Howard C. Stevenson, PhD

Dr. Howard Stevenson is the Constance Clayton Professor of Urban Education, Professor of Africana Studies, in the Human Development & Quantitative Methods Division of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Executive Director of the Racial Empowerment Collaborative, designed to promote racial literacy in education, health, and community institutions. He was the former Co-Director of Forward Promise, a national philanthropy that funds community based organizations that help boys and young men of color heal, grow, and thrive above the trauma of historical and present-day dehumanization.

He is a nationally recognized clinical psychologist and researcher on negotiating racial conflicts. His book, Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences that Make a Difference summarizes this work. Two National Institutes of Health funded research projects examine the benefits of racial literacy and culturally responsive interventions. The PLAAY (Preventing Long-term Anger and Aggression in Youth) Project uses basketball and group therapy to help youth and parents cope with stress and trauma from violence and social rejection. Dr. Stevenson also co-led the SHAPE-UP: Barbers Building Better Brothers Project with Drs. Lorretta and John Jemmott, training Black barbers as health educators to teach Black 18-24 year old males to reduce their risk of -- HIV/STDS and retaliation violence -- while they are cutting hair.

He received the 2020 Gittler Prize, by Brandeis University, for outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic, and/or religious relations. He was also listed in the 2021 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings of the top university-based scholars in the U.S. who did the most to shape educational practice and policy. In 2021, Dr. Stevenson was elected to membership in the National Academy of Education (NAED). The NAEd advances high quality education research and its use in policy and practice and consists of U.S. and international associates who are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship related to education.

Dr. Stevenson’s research focuses on helping children and adults assert themselves during face-to-face microaggressions. Key to this racial healing work is the use of culture to reduce in-the-moment threat reactions, increase access to memory, physical mobility, and voice, and prevent long-term health detriment.

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Presenting

Belonging Without Fitting In: Racial Literacy for Negotiating Stressful Racial Encounters in Schools

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Navigating the stress of racial conflict or conversation is not easy. Recent national tensions regarding race and diversity in policing, politics, and access to civil rights have led some states and schools to retreat on teaching the truth of racial injustice in this country's history. Moreover, the rise in hate has left schools and educators overwhelmed. Less understood and discussed is how racial stress and conflict undermine essential processes for effective teaching and learning. This keynote will help educators understand racial literacy theory and practice and how it can increase competent teaching and service provision by resolving stressful diversity encounters in schooling relationships.

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Special Recognition

We would like to express our appreciation to SAGE Publications Inc. for agreeing to endow the SAGE Charles T. Hendrix Keynote address at the APSAC Colloquium in honor of the contributions of C. Terry Hendrix to the field of child maltreatment. The endowment will be used to fund the expenses of the keynote speaker each year at the Colloquium. APSAC is indebted to Sage and Terry for their support of the Colloquium and child maltreatment professionals everywhere. C. Terry Hendrix, MA, has been a member of APSAC for more than 20 years and was appointed to the APSAC Board of Directors in 1999. His academic training was in clinical psychology, and he served in the U.S. Army as a clinical psychology technician. He joined SAGE Publications in 1984 as an acquiring editor for both journals and books, and over the next 17 years was instrumental in the development of the SAGE lists in interpersonal violence and criminology. In his latter years at SAGE, Terry managed the acquisition, development, and maintenance of all U.S. based journals in interpersonal violence, including Child Maltreatment, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and Violence Against Women.