Examining Racial Microaggressions, Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Bilingual Status with School Psychology Students: the Role of Intersectionality

The current study investigated the intersection of race/ethnicity and two related factors, gender and bilingual status, and the experience of racial microaggressions in a sample of school psychology graduate students. We proposed that race intersects not only gender but also bilingual status, leading to significant differences in the frequency of experiencing racial microaggressions. Through a national survey of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse school psychology graduate students (n = 228), the study examined the interaction of race/ethnicity, gender, bilingual status, and three types of racial microaggressions students might experience in school psychology graduate education: assumptions of inferiority, microinvalidations, and workplace and school microaggressions. Although bilingual status was not significant, our findings indicated that Black males were significantly different from all other groups in their experience of two types of racial microaggressions—assumptions of inferiority and school and workplace racial microaggressions. Implications for school psychology program recruitment and retention practices are discussed.