Session: WITHDRAWN Promoting Racial Justice in the School Context before and during COVID-19 (Society for Social Work and Research 26th Annual Conference - Social Work Science for Racial, Social, and Political Justice)

Racial inequities contribute to numerous barriers for racial and ethnic minoritized (REM) youth in achieving positive behavioral health and academic outcomes. These inequities are especially pronounced in schools, where REM students underfunded schools that spend 2-3 times less per pupil, REM students are 2-7 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than White students, and are 50% less likely to be tracked into advanced classes (Carter et al., 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2006). Racial and ethnic minoritized students are experiencing a disproportionate burden of consequences due to COVID-19, which may exacerbate school disengagement and negatively impact their educational attainment overall. Racial and ethnic minoritized populations, including African-American and Latinx communities, are experiencing disproportionate morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19 (Kullar et al., 2020). Potential explanations for these disparities include pre-existing disadvantages resulting from the legacy of structural racism. We expect that the burden of these hardships will impact outcomes for students disproportionately affected by COVID-19. School social workers play a crucial role in the advancement of racial justice in schools by providing essential support to REM students and advocating for school systems to be more racially just.

Our panel will report on findings from our racial justice focused research practice partnerships in two schools in the pacific northwest. Our work is centered in the Eliminate Racism and Achieve Equal Opportunity and Justice Grand Challenges. The first case study took place before the pandemic, and we report on two papers from a second case study on our racial justice work had to adjust to the new reality of remote learning caused by the pandemic.

The first study took place before the pandemic and examines how racial and ethnic equity were embedded into school-based social and emotional learning programming. This qualitative study outlines the ways in which the school-based programming centered the racial and ethnic identities of participants which in turn improved the relationships of participants with program staff.

The second study took place after schools had shifted to be fully remote and were experiencing many challenges as a result. We asked school staff about their experiences and whether and how they perceived the pandemic to impact racial equity. We report on the ways in which colorblindness was present in the responses from white participants, and how this can serve as a barrier to racial justice.

The third study followed the second, and was developed as a result of our experiences observing the research practice partnership evolving related to Black Lives Matter movement and protests across the country following the death of George Floyd and pandemic related school closures. It reports on collaborative autoethnography, a method of inquiry well-suited to capturing the intersections of these complex phenomena.

Our discussant will provide a summary of the status of our racial equity work to date and future research on how our school-based racial equity work has had to evolve during the pandemic, and discuss an anti-racist call to action based on the potential widening of racial inequities in schools as result of the pandemic.