Anti-racist Research Research Articles

Analytic racecraft: Race-based averages create illusory group differences in perceptions of racism.

Research practices used by social scientists to understand and dismantle the psychological foundations that uphold racist hierarchies can backfire when they rely on racecraft. Racecraft ideology assumes the reality of race(s), an assumption that shapes study designs and inferences to the detriment of theoretical and practical goals. I showcase how racecraft manifests in studies seeking to quantify how perceptions of sociopolitical stimuli differ across racialized perceivers (e.g., black, white, latinx). The typical analysis for quantifying perceptions focuses on comparing group averages, which assumes the existence of discrete "races" whose perceptions can be sufficiently summarized by averages. Across three studies, I used variance component analyses on racism ratings of anti-immigrant tweets from differently racialized perceivers (N = 1,211) to show there was much larger disagreement than agreement within race categories, even when there were average differences in perceptions across race categories. This analysis shows how analytic practices can bolster different assumptions about the nature of race, some of which reify the illusion that race categories are stable cohesive groups. Researchers can improve their analytic inferences and avoid producing race-reifying caricatures of peoples' perceptions by adding variance mapping to their toolkits and attending to racialization as a dynamic process-needed improvements within the psychological study of race and racism, group-based beliefs, and antiracist research endeavors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Actively changing the narrative: An exploration of culturally grounded parenting and social skills.

Recognizing culturally salient aspects of socialization practices and understanding how these practices support culturally valued aspects of development is an integral component in conducting anti-racist research and validating the lived experiences of minoritized families. With this aim, we explored how Active Direction, an observational rating of an African American approach to parenting measured during mother-child interactions at age 2.5 (n=172), supported social skills and emotion regulation for children living in a Southwestern metropolitan area of the United States concurrently, in kindergarten (n=109), and in 1st grade (n=108). Descriptive findings indicated few significant associations between Active Direction and socials skills or emotion regulation. Exploratory analyses, which included traditional parenting behavior measures of Sensitivity and Intrusiveness, also indicated limited significant relations between any measure of parenting and child skills. However, moderation analyses indicated that high levels of Active Direction attenuated the effects of sensitivity on aspects of child social skills. The lack of significant findings across the current study highlight how extant measures-of child social skills and parentings behaviors-are not performing as expected within these African American families.

Using an anti-racist research framework to design studies of oral human papillomavirus and oropharyngeal cancer in San Francisco: rationale and protocol for the Health Equity and Oral Health in People living with HIV (HEOHP) qualitative study

IntroductionThe goal of our research programme is to develop culturally appropriate patient-specific interventions for primary and secondary prevention of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) among people living with HIV...

Community-Led Solutions: How Local Organizing Committees Drive Change for Housing and Health Equity in California’s Central Valley

In this research brief, we describe how the HOPe Lab (UC Merced), Faith in the Valley (Fresno), and Cultiva Central Valley (Merced) are collaborating to address housing-related disparities within California’s culturally diverse Central Valley. Focused on the transformative role of Local Organizing Committees (LOCs), our research employs an anti-racist research praxis to actively engage residents, enhance leadership capacity, and foster communication between residents and elected officials. Drawing on several theory-of-change statements and the practical insights gained from “field experts” carrying out ongoing initiatives, this report explores the positive impact of LOCs on meaningful community involvement, empowerment, engagement, accountability, and policy changes.

Commentary on the Racialized Experiences of Asian Americans and Implications for Anti-Racist Research

Commentary on the Racialized Experiences of Asian Americans and Implications for Anti-Racist Research

White Racial Framing and White Supremacy Culture in STEM Education: Experiences of Students with Minoritized Identities of Sexuality and/or Gender

Whiteness is prevalent in higher education and therefore permeates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. While research shows STEM’s long history of exclusion and marginalization in higher education (Ong et al., 2011), there has been limited research on the ways students with minoritized identities of sexuality and/or gender (MIOSG) in STEM interact with systems of dominance, such as whiteness. Using white supremacy culture (Okun, 2021; Okun Jones, 2001) and the white racial frame (Feagin, 2010) as sensitizing concepts, this paper explores how students with MIoSG are situated in relation to systems of whiteness and white racial dominance in STEM learning spaces. Our findings included three emergent categories: color-evasiveness, desiring diversity in STEM, and the simultaneous invisibility and hypervisibility of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in STEM. Findings illuminated the complex ways BIPOC and white students with MIoSG experienced and thought about whiteness and white supremacy in STEM. Data point to the need for intentional anti-racist research, policy, and practice in STEM learning spaces.

Supporting Law School DEI Initiatives through Library Guides: Building a Better Experience for Implementing an Anti-Racist 1L Curriculum

This research investigated the anti-racist research guides of several law schools to determine whether they included pedagogical, faculty training and mental health resources for their law school populations. These issues are important to law schools that are altering their curriculum due to recent ABA-mandated changes. The findings suggest that many schools are providing material for pedagogical resources but not including mental health resources that may be helpful to law faculty, administrators, staff, and students who may need support through these changes. There is also an opportunity to improve the selection of training resources provided.

Anti-Chinese Racism and the Structure of White Supremacy: An Anti-essentialist Antiracist Perspective on Canadian History

Racisms are among the social structures that shaped Canada’s past and are shaping Canada’s present. Anti-essentialist antiracism accounts for these structures by recognizing that there are many different racisms, but all racisms meet conditions of racialization, of the organization of racializations into exclusions, and of the enactment of negative consequences on the excluded. These conditions lead to strategies for antiracist research, which are key to rebuilding the linkages between people that racisms destroy. This paper builds a theoretically informed argument while examining the historical and present-day experiences of Chinese Canadians. Engaging with present-day realities, moving beyond common-sense explanations that individualize racism, and building on the sources of the racialized and excluded make evident the structure of racism. Chinese language sources document the “apartheiding” of Canada and its effects. They also enable the dialogical re-reading of dominant sources to pinpoint moments of organizing this structure into the world. Today, historically produced cultural narratives and the cultural landscapes of modern cities mark those racialized as Chinese as people who either do not belong or whose presence needs explanation. These narratives and landscapes are the products of the anti-Chinese racism that was built into the settler colonialism that made Canada.

Interrogating whiteness: Critical reflections on occupational science scholarship and social responsibility

ABSTRACT This paper interrogates the obscurity of whiteness and white supremacy as a system of thought and white racialization as a social process influencing habits of inquiry in occupational science research. By attending to the relationships between whiteness, white supremacy, and occupation, occupational science scholars can critically engage in research that dismantles harmful societal understandings of occupation within their science and in society-at-large. This social responsibility further requires occupational science scholars to initiate anti-racist research and scholarship that actively seeks undoing normalized structural racism by taking up critical theories authored by theorists of Color. Doing so offers alternate ways of conceptualizing human doing, thinking, being, knowing, becoming, and belonging pertinent to people across racialized identities. Critical epistemologies and research approaches, such as critical participatory action research, hold potential for the discipline to ethically produce anti-racist research applicable to diverse populations. However, whiteness must be attended to and deconstructed throughout research processes.

Antiracism in appreciative inquiry: Generative tensions and collective reflexivity.

Appreciative inquiry is an action research methodology focused on revealing an organization's positive core. As a cross-racial team of antiracist researchers, we were drawn to appreciative inquiry due to its congruences with community-based research perspectives on power-sharing and co-constructing knowledge. Our collaborative reflexivity brought us to question whether Appreciative inquiry's hyper-focus on positivity would fit our antiracist research paradigm. We articulate reflections of how antiracism theory informed our approach to Appreciative inquiry in a study on the experiences of predominantly racialized settlement workers in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explain how we negotiated tensions between Appreciative inquiry's focus on positivity and our antiracist framing, in a Canadian settler colonial context where institutional expectations to ignore racism and collapse diversity, loom large. Without a theoretical framework that attends to racism and power, Appreciative inquiry may not fulsomely address participants' transnational knowledges, nor experiences outside of a positive/negative binary. In our elucidation of how critical reflexivity on racism allowed us to integrate antiracism into Appreciative inquiry, we demonstrate the value of first-person action research for expanding the social justice aims of research.

Anti-racist research practice partnerships as critical education: dismantling the master’s house with their own tools?

ABSTRACT This paper reflects upon “Justice Now Coalition” (JNC), an anti-racist research practice partnership (RPP). The Coalition drew from the Black Emancipatory Action Research (BEAR) Framework as well as Black feminist, Afro-futurist, and critical race epistemologies to answer two research questions: 1) How can an urban education RPP that includes academic, community, and youth partners engage in a collaborative inquiry process that helps to dismantle the STPP/Nexus; and 2) How does engagement in the collaborative inquiry process influence research projects, group dynamics, and community members? We present a self-reflective, ethnographic case study of an anti-racist RPP that we led. We find that the collaborative inquiry teams’ primary way to dismantle the STPP/Nexus is to center Black children. They approached their work not from a policy change perspective, but in the co-creation of a space where Black youth speak, are heard, and take the agency to reimagine and reconstruct their school environment. Data also show the leadership of Black women who collaborated with partners with the intentionality of demonstrating love and critical care for Black communities. This work extends the vision of RPPs to be explicitly anti-racist and decolonizing by engaging in an Afro-futurist space in the present.

Acculturation and resilience of immigrant-origin youth: Do their school experiences reflect nonimmigrants' "native supremacy"?

The successful integration of immigrant-origin youth is a highly important issue for multiple stakeholders in many countries. It has important benefits both to countries of destination and countries of origin, as well as to immigrants and nonimmigrants. In this article, I examine immigrant-youth adaptation through the lens of a recently developed resilience model integrating acculturation and social psychological influences on adaptation. Who among immigrant-origin youth adapt well, academically, and socially, in the Greek school context? What is the role of acculturation in immigrant youth resilience? These questions are addressed using scientific evidence drawn from the Athena Studies of Resilient Adaptation (AStRA) project, a three-cohort, three-wave longitudinal project on immigrant-origin youth adaptation conducted in Greece, as well as from the international literature. Following an anti-racist research approach to understanding the AstRA findings, I will argue that the lived school experiences of immigrant-origin youth may be a reflection of societal-level xenophobic and anti-immigrant attitudes. Such systemic and structural racism is the key determinant of the difficulties they face in their adaptation. The findings presented reveal the need to promote an equitable and inclusive education that will be beneficial for all students promoting their well-being, and their sense of belonging to school and society.

Anti-Racist Research Methods in Sport-Based Youth Development

In this article, we examine the process of conducting anti-racist research in Sport for Development, specifically Sport-Based Youth Development programs in the United States. We acknowledge that participatory methods have been both identified and problematized as approaches to challenge the racialized experiences of youth. We share examples of attempts at Youth Participatory Action Research utilized across six previously unpublished projects. Through sharing our efforts to co-create environments with youth to produce changes impacting their development, we provide insight on our experiences and shortcomings. Finally, we conclude with implications for the field of Sport for Development, and youth-focused scholars, on deconstructing contexts that preserve and privilege whiteness.

Conducting Ethical, Antiracist Mental Health Research with Children and Adolescents

ABSTRACT The prevalence of mental health challenges in the United States continues to rise in children and adolescents. Despite increasing rates, mental health treatment utilization remains low, particularly for youth of color. Considering the experiences of oppression, racism, and discrimination against youth of color, coupled with systematic inequalities illuminated by COVID, mental health risks are further exacerbated. These factors highlight the need for mental health interventions that address the unique experiences of minoritized children and adolescents. Because research informs practice, it is essential for researchers to work toward dismantling oppression through antiracist research. Thus, this article provides guidelines and considerations for conducting antiracist mental health research with youth of color.

Conducting Ethical, Antiracist School-Based Research

ABSTRACT Educational research is conducted within an oppressive educational system, steeped in White, Eurocentric norms rooted in racism. To counter this oppressive approach to research, we critically examine historically oppressive research approaches and provide strategies for conducting strong, ethical, antiracist research that exposes inequity while illustrating practices that benefit all students, especially those from racially marginalized populations.

Antiracist Research and Practice for Environmental Health: Implications for Community Engagement.

Communities who experience disproportionate environmental exposures and associated adverse health outcomes have long been aware of, and worked to draw attention to, the role of racism in shaping those risks. A growing number of researchers are focusing on racism as a fundamental driver of racial inequities in environmental health. Importantly, several research and funding institutions have publicly committed to addressing structural racism within their organizations. These commitments highlight structural racism as a social determinant of health. They also invite reflection on antiracist approaches to community engagement in environmental health research. We discuss strategies for taking more explicitly antiracist approaches to community engagement in environmental health research. Antiracist (as opposed to nonracist, color-blind, or race-neutral) frameworks entail thinking or acting in ways that explicitly question, analyze, and challenge policies and practices that produce or sustain inequities between racial groups. Community engagement is not inherently antiracist. There are, however, opportunities for extending antiracist approaches when engaging communities who are disproportionately harmed by environmental exposures. Those opportunities include a) promoting leadership and decision-making power by representatives from harmed communities, b) centering community priorities in identifying new research areas, and c) translating research into action by applying knowledge from multiple sources to disrupt policies and practices that create and sustain environmental injustices. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP11384.

Introduction to the Special Section: Developing Antiracist Research From Research Questions to Dissemination

This article introduces a special section of the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research devoted to the development and dissemination of antiracist research. Antiracist research is defined as systematic theorizing, inquiry, intervention development, and program implementation that exposes, rejects, dismantles, and/or remedies racism, colonialism, antisemitism, and xenophobia with the goal of promoting racial justice. Although the social work profession values social justice and acknowledges racial inequities, there is a paucity of critical discourse and scholarship on antiracism. Based on a 2021 Society for Social Work and Research preconference session, this special section describes conceptual models, antiracism interventions, methodological strategies, and recommendations for antiracist research. Articles include critical discourse on current evidence and methodologies used in antiracist research, challenges to sustaining antiracist practices in academia, dismantling white supremacy, and the implementation of antiracist principles in social work research. This special section also includes recommendations for developing and disseminating antiracist research, supporting underrepresented scholars, and retaining social work researchers who conduct antiracist research. The conceptual models, methodologies, and recommendations proposed are instrumental to developing and sustaining an antiracist research agenda in social work. Acknowledging our power, privilege, and positionality is critical to authentically advancing antiracism in social work research.

Centering Indigenous Research & Communities in Advancing Antiracist Research

Previous articleNext article No AccessCentering Indigenous Research & Communities in Advancing Anti-Racist ResearchKatie Schultz and Michael S. SpencerKatie Schultz Search for more articles by this author and Michael S. Spencer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research Just Accepted Published for the Society for Social Work and Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/720500 Views: 88Total views on this site HistoryAccepted April 06, 2022 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Developing Antiracist Research to Address Racial/Ethnic Health and Socioeconomic Inequities: Conceptual Frameworks That Guide Equity

The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who have been historically marginalized and oppressed. Race is a fundamental determinant of many outcomes that are prioritized by the field. Social work’s commitment to social justice and efforts to advance racial equity in critical areas such as socioeconomics and health are especially salient at this social and political moment in history. To meaningfully advance equity, social work researchers and practitioners must account for and explicitly address legacies of racism. To this end, this paper proposes that social work researchers consider the use of two theoretical frameworks—fundamental cause theory and critical race theory—that provide a conceptual framing of racism and socioeconomic status, which may be used to guide research and practice efforts to disrupt systems of racial oppression.

An Antiracist Research Framework: Principles, Challenges, and Recommendations for Dismantling Racism Through Research

Previous articleNext article No AccessAn antiracist research framework: Principles, challenges, and recommendations for dismantling racism through researchTrenette Clark Goings, Faye Z. Belgrave, Maghboeba Mosavel, and Caroline B. R. EvansTrenette Clark Goings Search for more articles by this author , Faye Z. Belgrave Search for more articles by this author , Maghboeba Mosavel Search for more articles by this author , and Caroline B. R. Evans Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research Just Accepted Published for the Society for Social Work and Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/720983 Views: 149Total views on this site HistoryAccepted May 07, 2022 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.