Dismantling or Disguising Racialization?: Defining Racialized Change Work in Postsecondary Education

Abstract

Grantmaking organizations (GMOs) are critical actors influencing education systems, public policy, and its administration. We position the work of GMOs—in the distribution and management of funds for the public good—as a form of public management. Using recent work on racialized organizations from sociology, critical theories of race, and institutional theory, we address the role of GMO’s in dismantling or reproducing inequalities. In doing so we develop a new construct—racialized change work—to refer to the purposive action that organizations take to build new, equitable organizational arrangements or tear down old, inequitable ones. We develop quantifiable and testable propositions for how racialized change work might spread (engagement), how it might stick (institutionalization), and what effects it may have on producing equitable outcomes (impact). We build these propositions in the context of GMOs in U.S. higher education policy and demonstrate their portability across areas of public policy and administration. We conclude with a discussion of our contributions back to the theories from which we draw and their relationship to public administration.