The Impact of Racial Trauma: A Crucial Conversation in Rural Education

Specifically, the exclusion of literature on racial trauma in rural spaces reinforces the notion that rural spaces are White spaces, thus perpetuating and amplifying the invisibility of Communities of Color in rural spaces. [...]the aim of this review of research is to synthesize the literature on racial trauma; discuss the mental health, social emotional, and academic impacts on children and adolescents; and to present practical and research considerations through a rural lens to encourage education professionals and rural research scholars to think more critically about this issue and our understanding of race in rural spaces. [...]rural communities, and the people who live in them, have shown themselves to be resilient, facing and overcoming individual and systemic challenges associated with poverty, lack of mental health resources, and school consolidations, amongst other obstacles (Fleming et al., 2018). Limited resources, often attributable to economic challenges, in these locations include un- and underemployment, un- and underinsurance, food desserts, food insecurity, lack of access to healthcare and mental health care, and limited numbers of school psychologists and social workers (Curtin & Cohen, 2015; DeWitt et al., 2020; Gardent & Reeves, 2009). The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) (2014) offers another definition, stating "individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being" (p. 7).