Conceptualizing Critical Race Coding: An Approach for Applying Critical Race Theory in Educational Research

• In Event: "Countering the Violence of Abstraction": Advancing the Tools of Critical Race Studies for Educational Research

Abstract

Objectives & Research Questions
This paper addresses how critical race theory (CRT) can inform codes and coding in the qualitative data analytic process. The objectives of this paper are twofold: 1) to offer tools for applications of CRT at the analysis stages of research and 2) to conceptualize Critical Race Coding as a necessary extension of critical race methodology. The research questions guiding this study asks: How do critical race theorists apply CRT in their data analysis? In what ways do our epistemologies inform a critical race analysis? Building off AERA’s theme, this paper describes a “thoughtful and innovative approach” to methods to understand the role of race and racism within and across data analyses.

Theory
The study utilizes frameworks including: critical race methodology (Parker & Lynn, 2002; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), Ethnic studies frameworks (Tintiangco-Cubales, et al., 2015), Portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2016), and decolonial methodologies (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Trask, 1999) to offer what the author is calling “Critical Race Coding.” These frameworks and decolonial methodologies asserts the need to illuminate interlocking systems of power relative to race and racism, the coloniality of research on Communities of Color, and the inherent “damage centered” tendencies of research premised upon neutrality and objectivity. Together this assemblage encourages interdisciplinary approaches to research informing how we might better engage the analytical energies of critical race theory in qualitative research.

Methods/Source
“Critical race coding” emerged from conversations between a team of researchers working in a university setting about how one applies CRT for research analysis. Data were derived from focus group interviews with pre and in service teachers working in urban public schools. Teachers were selected because of their participation in an Ethnic Studies and social justice teacher preparation program. Prior to completing data collection, the research team reflected on our epistemologies, relationships to and understandings of critical race studies, and experiences with racialization. We then immersed ourselves in two bodies of literature: critical race methodologies in education and critical qualitative research. Supplementary data included written reflections from teachers’ application of critical race coding.

Findings
This study expands the work around critical race methodologies by theorizing critical race coding. Critical race coding process involves: 1) CRT Tenets as code and context; 2) Shared understanding of the intentionality of the study; 3) Researchers’ commitments to social justice; 4); Acknowledgement of what’s not there; and 5) Activating researchers’ epistemological and intersectional intuition. Critical race coding demonstrates how educational researchers’ analysis must involve explicit and intentional interrogations of power, specifically: white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, imperialism, and ableism.

Significance
At a political moment when an unrelenting white supremacy proliferates, it is now more urgent to identify an arsenal of tools to harness and strengthen critical race methodologies. Such a framework is significant as it provides new insights for: 1) How researchers can apply CRT to their analysis and 2) Ways professors of research methods can support students on the utility and application of CRT in analyses and across a variety of learning spaces.

Author

• Edward R. Curammeng, California State University - Dominguez Hills