Subtopic 3 Continued
This item is a notice from the United States Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division designating a high priority towards combating Arab American discrimination, which they note has been an incredibly prominent issue in the last twenty years. Several combative measures the Civil Rights Department have implemented are described, with information on a great deal of individual cases presented. These measures include over 800 legal investigations of Arab hate crimes, many investigated discrimination complaints in the domains of housing, education, employment, public accommodation and religious land use, and extensive Arab American outreach programs that have been utilized since 9/11. These federal interventions are a step in the right direction for establishing an American environment devoid of rampant Arab American discrimination, and will hopefully continue into the future with effective results.
The United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (2015, August 6). Combating Post-9/11 Discriminatory Backlash. The United States Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/crt/combating-post-911-discriminatory-backlash-6
In this research paper, School-Based Considerations for Supporting Arab American Youths’ Mental Health, the researchers attempt to investigate how American school systems can better support Arab students, particularly when it comes to their mental health needs. They conclude that school-based mental health professionals need to become more culturally competent when it comes to the needs of Arab Americans, as its an ethnic population often overlooked (Goforth et al., 2016). The article introduces a variety of theoretical scenarios and interventions that if kept in mind by a school mental health professional, could make a legitimate and meaningful difference in the lives of Arab American youth. This is an essential intervention to help support Arab Americans in the face of discrimination within school settings, as these children would be able to get the proper and culturally sensitive mental health attention in schools that they need. The paper also advocates for school systems to implement Middle Eastern education into curriculums in order to educate children about many cultural aspects of Arabs and to dispel common misconceptions, something that would be a fantastic widespread implementation fighting against Arab discrimination and stigmatization. Both this paper and prior items shed light on the relationship between Arab American discrimination and Arab American mental health issues, and I included this research paper as the intervention methods described would go a long way in diminishing both Arab American discrimination and its negative impacts in America's younger generations.
Goforth AN, Nichols LM, Stanick CF, Shindorf ZR, Holter O. (2016, December 27th). School-Based Considerations for Supporting Arab American Youths’ Mental Health. Contemporary School Psychology: The Official Journal of the California Association of School Psychologists. 2017;21(3):191-200. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40688-016-0117-7
For this item, I included an online school district bulletin page that announces the district's plans on how to celebrate Arab American Heritage month within the local schools. On this webpage, Federal Ways Public Schools briefly introduce the prominence of the Arab American population both within their district and the country as a whole, and highlight how valuable that diversity is to the overall community. They then go on to say that during the month of April, the public schools will showcase Arab American books and art, activities writing out the Arab alphabet, and displaying quotes around the schools celebrating Arab American heritage month. These activities take place across elementary, middle, and high schools, leaving an impact on multiple generations of youth. These activities serve to be a real-life, current day example of the kind of Arab American advocation many of the prior items have discussed, particularly the research article School-Based Considerations for Supporting Arab American Youths’ Mental Health. The celebratory activities and language used by this school district portray a fantastic example other school districts can learn from when trying to better recognize Arab Americans.
Federal Ways Public Schools. (2023, April). National Arab American Heritage Month. https://www.fwps.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=40&ModuleInstanceID=9&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=345250&PageID=73