Zi Jia Ng is an associate research scientist at Yale University.
Juneteenth — the nascent federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery — is approaching.
But while slavery officially ended 159 years ago, with the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas, the echoes of slavery can still be felt in the nation's schools today.
Just this past March, six middle school students were criminally charged for racial bullying that allegedly involved holding mock slave auctions of two Black classmates. And in May, an elementary school teacher allegedly held a mock slave auction of two students of color in class.
Nearly a third of the bullying and harassment endured by K-12 students in the U.S. is based on race. How can we improve the well-being of Black students in school, where all students should feel safe and accepted?
Brett Ford, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, and colleagues propose exploring racial bullying through the lens of emotion regulation theory. Reframing, an emotion regulation strategy often taught in social and emotional learning curricula, can be a powerful tool to tackle racism in schools.
Also known as reappraisal in scientific literature, reframing involves changing the way you think about an emotional situation. Take the famous duck-rabbit optical illusion, for example. You may see a duck (or a rabbit), but if you change the way you look at the image, you can see a rabbit (or a duck).
Simply put, reframing is changing how you perceive a situation so as to manage your emotions about that situation.
Research shows that reframing can be helpful in situations influenced by subjective perceptions, such as racial bias.
Racial bias refers to negative preconceptions and stereotyping of people of color. This can be seen in educators’ perceptions of student misconduct where actions of Black students are often deemed more blameworthy. White students are seen as having a bad day, while Black students are seen as not caring about school.
So, imagine a teacher who reframes the misbehavior of 10-year-old Randy, a student with dark skin, as a reflection of his difficulty with schoolwork rather than being a “bad kid.” This, in turn, changes the teacher’s emotional response from punitive to supportive.
Research finds that reframing can be counterproductive, however, in situations that can and should be changed. An example is racial color blindness, or the belief that belonging to a certain racial group does not matter in today’s society.
Think about 16-year-old blue-eyed Ryan, who calls a peer with brown skin an offensive name and reframes it as a one-off joke rather than a racial slur. Racial color blindness can make us become less sensitive to racism and undermine the discriminatory experiences encountered by people of color.
Recent research reveals that reframing occurs by changing the way you think about these factors:
-
The cause or attribution of emotional situations.
-
The outcome or expectancy of emotional situations.
-
The appeal or desirability of emotional situations.
As an educator, you can tackle racism by changing the way you or others infer the cause of emotional situations involving students of color by asking yourself or colleagues, “Is there another reason that this could have happened?” or “How do other people see this situation?” In Randy’s situation, could there have been another reason for his behavior? If Randy was disruptive because of his struggle with schoolwork, remedial classes might be more helpful.
You can also change how you or others think about what is likely to happen by asking yourself or colleagues, "What is the best thing that could happen?” or “What is the most likely thing that would happen?” In Randy’s situation, would he most likely be suspended? If a White peer showing similar misbehavior wouldn’t be suspended, Randy shouldn’t be either.
You can help your students tackle racism by changing the way they perceive the appeal of emotional situations involving peers of color. Ask students, “What would you do or say if it is your close friend who is in this situation?” In Ryan’s situation, would they call their close friend an offensive name? If they wouldn’t do this to a good friend, they shouldn’t do this to a peer of color who doesn't happen to be a close friend either.
Reframing emotional situations through a positive lens — perceiving students of color in a better light — or objective lens — evaluating evidence in your perception of a situation involving students of color — enables us to challenge implicit racial biases and advance education equity.
When we lack awareness of how our biases affect our interactions with students, we may unintentionally engage in behaviors that are harmful. This has repercussions for how safe students of color feel in a classroom or school, what they internalize about our perceptions of them, and how willing they will be to listen to us in the future.
Rather than letting biases frame students of color as "bad," actively reframing emotional situations to address where they are struggling can help them feel better and do better in school.
