Racial/ethnic categories used in education research are frequently aggregated across groups and often used in regression models as relative to white individuals, (un)consciously centering whiteness. We employ Quantitative Critical Race Theory (QuantCrit) to consider the implications of collapsing racial/ethnic categories and of reference group category selection. We propose a decision tree framework to support researchers in choosing a reference category and illustrate its application using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K). We describe students' interest in math and estimate a series of models that vary the reference group, including comparisons to white students but also 1) to the average of all students, 2) to the average of all students excluding white students, 3) to a universal target, and 4) that analyze within group differences. We demonstrate how choices around racial/ethnic categories and reference groups can produce different interpretations of the same underlying data.
Black sororities and fraternities provide critical support networks, leadership development, and community engagement within Black communities. Historically, these organizations advanced civil rights and Black feminist movements, shaped sociopolitical discourse, and cultivated spaces for collective activism and resistance. Despite these contributions, Black Greek-letter organizations remain vulnerable to perceptions of exclusivity, while limited scholarship centers Black women sorority members' lived experiences. Guided by Black Feminist frameworks, this study examines Black sorority life as a form of cultural wealth within and beyond higher education. Through the perspectives of six Black sorority members, we examine cultural and generational orientations to sorority membership and its influence on enrollment, leadership, and well-being. Constructed through Sisterwork, this paper positions Black sorority life as an enduring source of cultural wealth that resists oppression and intersectional marginalization. Findings underscore Black women sorority members' contributions to kinship, legacy, social change, community engagement, and Black futures.
This article re-theorizes Malone and Ford's (2023) account of Black male faculty navigating the tenure track by situating their experiences within broader formations of racialized institutional life, gendered being, and academic marketization. The article treats autoethnography as archive and analytic site, engaging these narratives as fragments that reveal how Black faculty life is constituted through ongoing forms of slow, affective, and epistemic violence. The analysis examines how processes such as cultural taxation operate not as deviations from institutional norms, but as conditions of academic life. In doing so, the article advances the concept of ontological aversion to describe how faculty navigate the academy. It concludes by calling for a reorientation of faculty evaluation and institutional practice that centers relational, affective, and community-grounded forms of labor. In reframing Black male professorship as a site of theoretical production, the article contributes to ongoing efforts to rethink the meaning, value, and future of academic life.
This study examines how 1.5- and second-generation Muslim undergraduates in the United States make meaning of higher education amid the competing demands of displacement, racialized belonging, neoliberal aspiration, and Islamic ethical commitment. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and life history interviews with 20 Muslim students, I use an arrivant framework to analyze how the conditions of migration, empire, and racial capitalism shape students' relationships to education. The findings reveal that arrivant Muslim students do not simply absorb or resist neoliberal educational logics but rework them through familial narratives of displacement, gendered constructions of cultural authenticity, and moral reasoning rooted in Islamic traditions. Students invoke American exceptionalist discourses of opportunity while contending with anti-Muslim racism, surveillance, and conditional belonging. Rather than treating educational aspiration as a cultural trait of immigrant families, this study theorizes it as a structural condition of arrivant subjectivity, produced by imperial histories and sustained by racial capitalism.
Despite the growing number of mixed ethnic populations in higher education in the UK, there is a lack of information about their complex multiethnic experiences. This paper aims to address the issue of racial categorisation from an intersectional multiethnic perspective, enhancing our understanding of mixed ethnic concerns and showcasing the richness of the various hidden subcategories. We adopt a mixed methods approach to multiethnic analysis, using Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to analyse a subsample of postgraduate-educated individuals (N = 3,650) from the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS). We thematically compare these findings with insights from nine interviews with self-identified mixed ethnic postgraduate researchers and early career researchers. We show that the prevailing norm of monoracism in British society has overlooked the mixed ethnic category in both quantitative and qualitative research. Therefore, we advocate for more inclusive multiethnic approaches that accurately represent the complex nuances within all identities, particularly mixed ethnic identities.
This article presents a fictitious composite conversation between a professor and a graduate student, showing how they make meaning of whether Latinx is a racial category. Their dialogue highlights a crucial shift - from asking whether Latinx is a race to recognizing the need to understand the process of racialization. The narrative demonstrates that grounding this inquiry in contributions from empirical research - particularly from the education field - clarifies and strengthens the understanding of Latinx as a racialized group. Their exchange grapples with defining race beyond physical appearance and attends to Latinx heterogeneity and the intra-group marginalizations shaped by settler colonialism, colorism, anti-Blackness, and anti-Indigeneity. The article concludes by urging scholars to examine racialization and to conceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, underscoring that systemic barriers and educational injustices that continue to deny Latinxs parity with Whites play a central role in socially constructing Latinx racialization.
This study examines the educational experiences of Black male introverts, revealing how schools function as sites of surveillance, exclusion, and racialized misrecognition. Drawing on the concept of punitive inertia, it demonstrates how quiet Black boys are policed not for misbehavior, but for their mere presence and expression of introversion - traits often misread as defiance or disengagement. Participants' narratives challenge dominant notions of Black masculinity, agency, and participation, highlighting how introversion, when embodied by Black males, becomes structurally unintelligible within extroversion-centered school norms. This study proposes pedagogies of opacity as a framework for honoring Black interiority and self-possession, resisting demands for visibility and legibility. Ultimately, it calls for transformative educational practices that recognize quiet as a legitimate, sovereign mode of being. This work underscores the need for structural change that affirms the complexity, dignity, and humanity of Black male students beyond stereotypical or normative expectations.
This qualitative study examines how critical reflexivity shapes the racial identity development and critical consciousness of four Asian American secondary teachers in New York City. Drawing on interviews with English language arts and social studies teachers who participated in professional development on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) curriculum, we conducted a critical thematic analysis of their experiences. Findings show that teachers' personal histories, familial narratives, and immigration backgrounds informed their motivation to challenge AAPI invisibility and resist superficial approaches to curriculum. While navigating incomplete representations and student resistance, teachers engaged in reflexive practices that deepened their own understandings of Asian American identity and informed justice-oriented pedagogy. The study highlights critical reflexivity as essential not only for developing inclusive curriculum but also for enabling teachers of color to cultivate counter-narratives and build solidarity.
Analysis of the silencing of racially minoritised communities is a cornerstone of race-critical theories. Yet amid resurgent attacks on anti-racist education by alleged 'free speech' defenders internationally, few studies analyse the speech conditions experienced by minoritised youth across urban contexts. Drawing on substantial qualitative data from case studies of four secondary schools in the 'no-majority' cities of London and Birmingham, the paper demonstrates how space plays a crucial role in the construction of minoritised and working-class youth as fit or unfit to speak critically on race and social justice topics, including Black Lives Matter and Palestinian struggles. We argue that a (neo-)liberal white, middle-class, adult spatial imaginary constructs fitness to speak across urban schools, which closely guards access to reflexive, impactful and justice-oriented youth speech. The paper's multi-sited account can act as a key resource for building and interrelating anti-racist education spaces which challenge such constructions of fitness to speak.
In this paper, we introduce settler (il)literacy as a framework for understanding the challenges faced by teachers and students as they construct new knowledge in classrooms. Local knowledges, even when they are foregrounded in schooling, remain intertwined with the ongoing impact of the colonial project. The notion of settler (il)literacy can be used to reveal the discursive twists and turns for teachers and students as they navigate their sense of self and their relationship with the world. These discursive processes reproduce the structures of power and authority that underpin the colonial project. In our research, we direct focus away from the behaviours of teachers and students, toward the official curriculum. Central to our argument are concerns that the Australian Curriculum ensures settler (il)literacies are maintained - indeed celebrated - in and through education. This perpetuates settler (il)literacy as a legacy of 13 years of schooling for many students.
This paper investigates the racialized experiences of six Korean American teachers, using AsianCrit as the theoretical framework. Drawing on an in-depth phenomenological interview study, it examines Korean American teachers' accounts of growing up minoritized as part of immigrant families, developing a sense of identity in relation to various peer, social, and/or religious groups, and navigating teacher education programs and school communities as teachers. The paper concludes by advocating for the support of Korean American teachers, as well as the increasingly diverse student population in the U.S. including children and youth in the Korean diaspora, to recognize existing power dynamics in the contemporary U.S. and to critically reflect on and embrace the values of their racial, ethnic, and cultural identities.
This study examines Palestinian women teachers working in Jewish state schools in Israel and explores their experiences based on focus groups conducted in Arabic by a Palestinian researcher. The study also employs collective visioning practices, positioning Palestinian teachers as agents of transformation and exploring their future-oriented aspirations. The findings reveal self-censorship, professional marginalization, institutional discrimination, and scrutiny from colleagues, parents, and students. These are organized around three themes: identity concealment and revelation strategies, navigation of structural barriers, and collective visioning for an integrated educational future. Teachers employ strategic identity management, emphasizing professionalism while downplaying aspects of cultural and national identity, particularly during periods of national conflict. Structural obstacles such as subject-matter hierarchies and lack of institutional support further complicate their integration. The study extends identity negotiation theory by showing how gendered emotional labor and omnipresent stereotype threat shape minority educators' work in an ethnically stratified context.
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.
Black high school students experience discrimination in a variety of formats in and outside of school. Such discrimination can be distressing and may lead to racial battle fatigue (RBF), which is the physiological, psychological, or behavioral strain people of color experience after exhaustive cope with on-going racial discrimination. RBF has rarely been studied among Black adolescent populations, and operationalizations about how RBF manifests are limited. The present study aimed to define and categorize RBF manifestations among Black high school students. This study qualitatively examined the ways in which recent Black high school graduates (N =17; ages 18-21) experienced RBF during their time in secondary education settings, and it considered the discriminatory context in which RBF arose. Results also suggest that RBF manifested in four distinct behavioral, psychological, or emotional ways. Furthermore, RBF manifestations arose due to discrimination related to microaggressions, macroaggressions, and overt discrimination.
Asian Americans as a racial category achieve educational and socioeconomic attainments that seemingly defy traditional theories of racial disadvantage. While acknowledging the ways that the model minority stereotype reproduces meritocratic myths and justifies white supremacy, this discourse analysis focuses on uncovering the underlying ideological perspectives of second-generation Asian Americans that lead them to value and pursue academic achievement and STEM-oriented careers. Based on interviews with second-generation Asian American college students (n = 20) from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, the findings suggest that family-based ideologies concerning education and the duty and responsibility of the child figure prominently in the practices and decisions of the second generation. This article concludes by offering a more nuanced and humanizing approach to understanding ethnoracial communities that considers both broader forces of racialization and internal family-based ideologies.
This paper examines the experiences of Jewish faculty in Canadian higher education in the aftermath of 7 October 2023. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the study uses the framework of microaggressions to analyze how antisemitism manifests in campus interactions and institutional spaces. Participants reported experiences ranging from overt hostility, subtle stereotyping, and routine dismissals of their lived experiences, fostering alienation, isolation, and professional withdrawal. At the same time, many described the acts of resistance, activism, and identity reclamation. Framed within critical theories of education, the study aims to unpack antisemitism and reconnect it with equity and anti-racism frameworks, while also developing tools to recognize Jewish difference. By centring Jewish counter-narratives, this research highlights the voices of those at the receiving end of antisemitic microaggressions. It contributes to critical education scholarship, calling on universities to recognize antisemitism as a systemic issue deserving sustained attention, within broader commitments to diversity and inclusion.
This study examines how racialized school climates shape the academic engagement of Latinx/a students in urban high schools in Northern California. Grounded in Latinx Critical Theory (LatCrit), the analysis draws on in-depth interviews with seven self-identified Latinx/a students to explore how institutional practices and everyday interactions influence their educational trajectories. Participants described encountering low academic expectations, exclusion from advanced coursework, and limited institutional support, particularly for newcomer immigrant students from Central America. These structural barriers contributed to feelings of marginalization and diminished confidence. At the same time, students identified sources of empowerment, notably in supportive relationships with Latinx educators and mentors that affirmed their identities and intellectual potential. The findings extend LatCrit scholarship by illuminating how systemic constraints and relational practices influence academic engagement and students' sense of belonging.
M & amacr;ori early career researchers (ECRs) face unique challenges and opportunities within Aotearoa New Zealand's academic landscape. Although M & amacr;ori make up 17.8% of the national population, they represent less than 5% of academic staff across universities, reflecting persistent underrepresentation. This study draws on the narratives of three M & amacr;ori ECRs involved in the new Whanake Ake programme at Te Whare W & amacr;naka o Aoraki (Lincoln University). Guided by p & umacr;r & amacr;kau and autoethnography methodologies, the study's findings highlight the compounded effects of invisible cultural labour, limited mentorship structures, and uneven recognition of equity initiatives on career progression and wellbeing. At the same time, the findings underscore the value of culturally grounded mentorship, equitable workload recognition, and sustained recruitment and retention initiatives. The paper concludes with practical recommendations to support M & amacr;ori ECRs to thrive within academia and suggests several directions for future research.
Two Asian American/immigrant motherscholars conducted a collaborative critical autoethnography to reflect on the lived experiences of their 1.5-generation sons, born in Asia and raised in the United States, from early childhood through adulthood. Their narratives uncover the complexities of cultural negotiation and identity formation faced by this often-overlooked group. Guided by the tenets of Asian Critical Theory, particularly Asianization, transnational context, and intersectionality, this study reveals how 1.5 generation young adults are juggling an in-between space, neither fully belonging to their birth cultures nor fully accepted in U.S. society. This study challenges linear models of assimilation and adds nuance to existing theoretical frameworks to better account for the fluid and transnational identities of 1.5 generation Asian Americans. Through their dual roles as immigrant mothers and scholars, the authors offer a personal and analytical lens that urges a refined understanding of this complex group.
