Race-based trauma: Teacher responses, supports, barriers, and burnout

The trauma of racism is a common experience among people of color in the United States. Minority children are more likely to experience race-based trauma (RBT) within their communities. Teachers are well positioned to recognize such distress. While mechanisms remain poorly understood, empathy may play a key role in how teachers support students who have experienced RBT. Though the benefits of empathy are well-known, it may be that bearing witness to another experiencing RBT could produce personal distress resulting in dissociation from the student to alleviate such distress. Such reactions may be more likely when a teacher is experiencing burnout. The purpose of the proposed research is to examine the relationships between teacher factors such as burnout as well as teachers’ responses to student RBT. We also seek to identify behavioral strategies associated with these responses and the situational factors that influence them. In-service teachers (n = 178) completed a measure of teacher burnout, viewed a video of a student describing a race-based traumatic event, completed a measure of their emotional response to the video as well as open-ended items exploring hypothetical and actual experiences with such students. We found that teachers with higher levels of burnout were also more likely to report self-focused, unpleasant emotions in response to the video. Qualitative analysis revealed six categories of responses: (a) Help, (b) reassurance, (c) listening, (d) personal reaction, (e) reframing, and (f) relating. We also identified six categories of supports that permitted desired responses to student RBT: (a) Personal experiences, (b) personal attributes, (c) external support, (d) time, (e) listening, and (f) relationship with students as well as six barriers that prevented desired responses: (a) Unequipped/unprepared, (b) external factors, (c) unfamiliar with students, (d) unfamiliar with context, (e) lack of information, and (f) lack of time. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.