Race and Racism In Schools: A National Descriptive Survey of School Social Workers

Background/Purpose: Empirical evidence establishes that structural racism creates multiple detrimental experiences for students of color, across academic, interpersonal, and behavioral dimensions, contributing to student alienation, absences, lower academic achievement, elevated legal system involvement, and mental health stress. School social workers (SSWs) are uniquely positioned to observe and respond to racism across multiple domains of school life, yet little is known about the frequency with which they encounter these issues in their professional contexts or their comfort levels in responding. This study presents initial descriptive findings from a national survey SSWs’ experiences with race and racism in schools, with the goal of establishing a foundational understanding of the landscape before more complex analyses are conducted.

Methods: A national online survey was administered to SSWs (N = 289) across the United States in spring 2025. The sample was predominantly female (91.3%), and largely white (64.4%), with Black/African American respondents comprising 24.9% and Hispanic/Latino respondents comprising 8% of the sample. The majority held a master's degree (95.8%) and were employed by school districts (87.5%). Respondents worked across a range of school settings, including traditional public schools (85.5%), and served diverse grade levels. The survey assessed the frequency with which participants encountered race or racism across three broad domains over the past year: (1) their own professional experiences (e.g., workload assignments, advancement, evaluation); (2) student-level school practices (e.g., discipline, classroom management, referrals); and (3) school-community relations and institutional factors (e.g., staffing, resource allocation, educator attitudes toward students and families). Response options ranged from "never encountered" to "more than ten times in the last year." Descriptive statistics were calculated for all items.

Findings: Findings revealed considerable variation in the frequency of encounters with race and racism across domains. In terms of their own professional experiences, most participants reported rarely encountering racism in performance evaluation (86.2% never) or advancement opportunities (80.3% never), though encounters in workload assignments were somewhat more common (24.9% reported at least one encounter). In student level school practices, encounters were substantially more frequent: only 22.4% of respondents reported never encountering race or racism in classroom management, and 27.3% reported never encountering it in school discipline, with 42.8% and 43.8% of respondents in those areas respectively reporting three or more encounters in the past year. Similarly, in the domain of educator attitudes and institutional factors, a majority of participants reported at least one encounter with racism in educators' understanding of students' (76.7%) and families' (76.6%) capacities and needs.

Conclusions and Implications: These initial descriptive findings suggest that SSWs frequently encounter race and racism in school level practices affecting students and families, particularly in discipline, classroom management, and educator attitudes, even as personal professional encounters may be less frequent. These patterns highlight the importance of preparing SSWs to recognize and address institutional and interpersonal racism across multiple domains. Future research should examine how social worker characteristics, school context, and training relate to these experiences, and how social workers respond when they encounter racism in their schools.