Royel M. Johnson

University of Southern California | USC · Rossier School of Education

Today, the USC Race and Equity Center released Under Siege: Campus Racial Climate in Texas Higher Education Amid Anti-DEI Legislation. This report examines the potential far-reaching implications of Senate Bill 17 (SB 17), highlighting the significant challenges faced by Students of Color and LGBTQ+ students at public institutions across Texas. By...

The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools delivers a collective response to the challenge of racially-charged misinformation, disinformation, and censorship that increasingly permeates and weakens not only US education but also our democracy. In this thought-provoking volume, Royel Johnson and Shaun Harper bring together leading education scholar...

As leaders of Historically and predominantly White institutions are prompted to act in response to glaring racial incidents on both local and national scales, it is important to understand the perspectives of those most affected. This study uses Black critical theory to examine how Black undergraduates perceive institutional responses to explicit i...

Creating New Possibilities for the Future of HBCUs brings together over 20 higher education scholars with more than 150 years of combined professional experience to critically examine the current contributions of and future directions for our nation’s 101 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The book breaks new ground on Black coll...

A large and growing number of colleges and universities have invested in the development of campus support programs (CSPs) that specifcally aim to support students with experience in foster care (SEFC). However, the evidence base for CSPs remains quite limited. The current study seeks to contribute to the literature with a mixed methods evaluation...

This article focuses on postsecondary education among young people who currently are or were in foster care (i.e., out-of-home care settings including relative and nonrelative foster homes, group care, and other institutional settings). While there are numerous terms and labels used to refer to this group, we will use person-first language to avoid...

In this introduction to the special issue, we describe the socio-political context that spurred our efforts to disrupt the anti-critical race theory (CRT) that has seeped into popular and political conversations about the US educational system. Noting the lack of preparation educational researchers have for sharing their nuanced, academic CRT under...

Purpose: A growing number of school districts have recently added a position to the superintendent's cabinet, often titled chief equity officer. While the chief equity officer position is still in its early stages, we have an opportunity to examine insights from this work in the higher education context—both to support the adoption and implementati...

This study directs attention to an oft-overlooked group of students in higher education: formerly incarcerated Black men (FIBM). Specifically, we aim to generate knowledge about how FIBM experience the college-going process to inform policy and practice aimed at broadening their participation and increasing their persistence. Two research questions...

Learning outcomes and persistence improve when students feel they belong and have confidence they can be successful in academic domains. These variables are also malleable, so environmental factors, like societal events, can influence them. Using data from a large survey of undergraduate STEM majors from US colleges/universities (N=1056), we explor...

In this chapter, I offer a socio-ecological perspective on sense of belonging, which is designed to aid institutional actors in facilitating equitable opportunities for racially and ethnically minoritized students to fulfill their belonging needs. Though important, individual, and relational-level interventions alone run the risk of pathologizing r...

The purpose of this study was to explore the socialization experiences of Black men doctoral students in the United States, using critical race theory as a theoretical and methodological framework. Specifically, we sought to understand the role of race and racism in Black men doctoral students’ socialization experiences; how race, racism, and other...

The current socio-political moment-rife with racial tensions and overt bigotry-has exacerbated longstanding racial inequities in higher education. While educational scholars have developed conceptual tools and offered data-informed recommendations for rooting out racism in campus policies and practices, this work is largely inaccessible to the publ...

While a robust body of research has documented the intricate relationship between our nation’s education and penal systems, the weight of this work has focused on primary and secondary schools, absolving colleges and universities of their role in the carceral state. In this essay, we describe some of the ways in which higher education institutions...

Mounting racial tensions in the United States have led educators across the nation to seek knowledge and skills to foster more inclusive school environments. In what appears as a response to the growing attention to antiracist education, former President Trump signed Executive Order 13950, prohibiting trainings that are undergirded by “offensive an...

The visible impacts of COVID-19 and racial injustice have resulted in renewed funding commitments and research within minoritized communities. However, this work is too often anchored in deficit and damage-centered research approaches and practices. In this brief, we call on the qualitative research community to reframe their perspectives and termi...

Understanding the political nature of the attacks against Critical Race Theory allows us to counter them more effectively and thus help ensure that public education can serve to reduce, rather than reinforce, structural racism.

Drawing on qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with 11 academically successful Black male college students formerly in foster care, the purpose of this study was to explore and identify protective factors that have contributed to their academic resilience. More specifically, this study sought to identify the environmental resourc...

The foster care system is not absolved from its role and complicity in the expansion of the shadow carceral state in the U.S. Educational researchers and social scientists alike concerned with the academic, social, and life outcomes and experiences of Black youth in foster care and other racially/ethnically minoritized groups must broaden the apert...

In this study, we examine how the issue of considering criminal history in college admissions is represented and constructed as a problem in Ban the Box (BTB) policies in Maryland and Louisiana. We draw on Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” approach as an analytic tool to interrogate key policy artifacts such as legislative histories...

Student affairs professionals can play a significant role in ensuring the success of justice-involved students given their historic commitment to the holistic development of college students through programs, services, and resources that supplement their curricular experiences, enhance learning, and facilitate inclusive and equitable campus environ...

What factors best predict success at college among youth formerly in foster care? In Episode 68, Royel Johnson from Pennsylvania State University's Department of Education Policy Studies discusses systematic literature review of research on the college success of this historically underserved population. His article “The state of research on underg...

This pre-conference webinar, "The State of Research on Postsecondary Education Among Youth Formerly in Foster Care," was presented by Drs. Jennifer Geiger and Royel Johnson for the National Conference for Engaged Scholarship on Foster Alumni. It can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE0m81XRQic&feature=youtu.be doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2....

Systematic reviews provide more than just a summary of the research literature related to a particular topic or question--rather they offer clear and compelling answers to questions related to the ”who,” "why," and "when" of studies. In this chapter, the authors draw on their experiences with systematic reviews—one as an editor of a highly regarded...

To ensure the effectiveness of academic advising efforts on campus and to increase Black male collegians’ use of such services, administrators must better understand how Black males experience academic advising in college. This exploratory qualitative case study aims to understand the academic advising experiences of Black males at a large urban, p...

Youth formerly in foster care (YFFC) are one of the most underserved student populations in higher education, yet they remain on the peripheries of national student success discourse. As momentum for improving postsecondary education completion for underserved students grows nationally, the time seems ripe to take stock of what we know (and do not...

This study reports on early program retention in a multi-component undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) scholar program aimed at diversifying STEM at a large, research-intensive, predominantly White university. The authors drew on London and associates’ STEM Engagement Framework to determine what factors are relate...

Black youth make up just 16% of public school students in the United States, though they constitute 31% of all juvenile arrests, with Black males outnumbering females. Very little is known from research about the long-term consequences of such contact on their odds of college enrollment. Thus, the purpose of this study was to measure the relationsh...

Despite considerable progress over the years, more information is needed about the experiences of GLBQ college students of color to create conditions that engender their success. Beyond Coming Out responds to this clarion call, drawing on nearly 8 years of data from 50 participants at over 20 public and private universities in the United States. T...

The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of COASPs on students’ academic and social success at The Ohio State University. Although the programs have a diverse set of objectives and targeted student populations, program directors at Ohio State University have worked to identify a set of common goals or objectives they seek to realize:...

At the 60th anniversary of Brown, the authors analyze survey data from a national sample of 1,227 Black and White college students to examine the frequency and nature of cross-racial interactions and their influence on students' sense of belonging in college. Results suggest the cross-racial interactions vary by race and frequent, meaningful intera...

Data from the Community College Student Experiences Questionnaire were analyzed for a sample of 315 Black women attending community colleges. Specifically, we conducted multivariate analyses to assess the relationship between background traits, commitments, engagement, academic performance, and satisfaction for Black women at community colleges. De...

College Student Self-Efficacy Research Studies offers three uniquely designed sections that provide a unique mixture of research studies conducted on African American, Mexican American, and first-generation college students. This book explores a variety of factors affecting a diverse group of college students including institutional commitment, col...

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to understand how Black male doctoral degree recipients' make sense of their professional identity. Three major research questions guided our analysis: (a) How do Black male doctoral degree recipients define their professional identity? (b) What factors do Black male doctoral recipients attribut...

Much of the present research available on formerly incarcerated Black males (FIBMs) focuses primarily on their criminal experiences and subsequent effects on their personal lives, employment options, and repeat offenses. Despite the overwhelming number of Black men in the U.S. criminal justice system and the country’s goal of increasing the proport...

Undoubtedly, the current state of education for Black men in the United States is dismal. Unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon. History provides a salient reminder of society's inability to provide equitable opportunities and resources for the advancement of Black men. The underachievement, lack of inclusion, and backward progression of Blac...

The purpose of this autoethnographic study was to explore the ways in which race and racism coalesce in shaping the college experiences of Black men. I employ Critical Race Theory (CRT) to analyze my own reflections about lived realities experienced as an undergraduate at a predominantly White institution (PWI). Findings center on the role that rac...