoting, and conforming/disrupting among others. Black women faculty are actively working to overcome barriers in research and practice and actively recognizing how racism is acting in academic settings. Black women are dealing with their own personal/professional situations, while also advocating interpersonally through mentorship, institutionally through incorporating underrepresented voices in research/practice, and strategically through addressing policies prompting action. This commentary shares the breadth, scope, and uniqueness of Black women experiences in higher education. This article concludes with implications for practice, including utilizing dialectic introspection to illuminate Black women, disrupting the norm by utilizing letters to center Black women, and building collectives to foster connections.

Lived experiences of black women pursuing STEM in UK higher education

Black students and researchers in higher education (HE) face scarcity of relatable role models in STEM subjects. Black women are under-represented in STEM and their outlook is under-researched. We undertook this project to understand the perspectives and challenges of black women in STEM HE. This qualitative research identified themes from semi-structured interviews of self-identified black female students and academics in UK HE. Black women face challenges due to both sexism and racism in academia, and under-representation in STEM subjects leads to isolation. Role models, mentors and academic support networks can be a source of inspiration and facilitate career progression.

Black women in white academe: a qualitative analysis of heightened inclusion tax

ABSTRACT This article explores how existing issues of systemic racism in academia were heightened for Black women faculty during COVID-19 which coincided with high-profile killings of Black people in 2020. Several theories of cultural taxation have created space to discuss the nuanced experiences of marginalized groups in white spaces. In reflecting on academia, this article highlights “the inclusion tax” – the various labours exerted to be included in white spaces and resist and/or adhere to white social norms. While the 2020 pandemics reveal the deeply entrenched nature of systemic racism, they did not create the inequities Black women faced but worsened and exposed them. Using data from an exploratory, online open-ended survey of sixteen (n = 16) Black women faculty, we demonstrate how the inclusion tax heightened during that time. We argue that the inclusion tax negatively impacts Black women, adding significant invisible labour that further perpetuates racial and gender inequality.

'It's a constant hum': a planetary geologist calls out racism in academia.

Martha Gilmore has faced not only accusations of theft and lying, but also quiet isolation and the pain of watching racism bear down on others. Martha Gilmore has faced not only accusations of theft and lying, but also quiet isolation and the pain of watching racism bear down on others.

ADORE: A Framework for Community Building to Dismantle anti-Black Racism in Academia

In higher education, power structures, including anti-Black racism, perpetuate whiteness and thwart the full capability of human potential for Black Americans. The aggregate impact of anti-Black racism, a specific form of racism, potentiates the marginalization of Black Americans. While Black intellectuals have a distinct role to play in dismantling systems of oppression, gatekeepers protect hegemonic systems that perpetuate the status quo and mute Black voices. Critical race theory (CRT) serves as a lens for confronting America’s racist past and provides a mechanism for addressing systems that perpetuate inequities. CRT is a theoretical framework useful in designing approaches to dismantling structural racism and counterbalancing dominant paradigms, each foundational to developing a new social contract with Black Americans. This article presents a community building model to support the advancement of ethical public service in complex social environments. The ADORE model is a strategic framework for academic institutions to (A) acknowledge harm, welcome (D) diverse perspectives, accept (O) ownership and (R) responsibility for systemic change, and garner the (E) energy to sustain progress. The model centers agape and radical self-love as integral components to intentionally dismantle anti-Black racism in public institutions.

Racialized experiences as in-betweenness in academia

This article draws on an in-depth narrative of a Chinese woman, early career researcher based in a UK business school, to consider questions of subtle racism in academia. Specifically, engaging with our informant’s testimony, and reading it in the context of critical organizational debates on race, we offer episodic accounts of the subtle racism that she has encountered in academia to conceptualize experiences of in-betweenness of racial minorities excluded from dominant diversity discourses. In her case, subtle racism appears to emanate from a set of gendered and racialized tropes, culminating in the “model minority” myth. This article captures how racism is encountered differently by different populations; specifically, it illuminates how racism materializes in culturally-dependent, idiosyncratic forms, which should not be de-contextualized from the historical, political, and social dynamics that engender it. In so doing, it contributes to recent efforts to speak out against racism in the academy.

Facilitating Black identity and advocacy: creating cellphilms for reflecting on issues affecting Black students

Ethical facilitation is of paramount importance if educators are to address the issues that plague Black students. This paper presents an autoethnographic account of my experiences facilitating two cellphilm workshops with self-identified Black university students attending two universities in New Brunswick, Canada. Nestled within African-Canadian Feminist discourse, I explore my positionality as a Black international female student. I reflect on the ways my racial awareness and experiences led me to employ participatory arts-based methodologies to empower Black university students to vocalize their experiences and disrupt the hemogenic White dominance and anti-Black racism in academia. I describe being approached by a pair of White faculty members to facilitate two cellphilm workshops, engaging in pre-workshop planning and first cellphilm workshop, and the ways I engaged in ethical praxis to stimulate trust and create a supportive environment for participants. I next describe creating a cellphilm as a support mechanism in response to participants’ cellphilms. Finally, I examine post-production activities that took my facilitation and activism beyond cellphilm creation as I reflect on how I disseminated and capitalized on my various positions within the university to raise awareness of racist practices that exclude and marginalize Black students.

“Why Me?”– Questions of Racial Equity and Institutional Racism in Academia

Beginning with the necessary question “Why me?,” I look at a system which bars BIPOC bodies and theory. In her open letter to the US Black Studies academic community, Sylvia Wynter (1994 ) spoke about the problem of “no human involved” (“NHI”) in the policing and incarceration of Black bodies as being pertinent for how Black studies was positioned institutionally. This same white supremacist governance and surveillance “NHI” exists in universities on both sides of the Atlantic. There is something very wrong with the system of which I am a part that persistently and consistently bars BIPOC bodies and theory and only avails our presence and thought a marginal position on the proviso that the status quo of whiteliness ( Yancy 2008 ) is not disturbed. Nothing really changes in terms of anti-BIPOC racism. Rather, it remains strangely the white supremacist (settler) colonial same within Canadian race-evasive multiculturalism and UK ‘post-race’ racism.

Gender and racial/ethnic disparities in rates of publishing and inclusion in scientific-review processes.

Sexism and racism in academia have contributed to women and people of color being underrepresented at increasing levels of the academic hierarchy. We investigated whether people with socially marginalized identities experience disparities regarding rates of publishing and inclusion in the scientific-review process. Using a sample of academics in psychology departments at research-focused universities in the United States (n = 885), we found gender disparities for PhD holders and racial/ethnic disparities for graduate students. Specifically, female PhD holders and graduate students of color reported fewer publications and were less likely to be included in the scientific-review process compared with male PhD holders and White graduate students, respectively. Differences in research activity by gender and race/ethnicity in a contemporary sample of psychologists reflected a 'leaky pipeline' that persists in psychology departments

Commentary on Why Pedagogy Attention Is Needed in CLAJ

Commentary on Why Pedagogy Attention Is Needed in CLAJ Monique Akassi (bio) In 2021, many educators and students of African descent have faced invisible barriers. These include whether critical race theory should be taught in schools during the novel Covid-19. Additionally, the #BlackLivesMatter movement responded to the ongoing routine of African Americans losing their lives during a time that mimics W.E.B. Du Bois' declaration that "the problem of the twentieth century is the color line." While the debates continue in higher education, a plethora of pedagogues have become disconnected from students of African descent due to a lack of effective Africana pedagogies to cultivate pupils' authentic voices through critical thinking, writing, oral communication, and research skills. Indeed, many pedagogues have been trained to apply mainstream pedagogical frameworks to all students as a one-size-fits-all approach. At the same time, little attention is focused on the rhetorical situation, such as the target audience. Indeed, a one-size-fits-all approach often results in many mainstream students benefiting from high-impact teaching methodologies that intersect with their Western culture. However, there is a disconnection for many marginalized students of African descent. Systemic racism is on the rise, and the colonizer is often in the classroom during these unprecedented times. Furthermore, the politics of diversity, inclusion, and critical race theory are in conversation with Stanley Fish's arguments. He contends in his controversial book, Save The World On Your Own Time, "[i]t is a question finally of what business we are in, and we are in the education business, not the democracy business." In comparison, bell hooks suggests in her work, Teaching To Transgress, that "[t]o dispel the notion" that the college writing class "should always be a safe, harmonious space" remains problematic for students silenced and ostracized in the academy. In Post-Colonial Composition Pedagogy: Using The Culture of Marginalized Students To Teach Writing, I challenge English composition educators committed to preventing a cultural underclass of English language writers to disrupt, interrogate, investigate, and publish more scholarship on research that helps shape high-impact practices for marginalized pupils. Using Africana based cultural practices to connect and identify with minority students will simultaneously build bridges to promote more cross-cultural connections through ongoing learning and teaching through an Africana gaze. Moreover, while students continue to be oppressed for using their own languages in schools and on the streets, Vershawn Ashanti Young and Aja Y. [End Page 250] Martinez acknowledge in Code-Meshing as World English: Pedagogy, Policy, Performance "the difficulties in implementing a code-meshing pedagogy" but argue that "all writers and speakers benefit when we demystify academic language and encourage students to explore the plurality of the English language in both unofficial and official spaces." Therefore, the need for more pedagogical attention in the CLAJ is more relevant now than ever before. During this moment in history where systemic racism in academia needs dismantling, educators can become liberators to assist minority students in changing from invisible to visible, unheard to heard, and alienated to appreciated. Ultimately, CLA members can consider contributing to this innovative pedagogical inclusion by implementing scholarly works in pedagogy, such as innovative lessons, lesson plans, unit plans, teaching ideas, articles, etc. In the words of James Baldwin, "[t]he paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated." As CLA members, let us raise pedagogical consciousnesses together and examine our society through insightful lenses. Monique Akassi Monique Leslie Akassi is an award winning, scholar, author, innovative leader, manager, and educator at Howard University and George Washington University. Works Cited Akassi, Monique. Post-Colonial Composition Pedagogy: Using The Culture of Marginalized Students To Teach Writing. Robbie Dean Press, 2011. Google Scholar Baldwin, James. "Color." Esquire, December 1962, pp. 224–229. Google Scholar Du Bois, W.E.B. The Soul of Black Folks. A. C. McClurg, 1903. Google Scholar Fish, Stanley. Save The World On Your Own Time. Oxford University Press, 2012. Google Scholar hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge, 1994. Google Scholar Young, Vershawn Ashanti and Aja Y. Martinez. Code-Meshing...

Anti-Black racism in academia and what you can do about it.

The experiences of Black scientists and engineers reveal that science is not a meritocracy. Here is a list of recommendations to combat anti-Black racism in academic institutions.

Theorizing Knowledge With Pláticas: Moving Toward Transformative Qualitative Inquiries

In this article, we engaged in pláticas to write about the methodology of pláticas. We show the use of this method by theorizing the pláticas. Our pláticas helped us reveal how we have experienced epistemicide and apartheid of knowledge blocked by epistemological racism in academia. We emphasized how the marginalization and invalidation in academia of this method happens and continues to happen especially in the social sciences. We demonstrate how this method has not been absent, but rather it has not been legitimized in academia. We also show how our refusal to employ dominant epistemologies allows us to move toward transformative qualitative inquiries.

Dear White Academic Colleague: Black Faculty Lives Matter: Towards Avoiding the Crime of Silence

In this article, motivated by the unjustified and brutal killing of George Floyd by police officers, I write an open letter to faculty members in general and to White faculty members in particular. In the first part of this letter, I recount some of my past traumatic experiences of institutionalised racism, which begun at an early age in England—experiences that led me to leave England for the United States in a naïve attempt to find a place where institutionalised racism was much less. In the second part of my letter, I discuss kneeling as a symbolism for institutionalised racism. In the third part, I personalise institutionalised racism in academia. In the fourth section, I provide a framework for White colleagues looking to promote anti-racism in academia. I conclude with a cautionary tale as well as a message of hope for addressing institutionalised racism.

Racial Inequality in Academia: Systemic Origins, Modern Challenges, and Policy Recommendations

In an ideal world, academia serves society; it provides quality education to future leaders and informs public policy—and it does so by including a diverse array of scholars. However, research and recent protest movements show that academia is subject to race-based inequities that hamper the recruitment and retention of scholars of color, reducing scientific impact. This article provides critical systemic context for racism in academia before reviewing research on psychological, interpersonal, and structural challenges to reducing racial inequality. Policy challenges include (a) the cultivation of harmful stereotypes, (b) the education of racially ignorant future leaders, and (c) the dedication of resources to science that informs only a few, rather than many. Finally, recommendations specify critical features of hiring, retention, transparency, and incentives that can diversify academia, create a more welcoming environment to scholars of color, and maximize the potential for innovative and impactful science.

A call for authentic Black engagement in the academy and beyond.

Efforts to eliminate anti-Black racism in academia must go far beyond superficial ticking of boxes. The academic community must create conditions for authentic, not tokenistic, Black engagement, argues Tony Reames.

We exist. We are your peers.

We must all ask ourselves critical questions about our role in the persistence of racism in academia, its effects on our colleagues and intentional actions to improve equity for all.

Amidst backward-walking somnambulists

This Currents section provides accounts of Britain’s exit (Brexit) or departure from the European Union (EU)—a decision based on a closely won referendum in June 2016, and declared in January 2020 by the Conservative political party. With few exceptions, the views and experiences of those excluded from dominant narratives of “the people” have not been substantially considered in mainstream nor indeed anthropological debates. Contributors to the section offer (auto)ethnographic perspectives on the legacies and implications of empire, nationalism, racism, cultural diversity, gender, and generational divides made explicit in Brexit phenomena. They range from the trolling of women of color, the repercussions of race and racism in academia, culturally diverse perspectives on resilience, the experiences of those from the European mainland who work in England, and views on the English from a former colony and now EU country, the Republic of Ireland.