Berkeley Review of Education

This research focuses on how Black high school students' perceptions of their school-based racial socialization and their racial identities impact their attitudes and dispositions toward school. The author examined the intersection of racial identity and school culture by examining how Black students describe their context-based racial identity and the racialized aspects of their schools’ cultures. The purpose of this research is to help educators who work with Black students understand how to apply a developmental psychology framework that foregrounds the importance of ecology and phenomenology and can be used to leverage the relationship between strong racial identity and academic resilience. PVEST (Spencer, 1997; 2001) provides a psychological framework for educators to both assess the differential identity formation processes of their students and how they can help students navigate the identity formation process.