Featured Scholar: Eric Kyere, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Social Work, IU Indianapolis School of Social Work
Adjunct Professor of Africana Studies
Deconstructing Traumatic Memories Toward Healing and Identity Exploration with College Students in Ghana: Critical Reflection on Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery
Eric Kyere, Ph.D., focuses his research on working with communities to theorize racism, examine and identify the underlying mechanisms by which racism restrict/deny people of African descent’s access to psychosocial, educational and societal opportunities from an evolutionary standpoint, and ways to empower them to interrupt racism and advance social justice in their communities through education. He has expertise in a variety of areas including: students’ engagement, racial disparities in education and well-being, racial-ethnic socialization, racial identity and persons of African descent’s developmental outcomes, parenting, equitable school climate, program evaluation, international social work, and human trafficking. He employs a transdisciplinary approach to research and teaching. Specific to structural racism, his research employs the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism to engage communities and educators in meaning making process to interrogate and interrupt its continuing effects particularly in the U.S and Africa.
The goals of better understanding the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery are: (1) understand the processes by which slavery was established and sustained to foster the racialization project that persist today, (2) conceptualize human rights and human rights violations that are important to decolonize human right discourse, and (3) understand the complexity of the identity development of the persons of African descent. These understandings are important to shape the memory and meaning making process, ideas around social justice, and sense of solidarity among persons of African descent to interrogate and disrupt the mechanisms that persist anti-Black racism to facilitate healing from internalized subordination and empowerment.
Professor Kyere's translation of research into racial justice and empowerment for disenfranchised people of color is another excellent example of how IU Indianapolis's faculty members are TRANSLATING their RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE.
Selected Publications in IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks
With several research works contributed to IU Indianapolis's free, open access repository, Professor Kyere has made translational research knowledge available to professionals, researchers, students, and communities around the world.
Kyere, E., Hong, S., & Gentle-Genitty, C. S. (2023). Mediational Effect of Teacher-Based Discrimination on Academic Performance: An Intersectional Analysis of Race, Gender, and Income/Class. Education Sciences, 13(4), Article 4. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/32368
Kyere, E. (2022). Racialized Healthcare Inequities Dating to Slavery. In Racialized Health, COVID-19, and Religious Responses. Routledge. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/30043
Kyere, E., Rudd, S. E., & Fukui, S. (2022). The Role of Racial–Ethnic Identity in Understanding Depressive Symptoms in the Context of Racial Discrimination Among African American Youth. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 13(2), 261–279. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/30042
Kyere, E., & Fukui, S. (2022). Structural Racism, Workforce Diversity, and Mental Health Disparities: A Critical Review. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/30020
Karikari, I., Karikari, G., & Kyere, E. (2021). Differential impact, differential adjustments: Diverse experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic by college students in an Upper-Midwestern University, USA. SN Social Sciences, 1(12), 289. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/30019
Kyere, E., & Khandare, L. (2020). The Role of Social Work Education in Fostering Empowerment of People of African Descent: The Significance of the History of Slavery and Colonialism. In B. Raju Nikku (Ed.), Global Social Work—Cutting Edge Issues and Critical Reflections. IntechOpen. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/30041
Flores, O. J., & Kyere, E. (2020). Advancing Equity-Based School Leadership: The Importance of Family–School Relationships. The Urban Review. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/24915
Kyere, E., & Huguley, J. P. (2019). Exploring the process by which positive racial identity develops and influences academic performance in Black youth: Implications for social work. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 0(0), 1–19. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/18972
Kyere, E., Joseph, A., & Wei, K. (2018). Alternative to zero-tolerance policies and out-of-school suspensions: A multitiered centered perspective. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 0(0), 1–16. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/18971
Taylor, J., Kyere, E., & King, Ѐ. (2018). A Gardening Metaphor: A Framework for Closing Racial Achievement Gaps in American Public Education System. Urban Education, 0042085918770721. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/18966