Ecologically Compressed: A Psychological Examination of Students’ Experiences During Hostile Sociopolitical Events

Abstract

Across United States (US) history, there are recurring moments in which systemic racial injustices are made visible to the public consciousness, precipitating sociopolitical activity including protests, media coverage, and governmental response. The murder of George Floyd, which sparked global protests in 2020, made visible anti-Black police violence and other forms of racism and white supremacy. This sociopolitical context raised important questions about what young people know and understand about race, racism, and systemic injustice, and the psychological implications of growing up in this context. Integrating critical theories of human development and education, this dissertation investigated the psychological experience of these hostile contexts for racially diverse and minoritized youth. The dissertation employed multiple methods to examine both the top-down influence of this sociopolitical moment on students’ psychological outcomes and the bottom-up influence on students’ learning in school –how and in what ways students engage in acts of liberation in the midst of this context. In the first empirical chapter, Chapter 2, quantitative and experimental methods were used to show that (a) college students think about sociopolitical contexts that are identity-relevant (Study 1; N=198), and when a threatening sociopolitical context is brought to mind (b) high school and college students question their belonging in school (Studies 2 and 3) and (c) interpret academic difficulty as less important (Study 3 and 4; N_Total= 734). In Chapter 3, critical qualitative methods were employed to examine semi-structured focus groups with Black, (non-white) Latinx, white, and Multiracial children (N = 32). Findings reveal that children a) negotiate sociopolitical realities in the absence or silence of adult staff, b) demonstrate the ability to contextualize racism as a historical and systemic reality, c) and reject dominant narratives that call attention away from the value of Black lives. In the final empirical chapter, Chapter 4, I interviewed an ethnic-racially diverse sample of school staff and caregivers (N = 12) about how they conceptualized their roles as socializers of children’s racial knowledge. Findings reveal discontinuities across home and school contexts that were undergirded by adults’ beliefs about what children should or need to know about race which manifested in varied conceptualizations and practices. Together, the three papers of this dissertation provide theoretical, empirical, and practical insights into the psychological processes associated with hostile sociopolitical contexts. In the final chapter, I discuss the findings across the empirical chapters and an emerging theoretical model for understanding the psychological impacts of sociopolitical moments.