Abstract
This qualitative, grounded theory research study explored the impact of school environment on racial identity among 36 elementary school students of color. The use of an expressive-arts-based questionnaire allowed for rich description of participants’ racial identity perception. Findings yielded three themes: racial identity awareness, racial identity incongruence, and school environment, and three interconnecting subthemes: consequences of underrepresentation, experiences of racism, and premature resilience development. This article discusses the emergent theory and model that resulted from the analysis of the data and provides implications for school counselors’ advocacy against race-neutral classrooms.
Keywords
Khadijah is a kindergarten student at Kingsbury Elementary School. For her and other children, the first day of school can be scary—a new environment, new classroom, new teacher, and new classmates. Khadijah also notices she is the only Black child in her class. Later, she counts only 13 students of color in this predominantly White, rural elementary school of over 600 enrollees. Nonetheless, weeks later, she has mastered the routine, learned all her classmates’ names, and made new friends. She actively participates in the morning’s lesson on shapes and colors. During one lesson, however, students are instructed to look at a group of green triangles attached to the room’s magnetic board. They are then told to point to a “different” purple triangle. Ms. Smith, the teacher, removes it far apart from the green triangles while the class claps and sings the Sesame Street song, “One of These Things is Not Like the Other” (Raposo & Stone, 1968). Then, as the singing ends, a student yells, “Hey Ms. Smith! Khadijah is not like the rest of us!” Feeling the eyes of everyone on her, Khadijah looks to her teacher, then down at the floor. Ms. Smith chastens the student for his remark but continues with the morning’s routine. From this moment, Khadijah psychologically and behaviorally distances herself from her peers and teacher. She now negotiates the well-worn path toward resilience development that is prematurely burdened upon children of color. This is how marginalized students survive exclusive learning environments.
As Khadijah’s former school counselor, I open with this introduction to ground this study in the importance of school counselor advocacy on behalf of racial identity development, not only for Black children, but for all students of color in elementary settings. This is similar to how Duquette et al. (2023) used the high school case study of Keshawn to demonstrate the importance of school counselors’ support of adolescent racial identity development through the Adolescent Cultural, Racial, and Ethnic Support (ACRES) model. This study uses an expressive-arts interviewing approach to understand racial identity perception among children of color in terms of their elementary school experiences. In 1939, in what is famously recognized as “the doll tests,” Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark found that Black children as young as age 3 internalized ideas about which dolls of various skin color were “good” or “bad” (Clark & Clark, 1939). Despite criticism for its perceived lack of methodology (based on White, Westernized perspectives of scientific inquiry), their study revealed that Black children struggled to concede which dolls matched their skin color in congruence with their social perception of race (i.e., “good” or “bad”; Clark & Clark, 1939). It was an influential contribution toward the Brown vs. Board of Education decision (Legal Defense Fund, 2023). The Clarks’s work highlighted the impact of Eurocentric messaging and the psychological effects of marginalization on children of color (Clark & Clark, 1939, 1940). As with the doll tests, racial identity perception plays a significant role in how students connect race to self-perception, academic self-efficacy, success in school, and future career opportunities (Bardhoshi et al., 2018; Murphy & McKenzie, 2016; Oyserman & Destin, 2010; Steele, 2011).
Soheili et al. (2015) asserted that children and adolescents spend a majority of their lives in school; as a result, the school environment exerts a significant influence on students’ attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions about themselves and others. Like Khadijah, children learn how they are perceived by others. Racial identity perception is defined as how individuals attribute meaning to the self-perception of race (Cooley et al., 2018). School counselors need to know all social and emotional factors that either benefit or inhibit a student’s well-being and success. These include direct and indirect impacts of social constructs, like racism, on marginalized students (Moss & Singh, 2015). Elementary school counselors are trained to advocate for marginalized populations (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, 2024) and considered instrumental in promoting student success and well-being (Goodman-Scott et al., 2022), including facilitation of early intervention services within the school (American School Counselor Association [ASCA], 2019). Ideally, this is accomplished in an inclusive, student-affirming school environment, where counselors support an increasingly diverse student population (Feldwisch & Whiston, 2016). Thus, inspired by the work of the Clarks, the purpose of this present study was to explore how elementary-aged children of color described racial identity perception in terms of their school experiences.
The Consequences of a Race-Neutral School Environment
Recently, school systems have been falsely accused of teaching critical race theory (CRT) in elementary and secondary classrooms (Burmester & Howard, 2022). This has resulted in censorship of curricula aligned with social/emotional learning and/or books perceived as efforts toward a diverse, equitable, and inclusive (DEI) vision (Burmester & Howard, 2022; Butcher & Gonzalez, 2020). CRT is an academic field of inquiry and its reputed presence in K–12 education stems from fear of shifting power relations (Sawchuk, 2021). Misrepresentations of CRT fuel the idea of promoting a presumed race-neutral curriculum in K–12 education, although such curricula actually favor historically privileged Eurocentric perspectives that minimize and marginalize nondominant experiences—like those of Khadijah and non-Black children of color (Baker-Bell, 2020; Hays, 1996; Irizarry & Brown, 2014; Warikoo & Carter, 2009). Research has found that children can develop prejudiced attitudes prior to the age of 6 (Aboud, 1988, 2003; Wiley, 2021); despite such data, common myths, as discussed by Wu et al. (2022), surround White parents’ avoidance of discussing race with elementary-aged children Avoiding discussion about race and racism through race-neutral school environments can perpetuate prejudiced attitudes among children (Loyd & Gaither, 2018; Pahlke et al., 2012).
Prior research focused on climate and diversity initiatives in schools highlights the importance of DEI (Benner et al., 2018; Berger et al., 2022; Harris, 2018; Leasher & Miller, 2012; Lenz et al., 2021; Thapa et al., 2013). Children of color experience the effects of racism on a daily basis (Cholewa & West-Olatunji, 2008; Falkner, 2023) and, as a form of trauma (Balkin et al., 2021; Landor & McNeil-Smith, 2019), racism can be experienced in the school environment (Aboud, 2003; Bryan, 2017; Ellis et al., 2018). Unfortunately, like Khadijah, Black students rarely have an opportunity to process feelings associated with racial trauma and are often encouraged to just move on (Nadal et al., 2019). As a result, students of color must find ways to navigate challenges that remain foreign to White students. Such barriers include low and negative expectations from teachers (Warren, 2013), exclusionary discipline practices (Bryan, 2017), disproportionate representation in special education (Moore et al., 2008), insufficient academic preparation and resource allocation (Palmer & Young, 2009), and institutional racism (Brooms, 2017) from kindergarten to college. Racial identity models, such as Helms’ Racial Identity Theory (1995) and the Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS; Cross & Vandiver, 2001), are based on the cognitive processing of one’s racial identity from an adult perspective. Therefore, there is a need for an identity development model reflecting the experiences of children of color who may be impacted by the long-term consequences of racial inequity in education.
School counselors are situated to advocate for students’ academic, social/emotional, and postsecondary needs through culturally responsive interventions that promote optimal learning environments for all students (ASCA, 2021; Tadlock-Marlo et al., 2013). Educators may feel uncomfortable discussing race and racism because they may fear political backlash if they bring up such topics in the classroom. However, experiences of unprocessed racial discrimination among students of color were found to correlate with increased anxiety, negative self-perception, feelings of guilt and shame, and emotional withdrawal and/or hypervigilance (Benner et al., 2018; Polanco-Roman et al., 2016). Continuous racial trauma from kindergarten through postsecondary education can result in long-term repression of feelings (Nadal et al., 2019). Therefore, the recent politicized, fear-based avoidance of DEI efforts, as alleged missed opportunities for White children or promotion of White guilt, favor a race-neutral school environment that contributes to maintaining an inequitable status quo. However, even in this context, educators can deter negative influences on racial identity perception if they are willing to learn directly from the school experiences of children of color.
Rationale and Purpose of the Study
I recruited school counselors as co-investigators to enlist elementary students of color as participants. The purpose of the present study is to explore how 36 children of color (ages 6–11 years) in a southern U.S. state describe racial identity perception in terms of their elementary school experiences through expressive arts. The study’s research questions were: 1. How do the participants describe their racial identity through a self-portrait? 2. In what ways do the participants construct meaning about their racial identity in an educational setting through an expressive arts visual demonstration?
This study adheres to the guidelines of rigor established by qualitative researchers who have published articles designated Featured Research in the Professional School Counseling journal (Merlin-Knoblich et al., 2019; Warren & Mauk, 2019). This study contributes to the limited amount of recent grounded theory research in school counseling (Dollarhide et al., 2014; Hines et al., 2021; Oehrtman, 2022; Singh et al., 2010; Waalkes et al., 2018) and to current literature supporting racial identity development among adolescents and college students (Appling & Robinson, 2021; Duquette et al., 2023; Edwin & Daniels, 2022; Johnson, 2021). This study brings current research to the topic of racial identity development at the elementary level (Corenblum & Annis, 1993; Hall, 2001; Hauser, 1972; Simon, 1974) and builds upon the recommendations by Ermis-Demirtas et al. (2023) regarding the use of expressive arts in counseling to promote student resiliency and well-being at the elementary level.
Method
Grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) was used for this exploratory study into how elementary students of color constructed meaning about their racial identity. This theory relies on systematic data collection regarding participants’ perceptions about a particular phenomenon (Fassinger, 2005) and enables researchers to generate a theory grounded in data (Hays & Singh, 2012). Given its roots in sociology, grounded theory seemed most appropriate, as considered from a constructivist lens (Charmaz, 2014; Clarke, 2005), due to its reliance on multiple, contextualized truths to explain a phenomenon—specifically how participants make meaning from their interactions with others and the world around them (Hays & Singh, 2012). This study incorporated expressive arts and open-ended, semistructured interviews as forms of data collection, as described below. Expressive arts in counseling can incorporate making visual art, dance and movement, music, and drama to promote social/emotional development in children (Cheng, 2015). Specific to this study, expressive arts through art making allows children to explore emotions and process feelings safely through externalization (Ermis-Demirtas et al., 2023; Kim, 2015; Sitzer & Stockwell, 2015), increasing self-awareness (Coholic & Eys, 2016) and enabling minors to describe abstract concepts (Ruskin et al., 2017). When incorporated into semistructured interviews, expressive arts assist children as young as 6 years of age in discussing abstract concepts, such as race and/or racism, from a safe, familiar platform.
Reflexivity Statement
According to Creswell and Poth (2018), reflexivity statements acknowledge a researcher’s background and potential influence in the study. As the primary investigator, I identify as a 38-year-old Black female with more than 15 years of counseling experience including 6 years as an elementary school counselor—the only counselor of color in a predominantly White, rural district in the southern United States—where I frequently witnessed the marginalization of children of color through the school’s attempts at minimization or invisibilization of racial influence in the classroom. As a school counselor, my experiences included bringing attention to faculty about disproportionate discipline practices among students of color in comparison to White students, in a setting of predominantly White faculty and students. I also experienced being mistaken for the school’s custodian: I received a custodian badge as new academic year badges were being distributed among faculty. Despite being the only school counselor of color in the district and one of two Black faculty in the school, when the error was mentioned to administrators, it was dismissed as a technical error and nothing to do with race. Although a new faculty identification badge was issued, these experiences contributed to my efforts in addressing educator implicit bias and counseling advocacy on behalf of children of color. I now am a full-time school counselor educator at a public university in the southeastern United States.
To position the researcher’s interpretations, reflexivity allows an identification and interrogation of the researcher’s worldviews and lenses of perception. I engaged in member checking, peer debriefing, reflexive journaling, memo writing, and the use of an audit trail (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) for maintaining data trustworthiness. As the sole researcher involved in analyzing data, I incorporated training of co-investigators and used audio recordings of their interviews to reduce bias common in qualitative research and gain an accurate account of participant experiences.
Recruitment and Sampling Procedures of Co-Investigators
I used purposeful sampling to recruit co-investigators for this study (Patton, 1990). A letter sent through school counseling email lists and school counselor organization websites requested that interested school counselors email me to confirm their eligibility and available dates to meet. I then responded with an attached informed consent form and information outlining their role as co-investigator, grant-based incentives for their participation, and instructions on obtaining a Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) certificate focused on conducting social-behavioral research on human subjects. Inclusion criteria and steps for participation as co-investigator included: (a) working as a full-time elementary school counselor for at least 2 years, (b) signing an informed consent form to serve as co-investigator, (c) obtaining a letter of support from administrators to conduct the study, (d) obtaining a CITI certificate, and (e) completing a 2-hour training with the primary investigator on interviewing children via expressive arts technique. Step 5 would not commence until steps 2 through 4 were completed.
Co-investigator selection was determined through criterion sampling and candidates who met the study eligibility deadline. Six out of 20 interested school counselors successfully completed all required steps. They were included in the institutional review board (IRB) application as co-investigators. Upon receiving IRB approval, I completed all district-level applications to conduct research as an outside investigator. Unfortunately, IRB-approved co-investigators #3, #5, and #6 were prevented from recruiting students and were removed from the study due to their respective districts’ concerns regarding potential backlash concerning topics of race and racism in K–12 education. Co-investigators #1, #2, and #4 remained to conduct research in their respective schools. The co-investigators and I adhered to the American Counseling Association’s 2014 ACA Code of Ethics at every level of this study.
Co-Investigator Demographic Information
Co-investigator Demographics.
Recruitment and Sampling Procedures of Participants
I provided interview training to the school counselor co-investigators. During this training, each co-investigator received from me a prefilled, locked container with materials required to conduct the interviews: (a) parental consent forms, (b) child assent forms, (c) semistructured interview guide, (d) semistructured interview questions, (e) drawing paper for self-portraits, (f) a 24–count box of multi-colored crayons, (g) co-investigator post-data-collection reflection questions, (h) a copy of their administrator approval letter, and (i) a copy of the IRB approval letter. After recruitment, the co-investigators conducted individual, audio-recorded interviews using the provided expressive arts-based, semistructured interview questionnaire (see Appendix A) that I designed. Co-investigators conducted in-person interviews with participants as young as 6 years of age to explore racial identity perception; interviews took place between April 2022 and February 2023 and each lasted 30–45 minutes.
Recruitment and Selection of Participants
Co-investigators sent paper flyers explaining the study and incentives to parents of potential participants enrolled in their respective schools. In seeking participants who met the established set of criteria, the co-investigators used comprehensive purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990) and theoretical sampling (Strauss, 1987) methods as part of the grounded theory design of the study. Once identified, parents of potential participants provided their signed informed consent, and participants, as minors, provided signed assent forms. Purposeful sampling was needed to obtain a representative sample of participants prior to data collection. Following data collection, I used theoretical sampling to guide me toward saturation of data by systematically collecting data in discrete steps (Hays & Singh, 2012). Once consent was obtained, interviews were scheduled during participants’ lunch period to avoid missed class time. All participants selected a pseudonym to protect confidentiality, and were referred to by their pseudonyms during recordings with co-investigators and for the duration of this study. Incentives (e.g., extra recess, lunch with a friend) were provided after the interview.
Participant Demographics.
Data Collection
Considering the use of minors younger than 12 and their cognitive development level, I incorporated expressive arts and open-ended, semistructured interviews as forms of data collection. Given the study’s focus on racial identity perception among children of color, interviewers used semistructured interviews to elicit participants’ attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions related to the topic of interest (DeJonckheere & Vaughn, 2019). The questionnaire incorporated a two-part expressive-arts approach featuring crayons for a self-portrait and a visual demonstration activity. According to Pivac and Zemunik (2020), self-portraits can serve as a communication medium with children to promote self-awareness, self-projection, and self-reflection. Self-portraits have also gained recent attention since the COVID-19 pandemic as a creative tool to understand how children handle global and natural disasters that impact their daily lives (Raabe, 2022). Therefore, I incorporated self-portraits into the expressive-arts-based interview questionnaire as a communication medium with children of color to understand racial identity perception in terms of their elementary school experiences.
Self-Portrait
First, participants were asked to create a self-portrait, with the interviewer asking: “Please draw a picture of yourself for me on this piece of paper with these crayons.” The purpose of the self-portrait activity was two-fold: (a) to determine the extent of participants’ comprehension of crayon color to skin color, and (b) to use the selected crayon as the basis for the visual demonstration activity. Akin to Clark and Clark’s doll tests, co-investigators also used self-portraits as a basis of follow-up questions to determine congruence of participants’ self-portrait to self-perception. For example, if a participant with brown hair selected a yellow crayon for hair in their self-portrait, co-investigators noted “incongruent self-perception.” Nonetheless, the co-investigator’s role was not to question or challenge the participant’s drawing, but to ask, “Why did you select the yellow crayon for your hair in your self-portrait?” The use of crayons containing only flesh tone colors was avoided to prevent influencing participants’ selection for their self-portrait and to assist the co-investigator in understanding participants’ cognitive ability to associate skin color with crayon color.
Visual Demonstration Activity
Second, all crayons selected by the participant for their self-portrait determined the direction of the questions for the visual demonstration activity. As an example, a participant selects a brown crayon to draw the outline of their body or face for the self-portrait. Next, the co-investigator selects a variety of crayon colors (dark brown, light brown, white, yellow, orange, beige), then places the participant’s selected (brown) crayon in the middle of the other crayons, and spreads all crayons on the table in front of the participant (see Figure 1(a)). The co-investigator then asks, from the viewpoint of each crayon color, “How do you think this crayon feels about the other crayons?” Next, co-investigator selects only crayons that resembled the color chosen by the participant for their self-portrait, and places one crayon of a different color beside them (Figure 1(b)). They then ask the participant: “Do these crayons play with this crayon?”, followed by asking “Why?” or “Why not?” Finally, the co-investigator selects crayons that do not resemble the participant’s chosen crayon, and places the crayons beside the participant’s selected crayon color (Figure 1(c)). They then ask the participant: “Do these crayons play with this [the participant’s] crayon?” Visual demonstration activity with crayons.
Upon completing interviews and de-identifying data from participants, the co-investigators placed and stored data within the locked container and returned it to me for analysis. As the study progressed, I returned the locked container to co-investigators, incorporating focused semistructured interview questions to conduct the intervention with additional participants in an effort to build emerging theoretical categories during data analysis (Charmaz, 2014).
Data Analysis
In using a constructivist approach to grounded theory data analysis, I diverted from the positivist, induction expectation in which the researcher approaches data from a position of neutrality (Hays & Singh, 2012). However, consistent with grounded theory tradition, as soon as the first locked container was received from a co-investigator, I applied the method of constant comparison simultaneously throughout data collection and data analysis. I transcribed and coded all data to determine context of each interview (Charmaz, 2014), beginning with open coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to dissect each interview line by line. According to Hays and Singh (2012), open coding is a general review of collected data reduced to key words or phrases significant to answering the research question. Next, I organized categories of ideas emerging from open-coded data into axial codes (Charmaz, 2014) to synthesize a sequence of categories pertaining to a particular phenomenon (i.e., racial identity perception). Axial coding, specific to grounded theory, is a second-tiered process of refining open codes to examine the relationship between general open codes and broad categories of codes to gain a deeper understanding of what the data reveals related to theoretical development (Hays & Singh, 2012). Specifically, I bolded key words and phrases within transcripts through open coding, and, through axial coding, color-coded previously bolded key words and phrases revealing shared connection within the data related to theory building. I repeated this process across all transcripts, recognized as combing through the data. Finally, I began selective coding, highlighting patterns and sequences among axial codes to further refine data to generate a theory grounded in collected data (Hays & Singh, 2012).
Throughout data collection and analysis, I engaged in “memoing” or memo writing (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) to acknowledge connections between categories as they emerged within the data. Memo writing is recognized as part of both data collection and data management during the analysis phase (Hays & Singh, 2012). All memos were kept in a reflexive journal to keep track of evolving open, axial, and selective codes as new participants were added over time. Over 8 months, I contacted co-investigators for the purposeful recruitment of additional participants. Although Creswell and Poth (2018) list 25 as a typical number of participants for grounded theory research, the issues of sample size in grounded theory research are more aligned with the data saturation point than with sample size itself (Aldiabat & Le Navenec, 2018; Vasileiou et al., 2018). For example, Hennink et al. (2016) identified two types of data saturation: code saturation and meaning saturation. Within grounded theory, code saturation could be reached at nine interviews, once researchers had “heard it all,” whereas meaning saturation could be reached with 16–24 interviews, once researchers could “understand it all” (p. 1).
Through the maintenance of open, axial, and selective coding of new data; memo writing; and reflexive journaling, in alignment with code saturation, when the final transcripts produced no new codes or categories I determined that data saturation had been reached. At this point, I did not request additional participants from co-investigators and began generating a theory about the phenomenon being investigated. Eventually, a new theory emerged describing the overall collected data (Charmaz, 2014) among the 36 participants.
Strategies for Trustworthiness
Given the role of co-investigators in conducting interviews, I took steps to confirm the dependability and transferability of the study. In terms of dependability, to ensure consistency of the study (Hays & Singh, 2012) across co-investigators, I required the following of co-investigators conducting the study: (a) ethical research training, (b) 2-hour training focused on interviewing children via expressive arts technique, (c) access to the same study materials, (d) completion of reflection questions, and (e) audio recordings of interviews to confirm accuracy and consistency of data collection across co-investigators. In terms of transferability, similar to external validity in quantitative research (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), I accounted for the number of interviews through audio recordings, including the length of interviews between co-investigators and participants. Audio recordings from co-investigators’ interviews with participants allowed me to assess adherence to interview protocols, accuracy of delivery, and degree of “information power” (Aldiabat & Le Navenec, 2018, p. 248) within each interview, another important aspect of data saturation within grounded theory research. Once I transcribed the audio recordings, I conducted member checking of transcripts with the co-investigators, including any notes written about nonverbal reactions from participants, to confirm accurate participant experiences; this is known as confirmability. At the conclusion of data collection, as part of the confirmability process, I met individually with the co-investigators to discuss their experiences of conducting the study and responses to reflection questions.
To acknowledge biases during the data analysis phase, I coded and analyzed participants’ experiences while directing co-investigators to confirm participant wording at the end of each transcript. For credibility, the study employed an audit trail and member checking to reduce shared identity experiences of myself and some participants. An audit trail permitted the systematic collection of data and consistent review of detailed analysis procedures for 8 months of data collection, April 2022 to February 2023, with the exception of 2 months for summer break. For trustworthiness, I also incorporated peer debriefers (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). I recruited two counselor educators with experience in qualitative research, who participated in three rounds of codebook reviews that addressed evolving open and axial codes. To further establish credibility of data analysis and reduce interpretation bias, I shared my findings, codebook, and audit trail with an external auditor, a school counselor educator familiar with qualitative research, who provided feedback for confirmability and suggested edits. These strategies of trustworthiness contributed to the validity of the study’s findings and rigor of methods throughout (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Hays & Singh, 2012).
Findings
The data collection process and constant comparative analysis resulted in an emergent theoretical model for understanding how elementary students of color construct meanings about their racial identity perception in school. The use of an expressive-arts-based interviewing approach allowed rich description of participant experiences. Based on the analysis and research questions, three themes with three interconnecting subthemes yielded a grounded theory of the effect the school environment had on the participants’ racial identity perception (see Figure 2). Racial identity perception among elementary students of color.
Racial Identity Awareness
Racial identity awareness is racial identity perception based on participants’ ability to cognitively associate their skin color with a selected crayon of similar color during the self-portrait activity. When asked to complete a self-portrait, 23 out of 36 participants selected crayons of similar color to their own physical features (face, hair, eyes, arms, body, and legs). Of the 23, all acknowledged intentional use of crayons to match their skin tone. Birdy, 6 years old, said, “So I’m looking for the right color brown for my skin.” Spidey, 7 years, stated, “My face is brown. Like my skin, it is brown.” In response to “Why did you choose this crayon for your self-portrait?”, Travis, 9 years, replied, “Because my hair is black. I put brown on my face.” Jaliyah, 8 years, said, “Because that’s what my real color in my hair is.” And Lucy, 6 years, said, “Because, um, it’s myself. Brown.”
Participants were also asked to identify crayons that represented peers in their class. Thirty out of 36 participants could both select a crayon matching the skin color of a different student and sometimes name the ethnicity of students in their class. Given their dual role as the participants’ school counselors, co-investigators were able to confirm the validity of selected crayons as close in skin color for each named student. All participants accurately selected crayons that matched the skin color and/or ethnicity of their classroom peers, thus confirming participant racial identity awareness. For example, Eve, 7 years, asserted: “Me and Max are this color; ” Katie, 8 years, said, “Mia has a skin color, like the same color to their body, uh, Mexican; ” Rosie, 9 years, stated: “It’s close to my skin tone, tan, uh…African-American; ” and Joe, 7 years, said, “Calvin and me are this peach color.” This theme confirms the ability of a majority of participants as young as age 6 to acknowledge skin color, associate it with a similar crayon color, and identify variations of skin color among other students. However, some among the participants were unable to demonstrate racial identity awareness.
Racial Identity Incongruence
Racial identity incongruence is racial identity perception based on participants’ inability to cognitively associate their physical skin color with a selected crayon of similar color during the self-portrait activity. Although findings from the self-portrait activity indicated a majority of participants intuitively connected crayon color with skin color, 13 out of 36 participants were either too cognitively immature for the self-portrait activity or intentionally avoided selecting a crayon that was congruent with themselves. When incongruency was demonstrated in the self-portrait, the co-investigator asked a follow-up question: “Is this crayon the same color as your skin?” (see Appendix A) to determine cognitive immaturity or intentional avoidance. In the case of two participants who demonstrated cognitive immaturity, both age 6, co-investigators described participants’ self-portraits as “random patterns of colored lines” or “blue scribble.” Although the two participants responded fully to the visual demonstration activity, discussed in the next theme, they were unable to draw a picture of themselves or describe themselves verbally to the co-investigator.
Among the 11 participants who avoided selecting a crayon congruent to themselves, self-portraits contained blue or tan-colored eyes and/or yellow-colored hair and skin. Again, when incongruency was demonstrated, the co-investigator asked, “Is this crayon the same as your skin?” Among participant responses to this direct question about their choice of crayon in their self-portraits were statements from George, 6 years, who said, “The Black crayon feels brown, which means it feels bad,” and Jayla, 9 years, who stated: “It made me feel like myself and my personality. It just looks like me. That’s why I went with those colors for my eyes [blue crayon].” One co-investigator acknowledged that Ellie, 11 years, although having dark brown skin, selected a peach-colored crayon for her face and choose not to answer any follow-up questions. However, two multiracial students, Burrito and Jack Will, registered in their school system as “Black/Hispanic,” were clear in their descriptions of their self-portraits. Burrito, 6 years, said, “I’m Black, but I don’t wanna be Black. Cause the police take Black people. That’s why I don’t like being dark.” As one of few multiracial students in a predominantly White, rural school, Jack Will, 8 years, stated: Many kids in my class have Hispanic color. So my face is tan . . . my hair’s yellow, and my eyes are blue. . . . Cause my skin color is tan. . . . My mom, my sister, and my dad don’t have the same skin color. They [mom and sister] weren’t born black, so that is why.
This part of the study constitutes a significant contribution of knowledge, not only confirming participant’s abilities to acknowledge skin color (racial identity awareness) but also consisting of intentional acts of racial identity dissociation due to participants’ awareness of negative social connotations associated with darker pigments of skin, resulting in racial identity incongruence. Like the Clarks’ doll tests, the self-portrait activity may reveal deeper cognitive associations related to racial identity perception, which I explore later in the article.
School Environment
School environment is defined as institutional systems of education, including the classroom, campus, and culture, and how they affect students’ attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions about themselves and others (Soheili et al., 2015). Participant descriptions of the school environment’s impact on their racial identity perception, during the visual demonstration activity, are reflected in this theme. Thirty-four out of 36 participants demonstrated true interest in talking with co-investigators about what was happening in their classrooms, the cafeteria, and on the playground from the viewpoint of the crayons. Aside from the two previously mentioned participants who were determined cognitively immature for the study, co-investigators attributed their productive interview sessions to previously established trust among participants as their school counselors and self-externalization embedded within the expressive-arts interview approach. Participants discussed the crayons’ experiences apart from themselves, providing them more comfort than when describing their own feelings or experiences. Therefore, Theme 3 is divided into subthemes that intersect with Themes 1 and 2: (a) consequences of underrepresentation, (b) experiences of racism, and (c) premature resilience development.
Consequences of Underrepresentation
Participant responses reflected how the classroom and/or school environment influenced perception of self. The sub-theme consequences of underrepresentation is defined as cognitive and social outcomes due to participants’ continued experiences of feeling othered, foreign, or different from White classmates and/or administrators in a school setting. When the co-investigator placed various crayon colors around the participant’s selected crayon (Figure 1(a)), the participant was asked: “How do you think this crayon [participant’s selected crayon] feels about the other crayons?” Bud, 8 years, responded: “More white crayons than brown crayons. They [white crayons] would be sad because they wanna be friends with the brown crayons.” Megyn, 10 years, allowed: It might feel okay, but a little nervous too . . . of how her friend color skin are and she might want to know if they are mean or nice. Maybe because more people that look nicer have kind of similar skin color.
Bella, 6 years, observed: “Sad, it’s not the same color as all of them.” James, 7 years, opined: “I don’t really like the brownest color. I’m not very fan of any of those colors.” Given that a majority of participants (n = 22) were recruited from Alpha Elementary School, a predominantly White, rural school setting, participant responses reflected a consequence among students of color and a desire for acceptance by the majority (Aboud, 1988, 2003). Another participant projected their school experiences with crayons. Katie, 8 years, shared the following from the position of brown and pink crayons: These are the pink people. This is only brown. It has no one to play with. It is still a brown color compared to the pinks. The pinks are having fun because they are together. And they get to play. Brown is not pink. It’s too shy because they’re not the same color.
As her interview ended, as with all interviews, the co-investigator asked Katie how she choose her pseudonym. She said she always thought “Katie” was a pretty name and requested the co-investigator continue referring to her by that name in the future. Among the 36 participants, this response was unique because all other participant responses to this question reflected decisions based on nicknames or names of videogame avatars, and, most important, were not requested for continued use after the interview concluded.
Experiences of Racism
Co-investigators, through use of the expressive arts questionnaire, witnessed accounts of racism experienced by children under age 11 during the school year. ICAN, 6 years, stated: People call Jackson “Toast” because of his crayon color. He get mad when people call him that. He won’t let us call him that. But when the teacher said, “Come here, Toast,” then he just sit there. He’s brown, well, Mexican.
The primary investigator found some participants had developed an ability to protect themselves by acknowledging their love for their own color. However, they still may be cognitively impacted. During one activity, Cupcake Girl, 8 years, said: It’s not white, but probably is happy too. Like it could be by itself, so probably happy to have that color. They just don’t play with my color. But it’s my skin color and, like, I love my skin color.
In line with the semistructured interview questions (see Appendix A), co-investigators asked about other activities in school: “Do these crayons play with this crayon [participant’s selected crayon] at recess?” Tiger, 7 years, answered: “No. Because probably most don’t like this crayon.” Megan, 9 years, stated: “It feels sad. I see tan and peach kids, and then I . . . one Black kid, and the peach and tan kids won’t let the Black kid play with them.” Alexis, 6 years, stated, “Them be like, ‘Hey, you’re not a part of our club. Get away.’ So them are being mean to him just because he’s different.” Birdy, 6 years, projected her school experience with her co-investigator through the crayons she selected for her self-portrait. From the position of her brown crayons, Birdy stated: He likes her skin color. He says, “I like your skin tone.” “Thank you.” Then all the ugly crayons say “Ew!” Because he likes her skin color. She feels happy cause he likes everybody skin color. Then, these crayons say, “You can play with us.” They say “Yes, of course.”
Days after her interview session, Birdy’s co-investigator noted in a post-data collection reflection that the participant had, in fact, replayed a lived experience that had taken place on the playground involving Black students in her kindergarten class.
Premature Resilience Development
Participant responses reflected attempts to construct and interpret meaning about their school environment through learning, communicating, and acting with other children of similar racial identity. The theme premature resilience development is defined as the effort required by participants under 11 years of age to survive exclusive learning environments while navigating experiences of marginalization in educational settings. It is a theme born out of consequences of participants’ experiences of racism and consequences of underrepresentation within their educational environment, and is dependent upon racial identity perception (i.e., racial identity awareness or racial identity incongruence). Co-investigators noticed participants often referred to themselves in connection with other students of color as “we.” Alternatively, they referred to White students as “they” during interviews. These findings align with literature connecting racial identity perception and racial group membership (Cooley et al., 2018; French et al., 2006). Furthermore, due to the externalization embedded within the expressive arts interview approach, participants often slipped between talking about the crayon and discussing themselves.
Some participants described their crayons intentionally playing with crayons of similar color. Jadyn, 10 years, said, “Like they fit in. Because they’re all like their crayon. Happy, he’s in a big family.” Ally, 10 years, replied: “They’re friendly. They can feel safe around other people. They have somebody to talk to. Friendlier.” These findings connect with literature pertaining to fictive kinships or group identity created by marginalized groups to unite as a social identity (Bergin & Cooks, 2002) to a majority identity group. However, when asked if their selected crayons were good crayons, all participants (100%) had positive self-reflections about their selected crayon. Mia, 6 years, shared: “Good. Happy. Cause they’re all different colors.” Lucie, 7 years, believed: “All crayons are good. It depends on the day or who you wanna play with.” Will, 9 years, reasoned: “Cause they’re all different types of colors, they might be happy to see each other.” Kayla, 7 years, announced: “Super happy. Because he’s his own color he wants to be.” Regarding the ages of participants who have developed protection against the effects of exclusion, I view this resilience as another reason school counselors can use social justice advocacy research to unearth barriers impacting students of color.
Discussion
The emerging theory of this study examines how elementary students of color constructed meanings about their racial identity perception in school and corresponds with the two research questions: (a) How do the participants describe their racial identity through a self-portrait? and (b) In what ways do the participants construct meaning about their racial identity in an educational setting through an expressive arts visual demonstration? Figure 2 presents a graphic representation of participant data across the three themes and subthemes. The first two themes, racial identity awareness and racial identity incongruence, represent participants’ collective descriptions of their racial identity through the self-portrait component of the interview (shown with blue border). The third theme, school experience, represents participants’ constructed meanings about their racial identity in an education environment as part of the visual demonstration component of the interview (yellow border), including subtheme intersections of constructed meaning (green border) across the first two themes.
The theme of racial identity awareness represents racial identity awareness of oneself and others, and can be considered a significant contribution to current research on racial identity development during a time of banning books and curricula focused on diversity and inclusion in K–12 schools (Burmester & Howard, 2022). In Figure 2, findings related to racial identity awareness, including intersection with the subthemes experiences of racism and premature resilience development, suggest that participants (a) are aware of the social construct of race between themselves and peers (e.g., “Many kids in my class have Hispanic color”); (b) endure experiences of racism (e.g., “So them are being mean to him just because he’s different”); and (c) intentionally seek the company of other students of color as an early strategy of premature resilience development (e.g., “Like they fit in. Because they’re all like their crayon”). As shown in the excerpt from Birdy, participants as young as 6 years of age are able to demonstrate racial identity awareness in the context of their social interactions with peers, particularly when experiences of racism, including prejudice, have occurred in school. As a result, premature resilience development is a consequential theme, as highlighted by Birdy’s recount of her social interactions on the playground. For school counselors, this could be a window into events that may be taking place in students’ interactions with peers and/or an indication of how they feel about themselves and treatment by other students. This is one of the many benefits of using expressive arts when discussing sensitive topics, like race, racism, or even colorism, with minors.
Racial identity incongruence represents contributing social/emotional factors that impede awareness and how these factors influenced participants’ racial identity perception in an educational setting. Among the 13 participants who demonstrated racial identity incongruence, two were identified as too cognitively immature to participate in the self-portrait activity; however, all 13 actively participated in the visual demonstration activity. Therefore, based on Figure 2 and data grounded within participant interviews (i.e., visual demonstrations), findings suggest that (a) consequences of underrepresentation contributed to participants’ experiences of marginalization within schools (“Sad, it’s not the same color as all of them”) and (b) the externalization usage changes (or slips) among participants reflect a deeper need for children of color to express themselves and talk about their school experiences to delay the consequential subtheme of premature resilience development (“It feels sad. I see tan and peach kids, and then I . . . one Black kid”).
For example, the excerpt from Katie, 8 years, demonstrated racial identity incongruence in her self-portrait activity. Despite attending a predominantly Black elementary school, Katie selected a crayon incongruent with her skin pigment (pink crayon). As mentioned earlier, participants’ awareness of negative social connotations associated with darker skin color highlights the phenomenon that children of color learn from an early age that light skin is more socially desirable than dark skin. This phenomenon is often referred to as colorism and has been extensively researched within Black communities (Burnett, 2015; Chaney & Perkins, 2018; Hall, 2022; Smith, 2015). However, although colorism is a result of historical European American practices that divided Black persons according to skin color through colonialism and slavery, its impact on Black and non-Black persons of color continues to be sustained through racism today (Dhillon-Jamerson, 2018). Therefore, school counselors should not assume that consequences of underrepresentation and premature resilience development only exist in school environments with limited racial diversity. As was found in the Clarks’ doll tests, during a time of institutional segregation, Black children still selected the White doll as the “good doll” (Clark & Clark, 1939). The importance of diverse representation in books, curricula, and toys should be a goal for every elementary school to promote positive racial identity perception among students of color.
The school experiences theme represents the foundation of participants’ descriptions about their racial identity perception during the visual demonstration activity. In alignment with school climate literature, this theme served as the catalyst for shaping participants’ attitudes, behaviors, and perception about themselves and others (Soheili et al., 2015). Specifically, based on Figure 2, findings suggest that participants’ experiences of racism and consequences of underrepresentation influenced (a) racial identity perception and, ultimately, (b) premature resilience development. Burrito, a multiracial participant, informed his co-investigator about the preferred treatment of children with caramel crayon color in his class. At only 6 years of age, Burrito has learned to survive his educational surroundings by intentional efforts of “blending in” to protect himself from prejudice or maltreatment as a consequence of having darker skin color than his peers. Therefore, although not all participants may have had the specific vernacular to describe racism or prejudice, participants described experiences of racism and marginalization, including self-driven protective efforts of resiliency. Lenz et al. (2021) found student resiliency to be a significant predictor of school climate, and recommend school counselors take proactive approaches to identify student-driven protective factors in schools by delivering diverse and inclusive classroom lessons. This study confirms that student resiliency development occurs earlier than in middle or high school, and the intervention used in this study would serve as an effective approach to identify student-initiated protective factors as early as kindergarten.
Limitations
The study’s data was limited to participant experiences shared with co-investigators. All participants were from the same state in the southern United States. Although this study focused on the impact of school environment on racial identity perception, school environments can mirror the local and state community culture. Therefore, given that this study was conducted in the U.S. South, a region historically associated with legalized racial discrimination and the origins of the Clarks’ doll test experiments (1939), another limitation was the potential influence of participants’ exposure to racism outside of the school environment that was not expressed during interviews. The number of participants in urban settings (n = 4) was limited in comparison to the other two geographic areas, suburban (n = 10) and rural (n = 22). The number of participants identified as “Hispanic” (n = 4) or “Black/Hispanic” (n = 5) was limited in comparison to participants identified as “Black” (n = 27) by co-investigators’ school database registries. Therefore, the findings of this study may not align completely with the racial identity perception of “Hispanic” or “Black/Hispanic” elementary students. Further, considering the varying contexts within racial identity groups (e.g., socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation) most findings cannot be compared and contrasted, and only represent the participant sample. Although I incorporated multiple steps to establish credibility and trustworthiness of the findings, I was the sole researcher coding the collected data between fall 2022 and spring 2023, and this is acknowledged as a limitation. Nonetheless, this study highlights the need for additional conversations about race in K–12 schools and inclusive school environments.
Implications and Future Research for School Counselors
Discussions surrounding racial identity development are important at the elementary level of education given the recent political push to ban books and curricula focused on diversity and inclusion across K–12 schools (Burmester & Howard, 2022). Schools can be places of affirmation for marginalized students, where their cultures, languages, and identities can be represented (Byrd & Legette, 2021; Saleem & Byrd, 2021; Saleem et al., 2021). Such efforts have been shown to promote positive well-being, identity, and academic success among nonmajority student populations (Byrd & Chavous, 2011). Ratts et al. (2016) called upon multiculturally competent counselors to assess the worldviews and experiences of their clients. Given that a large majority of school counselors identify as White (Zippia, 2023), the importance of developing one’s multicultural competence is only as effective as school counselors’ willingness to challenge color-blind or race-neutral school environments on behalf of students of color (Greene, 2018). A school’s commitment to safety, antiracism, and inclusion for all students is only as strong as the positive experiences of its most vulnerable students. Therefore, it is warranted that school counselors understand the underreported needs of children of color, and serve as affirming and safe adults for marginalized students, when developing evidence-based interventions that promote positive racial identity development.
Racism is a form of trauma (Mingo, 2021; Mingo & Haynes, 2023) and according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (2017), children of color who are exposed to racism through daily experience require adults who can assist them in conversations and understanding information in a safe environment. This study both illuminates the racial identity perception of elementary children of color and promotes an opportunity for school counselors to learn directly from the students they serve and improve their multicultural competence and advocacy efforts. For school counselors who find themselves in race-neutral school environments, Merlin-Knoblich et al. (2021) suggested facilitating Diversity Dinner Dialogues, which could enhance educator and student multicultural awareness and, in alignment with this study, promote a supportive school environment. Further recommended strategies, supported by previous research focused on racial identity development (Appling & Robinson, 2021; Duquette et al., 2023; Edwin & Daniels, 2022; Johnson, 2021), include using the ACA Advocacy Competencies for school counseling interventions, antiracism resources from the ASCA website, and developing antiracist partnerships with faculty and community stakeholders.
Strategies recommended directly from this current study include the promotion of positive racial identity development through books and expressive arts techniques in individual and small-group counseling settings. Diverse books can “act as mirrors to children of color” promoting positive self-reflection, self-efficacy, higher resilience, and academic success (Wiley, 2021). The use of expressive arts can provide a healthy modality for children to express themselves in ways that extend beyond counseling dialogue (Degges-White & Colon, 2015), such as through visual art, journaling, storytelling, music, movement, and poetry, to name a few. As the primary investigator, I view this study as an opportunity for school counselors to (a) assess school climate, (b) learn about the impact of the school environment on elementary students of color, and (c) practice a potential training method for counselor self-awareness. Specifically, to ensure that school counselors who choose to replicate this study do not see students of color as a monolithic group, I recommend that future studies consider variations in students’ achievement levels and class differences, and the growing reality of Black suburbanization (Lewis & Diamond, 2015). Relevant to future research, my co-investigators found that even when participants described their brown crayon in comparison to crayons of various colors (purple, blue, green, white), 95% of participants described the brown crayon as being rejected by crayons of various different colors. For future studies replicating this study across all ethnic groups, or in other types of school settings and regions of the United States, I recommend determining whether participants are highlighting experiences of anti-Blackness and/or low self-esteem. This could include verification studies of former studies measuring racial identity perception and school counselors interested in using artistic modalities to engage students of color creatively about their experiences in schools.
Conclusion
As was discovered in the Clarks’ doll test experiments (1939), kindergarten-level Black children had already developed a negative self-image based on their social and educational surroundings. The current grounded theory research study explored the impact of school environment on racial identity perception among 36 elementary school students of color through expressive arts. Similar to the Clarks’ findings, data indicated that Black children interviewed for this study, as young as 6 years of age, had already developed a negative self-image based on their social and educational experiences. School counselors play a key role in the academic success of all students. As a former elementary school counselor, I believe censoring diversity from curricula will neither cease nor prevent environmental negative messaging that affects children of color. Children do, in fact, learn language and behavior from the adults in their lives (Townsend & Lanphier, 2007) and from the nonverbal, indirect messages suggesting some people are worthier than others through exclusion and marginalization (Cholewa & West-Olatunji, 2008). Therefore, school counselors are urged to challenge race-neutral or color-blind approaches to school climate at the expense of students of color, and recognize their potential impact when affirming messages are provided to all students.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Faculty Research Grant Award 2022-0330-111434.
