Utilizing Critical Race Theory to Reframe Analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey for Communities of Color

• In Event: 18.043 - Using Critical Race Theory to Extend Methodological Inquiry in the Field of Education Research

Abstract

Drawing from a study that utilizes 5-year estimates of the U.S. American Community Survey (ACS) data complied by the U.S. Census Bureau to explore occupational and educational attainment in communities of color, we explain how the use of CRT to analyze such large-scale datasets can reframe dominant understandings of occupational attainment. This paper elucidates how Critical Race Theory (CRT) in education can be used to reframe dominant analyses of “value” and degree attainment. For example, some studies utilize economic performance measures (i.e. ROI, or Return on Investment) to determine whether or not a college degree is worth the monetary investment a student makes to earn a degree, over one’s lifetime (PayScale, 2016). Similarly, ROI models are used to measure the status of occupations in the U.S., such as the Duncan Index. We employ CRT and quantitative analyses to challenge the dominant discourse of (1) the “value” of postsecondary education and (2) occupational types where Latinas/os and African Americans are overrepresented.
We utilize Critical Race Theory (CRT) to analyze patterns of educational attainment and occupational outcomes for People of Color. Specifically, we utilize the work of Gloria-Ladson Billings (2006) on educational debt that explains the “historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral components” of debt are necessary to the critical examination of educational attainment (and gaps that exists) between racial/immigrant groups and whites (Ladson-Billings, 2006). We discuss how this framework can be used to assess the ways in which this debt continues to manifest post-graduation, and explore the limitations of occupational categories defined by market-driven “values.” The use of CRT to deconstruct debt and the continued appropriation of the "resource gap” calls for creating new understandings of the underlying institutional and structural manifestations of racism that are deeply embedded within dominant discourses of meritocracy and economic capital. We engage in a descriptive statistical analysis of professional occupation and baccalaureate attainment across major racial and ethnic groups using 5-year estimates of the U.S. American Community Survey (ACS) data complied by the U.S. Census Bureau.
By using CRT as an analytical framework to (re)frame the discourse on degree attainment, we advance conceptualizations of postsecondary degree value across multiple communities and contexts. Specifically, we offer a counter-index to Duncan, one that measures occupational worthiness based on a job’s commitment to social justice, that can be used to better explain the significance of higher education for Students of Color. Furthermore, we extend the reach of CRT into a critique of post-positive quantitative methods in order to challenge common sense understandings of numerical data as void of racial and cultural biases.

Authors

• Lindsay Perez Huber, California State University - Long Beach

• Veronica Nelly Velez, Western Washington University

• Daniel Gilbert Solorzano, University of California - Los Angeles