ABSTRACT
For many children, racial trauma symptoms manifest in the school environment and can appear as defiant or dysregulated behavior that warrants disciplinary action. Without a contextual framework, this manifestation of behavior in the school environment can lead to school personnel making negative dispositional attributions about the student's intent, personality, cognitive capacities, and future functioning. This chapter will focus on the conceptualization and diagnosis of racial trauma in the school system. Specifically, the symptoms of ethno-racial distress will be discussed with an emphasis on how symptom presentation intersects with school-related behavior.
