A Critical Analysis of Quantitative Research and Pacific Islanders

• In Event: 35.072 - Reflecting on the P in REAPA: Education Research on (and for) Pacific Islanders

Abstract

As Smith (2012) writes, to indigenous communities in the Pacific, the word “research” is one of the dirtiest words, evoking memories of imperialism and colonialism (p. 1). However, compelling quantitative data and empirical research can provide powerful information about communities (Walter & Anderson, 2013). Thus, tensions exist between using research, particularly quantitative data and analysis, to advance oppressed group’s goals versus reflecting dominant institutional structures and inequities. Furthermore, research addressing the needs of Pacific Islanders is scant (Museus & Chang, 2009). This paper discusses two ways in which conventional educational research and methods contribute to the marginality of PIs. The two major challenges reviewed are: (a) the availability and quality of data and (b) statistical approaches that render PI populations nearly invisible in educational research. I conclude with two methodological approaches or frameworks that can potentially address these issues: (a) Indigenous statistics and (b) critical quantitative research.

First, I discuss the data challenges that exist regarding accessing reliable and robust data regarding Pacific Islanders (National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education, 2013). I review what data is available to describe PI experience and the promises and limits of such data (Panapasa, Crabbe, & Kaholokula, 2011).

Second, I discuss two common statistical approaches to the handling of Pacific Islander sample sizes in quantitative models (Panapasa & McNally, 2009). I refer to these as the “combine” and the “ignore.” I review studies in education where PI students are explicitly combined or aggregated with other groups, most notably Asian Americans or other amorphous categories such as other/unknowns. Drawing on previous literature on the treatment of race as a category and variable (O'Connor, Lewis & Mueller, 2007), I discuss potential problems that can arise from this categorization relative to the identity and experiences of Pacific Islanders. I also demonstrate examples of research where Pacific Islander experience is ignored through the exclusion of PI students from analyses.

As a response to these issues, I review two potential quantitative approaches that can address the needs of Pacific Islander populations: Indigenous statistics and critical quantitative research. According to Walter and Anderson (2013), Indigenous statistics begins with the assumption that “statistics do not just describe reality—they create it” (p. 9). Recognizing that quantitative data and analysis reflect the dominant cultural framework of their context, Indigenous quantitative research centers the role of indigeneity in epistemological and methodological practices (Walter & Anderson, 2013).

This perspective of Indigenous statistics is relevant to the Pacific Islander population given the colonial nature of incorporation of Pacific land into U.S.-affiliation. However, “Pacific Islander” as a socially constructed racial category also provides an opportunity for understanding populations and methods. The second approach I review is what I term critical quantitative research (Covarrubias & Velez, 2013; Teranishi, 2007). Drawing from the tenets of critical race theory, or a theory that centers race, racism, and power in social relations such as education, critical quantitative research incorporates these ideas into data collection, analysis and representation (Covarrubias, 2011; Covarrubias & Velez, 2013).

Author

• Jenna Sablan, Georgetown University