School Racial Climate

I am a leading expert of the study of school racial climate and school ethnic-racial socialization in the U.S. By integrating theories and research from multicultural education, social psychology, and the study parental ethnic-racial socialization, I developed a framework of school racial climate that includes two domains: interpersonal interactions and school ethnic-racial socialization (Byrd, 2012; Byrd, 2015). The first domain considers the nature of interactions across ethnic-racial groups within a school and the second explores how students receive messages about race and culture through conversations, the curriculum, and school norms (Aldana & Byrd, 2015; Byrd & Hope, 2020; Saleem & Byrd, 2021). My work has advanced the field by allowing researchers and educators to assess the complexity of racial climate beyond merely positive or negative.

I developed and validated widely-used scales to measure school racial climate for secondary and college students, the School Climate for Diversity (SCD) scales. To obtain the most recent version of the SCD by email, please fill out this form.

Have you used the SCD in your work?

My research team is currently revising the SCD-Secondary scale. If you have unpublished data on reliability, factor structure, or measurement invariance, please get in touch with me at christy_byrd@ncsu.edu.

The subscales in the School Climate for Diversity scales are:

  • Intergroup Interactions
    • Equal status: Amount of fair treatment and equal opportunity at school
    • Quality of interaction: How positive or negative interactions across race are
    • Frequency of interaction: Opportunities to interact and make friends across racial and cultural lines
    • Support for positive interaction: Encouragement from teachers, administrators, and peers about treating others fairly and making friends across race
    • Stereotyping: Perceptions of stereotypes and prejudices held by teachers, administrators, and other students
  • School Ethnic-Racial Socialization
    • Cultural socialization: Opportunities to learn about your own culture
    • Promotion of cultural competence: Opportunities to learn about other cultures
    • Critical consciousness socialization: Teaching about discrimination and inequality in society
    • Mainstream socialization: Opportunities to learn about American culture and values
    • Color-evasive socialization: Teaching youth to ignore or devalue the role of race in society

Validation evidence for the SCD scales are in the following publications:

Byrd, C.M. (2017). The complexity of school racial climate: Reliability and validity of a new measure for secondary students. British Journal of Educational Psychology. DOI:10.1111/bjep.12179 (Full text) [Middle and high school scale validation]

Byrd, C. M. (2019). A measure of school racial socialization and quality of intergroup interactions. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. DOI: 10.1037/cdp0000202 (Full text) [College scale validation]

School Racial Climate Publications

Kubi, G., Byrd, C. M., & Diemer, M. (2022). School ethnic-racial socialization and critical action among Black youth. Frontiers in Education. (html)

Golden, A. R., & Byrd, C. M. (2022). Examining Critical Reflection as a Mediator Between School Racial Climate Experiences and Anti‐Racist Action. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 32 (3), 1109-1119. (PDF)

Byrd, C.M. & Legette, K. (2022). School ethnic-racial socialization and adolescent ethnic-racial identity. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. (PDF)

Saleem, F., Legette, K., & Byrd, C.M. (2021). Examining school ethnic-racial socialization in the link between race-related stress and academic well-being among African American and Latinx Adolescents. Journal of School Psychology. (PDF)

Saleem, F., & Byrd, C.M. (2021). Unpacking school ethnic-racial socialization: A new conceptual model. Journal of Social Issues. (PDF)

Byrd, C.M., & Ahn, L.H. (2020). Profiles of ethnic‐racial socialization from family, school, neighborhood, and the Internet: Relations to adolescent outcomes. Journal of Community Psychology,1–22. DOI: 10.1002/jcop.22393. (Full text)

Byrd, C.M., & Hope, E.C. (2020). Black students’ perceptions of school ethnic-racial socialization practices in a predominantly Black school. Journal of Adolescent Research, DOI: 10.1177/0743558419897386. (Full text)

Farago F., Davidson K.L., Byrd C.M. (2019) Ethnic-Racial Socialization in Early Childhood: The Implications of Color-Consciousness and Colorblindness for Prejudice Development. In: Fitzgerald H., Johnson D., Qin D., Villarruel F., Norder J. (eds) Handbook of Children and Prejudice. Springer, Cham (Full text)

Byrd, C. M. (2019). A measure of school racial socialization and quality of intergroup interactions. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. DOI: 10.1037/cdp0000202 (Full text) [College scale validation]

Byrd, C.M. (2017). The complexity of school racial climate: Reliability and validity of a new measure for secondary students. British Journal of Educational Psychology. DOI:10.1111/bjep.12179 (Full text) [Middle and high school scale validation]

Byrd, C.M. (2016). Does culturally relevant teaching work? An examination from students’ perspectives. Sage Open. DOI: 10.1177/2158244016660744 (Full text)

Aldana, A., & Byrd, C.M. (2015). School ethnic-racial socialization: Learning about race and ethnicity among African American students. The Urban Review, 47, 563-576. (PDF)

Byrd, C.M. (2015). The associations of intergroup interactions and school racial socialization with academic motivation. Journal of Educational Research, 108, 10-21. (PDF)

Presentations

School Climate and Culture in the Middle Grades – Remaking Middle Schools Learning Series