Critical race quantitative intersections: a testimonio analysis

Abstract

The educational pipeline has become a commonly referenced depiction of educational outcomes for racialized groups across the country. While visually impactful, an overreliance on decontextualized quantitative data often leads to majoritarian interpretations. Without sociohistorical contexts, these interpretations run the risk of perpetuating culturally deficit ideologies about the causes that produce and reproduce these outcomes. In using an analysis grounded in Critical Race Quantitative Intersectionality (CRQI), this article contextualizes the educational pipeline from preschool to the professoriate through a mixed methods approach that fuses quantitative data with testimonio, a qualitative bridge to center knowledge and agency – as individuals and as a collective – in the quest for social change. This CRQI + T analysis begins with a review of educational outcome data for California and is informed by testimonios to contextualize the authors’ lived experiences within institutions shaped by the legacy of white supremacy and resistance to it.