A systematic review of racial/ethnic microaggressions assessment in formal educational settings

Racial/ethnic microaggressions in educational settings are subtle daily manifestations of interpersonal racism that may communicate harmful messages and disrespectful behaviors toward students belonging to marginalized groups. Given the pivotal role of schools and universities in students’ emotional, cognitive, and relational growth, it is critical to thoroughly understand the nuanced ways in which racial/ethnic microaggressions may manifest in education through accurate target- and context- specific measurement. In recent years, despite the growing amount of research in this area, there has been no systematic research specifically directed at comparing and analyzing the measurement tools used to assess students’ unique perspectives and experiences in formal educational settings. A systematic literature search on PsychINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed was conducted in March 2024 following PRISMA guidelines. The search identified 8,406 papers and a final set of 83 papers has been selected. The specificities of the tools for the context, the theoretical dimensions evaluated, the characteristics of the samples, and the psychometric properties of the measurement tools were examined. The results revealed 28 different tools used in the educational settings to assess racial/ethnic microaggressions. However, only five (17.86%) of them are specifically designed to address racial/ethnic microaggressions that happen within secondary or higher education. Additionally, findings underline that although current measures reference Sue’s (2007) original taxonomy, many instruments only partially align with this framework and often incorporate additional themes reflecting group-specific stereotypes and contextual experiences. Even in the case of the most commonly used measurement tools, a proper evaluation of the psychometric properties has been found to be scarce. Considering the specificity of the educational settings, there is a clear need for developing contextually and developmentally appropriate instruments, with good psychometric properties that can effectively evaluate students’ experiences of racial/ethnic microaggressions. This will support an advancement of the current knowledge of underlying processes and impact of this phenomenon.