ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to provide information about racial harassment and discrimination in schools that can be valuable to school counselors, officials, parents/guardians, and other interested persons who work with school-aged people. We have chosen this emphasis on race and have chosen to address racial harassment because we believe that, in our society, social and political systems and institutional practices and policies operate based on racial assumptions and beliefs. Whites, as the dominant group, tend to benefit from educational, social, economic, and political rewards, and more often than not, people of color have less access to educational, social, economic, and political rewards (Bell & Nkomo, 2001; McGrath, Berdahl, & Arrow, 1999; Oliver & Shapiro, 1997, 2006; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Unequal treatment in educational systems can lead to tension and hostility related to race, which ultimately can result in race-based stress and perhaps trauma. In the public school system, children and adolescents mat be the victims of such stress from racial harassment.
