Any form of alienation, discrimination, and violence inflicted on an individual due to their race is wrong. So, what effect can these experiences have on young people in school? And how are these experiences exacerbated when young people lack support from their teachers? According to Smith and colleagues (2003), children who feel they experience barriers in school and display racial distrust for teachers will demonstrate declines in academic performance. Negative experiences in school, accompanied by an unsupportive school climate, can undeniably impact a student’s academic performance and disturb their psychological well-being.
Psychological well-being, explained by Steptoe, Deaton, and Stone (2015), reflects three subjective dimensions. The first, life evaluation, refers to “people’s thoughts about the quality or goodness of their lives, their overall life satisfaction or sometimes how happy they are with their lives” (p. 2). The second, hedonic well-being, refers to “everyday feelings or moods such as experiencing happiness, sadness, anger and stress” (p. 2). The third, eudaimonic well-being, focuses on “judgment about the meaning and purpose of one’s life” (pp. 2-3). School climate, consequently, can affect a young person’s psychological well-being primarily because it captures the relationships that exist between students, school personnel, and the degree to which these relationships promote a sense of safety, belonging, and positive development.
[For more of this story, written by Dawn X. Henderson, go to https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-trajectory-race/201705/race-related-trauma-disrupts-psychological-well-being]
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