Did the Black Lives Matter Movement Help English-Speaking Black Young Adults in Quebec Recover from the Damaging Psychological Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic?

The authors examine the psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement on English-speaking Black young adults in Quebec based on a longitudinal study of 106 young adults conducted in August and December 2020. The authors found that the results for the impact of COVID-19 from the August and December surveys provided a more nuanced picture than they expected. The pandemic clearly did move Black young adults toward despair regarding their prospects for achievement, social engagement, and well-being, but these negative effects were time limited. Six months later, achievement and social functioning were judged to have returned to baseline. It was only for well-being that a deficit resulting from the pandemic remained significant. The results for the impact of the BLM events from the August and December surveys also provided a more nuanced picture than the authors had hypothesized. The coding of narrative accounts in the first survey indicated that the predominant impact of the BLM events was to exacerbate low-arousal negative emotions such as fatigue, exhaustion, and sadness. Only in the social domain did participants report that their lives had become appreciably better than their baseline because of the BLM movement. However, the results of the December survey indicated a delayed emergence of clear positive effects of the BLM events on the participants’ views of their achievement and social functioning.

[QUESCREN Working Paper no. 4]

Montreal

Concordia University - Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network

2021

[iii]-20p.

en