Running head: ADVOCACY GROUP PAPER 1

Advocacy Group Paper

Eitan Codish, Rebecca Corpuel, Emily Lemons, Nathan Simons, and Rachel Taleff

November 30, 2017

Dr. Rafe McCullough.

Lewis & Clark College

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Advocacy Group Paper

In a hypothetical school having an equity and access problem reminiscent of issues

witnessed at real school sites, our group identified an issue to examine that involves labeling,

targeting, racism, and unfair pigeon-holing. In our group’s scenario, the high school's junior

cohort school counselor has taken some new training and begun to broach the subject of race

regularly with students of color for the first time. The counselor is learning a lot from this work,

and their students are thankful to be heard. This counselor’s Black male students have let her

know that they feel unsettled by coming into the counseling office for advisement and being

immediately asked if they are signing up for football and sports.

While more data collection will be discussed in this paper at this early stage, it is evident

that this feedback needs to be addressed and questioned by the whole department. It is also

apparent that the school we base our hypothetical situation on has a tiny percentage of Black

students overall, but a substantial portion of their football team is Black. Data collection may be

necessary if staff are unable to hear the problem and are resistant to look at their practices.

Students in our hypothetical school report feeling pushed, devalued as intellectuals, and

denied opportunities that others may be offered instead of sports being discussed. While it is true

being athletic and active is healthy, and there are college opportunities for athletes, there are

more opportunities for academic scholarships overall, and striving for both would serve any

student. There is an underlying message, even if unintentional, that these students are not smart

enough or motivated enough to access academic opportunities, and that they are valued more for

their bodies than their minds. This sets up the student to have fewer opportunities and less

impetus to prioritize academics, and if they were ever to be injured or lose the ability to play,

they would have fewer options.

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Contemporary racism, as described by Bonilla-Savilla (2014), is characterized by

allegiance to racially discriminatory social structures while ignoring, denying, forgiving, or

explaining away the racially biased assumptions behind them. It is shaped not by individuals but

woven into the American Dream, a myth designed to keep Black bodies subjugated to White

supremacy (Coates, 2015). These influences are perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the

practice of pushing young black males into athletics at the expense of academic, career, artistic,

or other pursuits.

The socialization of Black youth to participate in sports does not begin in a

forecasting meeting with the school counselor. Over-representation of Black athletes - often

portrayed through a lens of racial stereotypes (Bigler & Jeffries, 2008) and a dearth of other role

models in the media play a part in this process (Beamon, 2010). Students' whose familiarity

through their families and neighborhoods with athletes who succeed in reaching a professional

level, even as the same students recognize that sports are a distraction from developing other

skills (Beamon, 2010). It is true that coaches can act as role models and mentors (Richardson,

2012), social capital that can positively impact education (Plagens, 2011). However, school

belonging in the absence of encouragement to set and pursue academic goals is not enough for

students to develop academic self-efficacy (Uwah, McMahon, & Furlow, 2008). We must,

therefore, as voices from within the Black community are saying, expand Black males'

awareness of possible avenues to success (Morris & Adeyemo, 2012).

At best, encouraging participation in high school athletics can keep our Black

male students at school and give staff the chance to engage with them academically. Considering

the high dropout rate of Black males from high school (NCES, 2017), this seems worthwhile.

However, we must also find the possible adverse effects, including perpetuating the cycle which
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leaves Black youth with few artistic role models (Charland, 2012), or belief in other avenues to

monetary success (Beamon, 2010). Moreover, studies point to a scholastic sports culture that

encourages violence both on and off the field of competition, particularly amongst males and

youth in urban settings (Peters et al., 2012; Kreager, 2007). Even a Black male youth who

understands the cultural influences pushing him towards athletics and decides it is his passion to

pursue it, and who doesn't allow the toxic masculinity of sports culture to derail him on his way

to high-level collegiate competition, is likely to find there a system of exploitation. Which,

profits from the fetishizing of his body and installs further barriers to academic and occupational

development (Beamon, 2008).

It is our ethical duty as school counselors to promote equity in social, career, and

academic access (ASCA, 2016). As such we must be alert to the forces that push Black male

students into athletics, the role our schools and we play in that, and the additional hurdles that

manifest in these individuals' paths. As described in the next section, we can act by increasing

our awareness, by changing how we interact with individual students, students as a group, and

with colleagues, and by instituting professional development with an eye towards systemic

change.

Our advocacy plan consists of several components for school counselors to employ:

political savviness to navigate power structures, consciousness raising for self and others,

initiating difficult dialogues, building intentional relationships, teaching students self-advocacy

skills, and using data. Singh et al. (2010) describes being political savvy as knowing when and

how to intervene. It takes both deliberate practice and building relationships, "You don't win

people over by running up to them and slapping them with issues. You win them over by getting

to know them, forming teams, and respectfully bringing up the issues” (Singh et al., 2010).
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Counselors who are willing to take the time to build relationships with staff will have an easier

time forming alliances to instigate social change.

It is essential schools are making time for staff to have conversations about race. School

counselors can advocate for administration to carve out time for school personnel to assess if

current practices are equitable and accessible for the entire student body. This can be done by

evaluating school climate with a needs assessment survey. To demonstrate to administration, and

other staff members, that the school is in need of a change to understand how we interact with all

students, data must be collected. Essential demographics to gather will be racial and ethnic

identity; this will help present numbers to administration of exactly how many students are

feeling pigeonholed to select sports as electives. Designing the survey to gather other identity

demographics, such as gender and sexual orientation, can also reveal trends of other targeted

student groups.

Along with data, broaching the subjects of culture, ethnicity, and Race will need to be

addressed in the school counseling office. Professional development training revolving around

broaching cultural humility and exploring personal implicit-biases will be vital in our advocacy

plan. It is the counselor's responsibility to consider how race and other sociopolitical factors

impact and influence a student’s experience in the counseling office and in the school building

(Day‐Vines et al. 2007). The plan would be for the entire school staff to receive this training, as

it will be foundational in creating any systemic change.

Some staff members may not see there is a problem, or take offense to being critiqued on

their current methods. This is called color-blind racism. Color-blind racism comes in the form of

individuals not seeing "color, just people," and blaming minorities (majority Blacks) for creating

race problems (Bonilla-Silva, 2014). To validate staff's opinions and try to understand their
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experiences, a counselor must build trust with staff, including the school counseling department.

Once a relationship is established, there is a foundation for entering into difficult conversations.

School counselors can do this by asking questions and entering into difficult conversations from

a place of curiosity. Using phrases such as, “Where were you coming from when you said….?”,

“What did you mean by that?”, “This is how it sat with me” will help raise consciousness for the

individual and their colleagues. “School counselors may not be able to reach the entire school

staff, but all it takes is getting through to 80% (Thrower, 2017).

Through professional development training and workshops, a school counselor can

develop a better lens of how the dominant culture affects all students and begin to break down

their own implicit biases. A school counseling department who continually evaluates the

comprehensive school counseling program with an equitable and accessible lens will start to

align with the best interest of all their students and better serve their academic, social/emotional,

and career readiness needs.

School Counselors are in a unique position with their training and education to be agents

of change and help promote equity for their students. They are often the trusted adult in the

building for many students. They have significant understanding of the use of data and how to

present it in a meaningful way. A good School Counselor also has their finger on the pulse of the

school and knows who they can use as allies to promote necessary change. With this in mind, it

is incumbent upon all School Counselors to broach with students, staff, and parents on issues of

inequity whenever it may be necessary.

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References

American School Counselor Association (2016). The ASCA ethical standards for school

counselors. American School Counselor Association.

Beamon, K. K. (2010). Are sports overemphasized in the socialization of African American

males? A qualitative analysis of former collegiate athletes' perception of sports

socialization. Journal of Black Studies 41(2), 281-300.

Beamon, K. K. (2008). “Used goods”: Former African American college student-athletes'

perception of exploitation by division I universities. The Journal of Negro Education

77(4), 352-364.

Bigler, M. & Jeffries, J. L. (2008). “An amazing specimen”: NFL draft experts’ evaluations of

Black quarterbacks. Journal of African American Studies 12(2), 120-141.

Bonilla-Savilla, E. (2014). Racism without racists. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield

Publishers, inc.

Charland, W. (2010). African American youth and the artist's identity: Cultural models and

aspirational foreclosure. Studies in Art Education 51(2), 115-133.

Coates, T. (2015). Between the world and me. New York: Spiegel & Grau.

Day‐Vines, N. L., Wood, S. M., Grothaus, T., Craigen, L., Holman, A., Dotson‐Blake, K., &

Douglass, M. J. (2007). Broaching the subjects of race, ethnicity, and culture during the

counseling process. Journal of Counseling & Development, 85(4), 401-409.

Kreager, D. A. (2007). Unnecessary roughness? School sports, peer networks, and male

adolescent violence. American Sociological Review 72(5), 705-724.

Morris, J. E., & Adeyemo, A. O. (2012). Touchdowns and honor societies: Expanding the focus

of Black male excellence. The Phi Kappa Deltan 93(5), 28-32.

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National Center for Education Statistics (2017). Table 219.70 Percentage of high school dropouts

among persons 16 to 24 years old (status dropout rate), by sex and race/ethnicity:

Selected years, 1960-2015. Retrieved November 17, 2017, from

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_219.70.asp?current=yes

Peters, R. J., Miller, J. W., Meshack, A., Ford, K., Longoria, P., Hill, M. J., & Cavanaugh, T.

(2012). Low sports fundamental development among urban youth: Beliefs and norms

concerning the culture of “playing with swagger.” Race, Gender, & Class 19(3), 130-

142.

Plagens, G. K. (2011). Social capital and education: Implications for student performance.

Education and Culture 27(1), 40-64.

Richardson, J. B. (2012). Beyond the playing field: Coaches as social capital for inner-city

adolescent African-American males. Journal of African American Studies 16(2), 171-

194.

Singh, A. A., Urbano, A., Haston, M., Mcmahon, E. (2010). School counselors' strategies for

social justice change: A grounded theory of what works in the real world. Professional

School Counseling, 13(3), 135-145.

Thrower, N. (2017). Social Justice Lecture. Personal Collection of Nikki Thrower, Whitford

Middle School, Beaverton, OR.

Uwah, C. J., McMahon, H. G., & Furlow, C. F. (2008). School belonging, educational

aspirations, and academic self-efficacy among African American male high school

students: Implications for school counselors. Professional School Counseling 11(5), 296-

305.
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