Disaster schooling in US contexts: an integrative literature review

This integrative literature review examines PK-12 disaster schooling in US contexts, centering the experiences and knowledge systems of Black, Indigenous, and Latine (BIL) students, families, educators, and communities. Drawing on critical frameworks of disasters and schooling projects, and utilizing the PRISMA protocol, 844 articles were identified, with 18 meeting the inclusion criteria. Findings highlight how BIL communities navigated state neglect and school closures, resisted privatization and austerity, and mobilized deep-rooted traditions of activism, care, and collective survival. Schools emerged as contested spaces of trauma and dispossession, while also serving as sites of resistance and healing. The review highlights how disasters exacerbate pre-existing educational inequities and calls for inclusive, community-informed, and culturally sustaining school-based planning that recognizes and responds to BIL communities’ knowledge as central to disaster preparedness, response, and educational transformation. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.