Incorporating Skills for Actions Against Racism in Interventions to Promote Educator Well-Being

• In Event: Bolstering Social-Emotional Competencies Toward Promoting Educator Well-Being

Abstract

Background and Theoretical Framework: Educators of color experience specific race-based stress, resulting in higher rates of leaving the workforce compared to white teachers (Grooms et al., 2021). Yet, very little attention has been paid to race-based stress as a barrier to educator well-being. This lack of attention to the specific harm of racism threatens the well-being of not only educators of color but also white educators and all students (Spanierman et al., 2004). Thus, interventions to support educator well-being will be most impactful if these interventions incorporate explicit skill-building both for coping with and collectively dismantling racism. A promising practice for antiracism skill-building is racial socialization, or messages about race and racism (Saleem & Byrd, 2021). When racial socialization is used to prepare for coping with racism and discrimination, it can promote adaptive functioning (Byrd, 2017). Thus, infusing racial socialization practices into social-emotional learning (SEL) and trauma-informed practices holds great potential for building educator skills to combat racism in their school communities.

Objective: The current paper describes the action research process of developing the “Actions Against Racism” intervention for educators and provides an overview of the resulting intervention.

Method: The action research process involved psychologists, counselors, and educators aiming to support K-8 school staff and students in identifying and dismantling racism at individual and structural levels. The key partner school is a K-8 public charter school with a student body of approximately 475 students (94% Black or African American, 78% low socioeconomic status), 50 full-time educators, and 15 additional staff members. The staff includes approximately 50% White, 44% Black/African American, and 70% female educators. From Spring 2021 to Spring 2022, the action research process involved informal staff surveys conducted by school personnel, research-practice partnership meetings, piloting Professional Development trainings with school staff, and ongoing revisions of the intervention.

Findings: The resulting Actions Against Racism trainings use guided social-emotional skill-building to support educators’ abilities to identify, cope with, and disrupt individual and structural racism. Across seven 90-minute trainings, topics include identity reflection, education about harm caused by racism at multiple levels, guided practice for identifying and disrupting racism in school settings, strategies for coping with racism, and long-term planning to combat structural racism. Each module includes activities and take-home actions that promote skill development across the wide range of learning histories represented in school staff.

Conclusions: Currently, there are no interventions described in the literature that explicitly focus on building social-emotional skills for antiracism toward improving educator well-being. But the action research process described here suggests that many educators and school leaders are committed to building innovative interventions that directly engage educators as learners in the process of collectively dismantling racism.

Significance: Centering social-emotional skills toward taking action against racism has the potential to create schools where educators are more confident and less stressed about discussing race, ultimately leading to more constructive efforts to combat racism and improvements in well-being for all educators.

Authors

• Danielle Hatchimonji, Nemours Children's Health
  Presenting Author

• Danika Perry, Nemours Children's Health
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kira Branch, Nemours Children's Health
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kim Graham, Delaware State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tia Navelene Barnes, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author