Conducting Race-Focused Survey Research in the P–20 System During the Anti-Woke Political Revolt

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Our session has an explicit focus on President Howard’s theme of “Dismantling Racial Injustice Across P-20 Systems” https://www.aera.net/Events-Meetings/Annual Meeting/2023-Annual-Meeting-Presidential-Program-Theme. The session is designed to describe central imperatives associated with developing and validating a survey about educators’ reported knowledge, beliefs, and mindsets about race, racism, and racial justice practices. The session brings together a team comprised of researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds and institutions who have obtained grant funding to develop and validate a survey. As Leaders for Equity in Educational Development (hereinafter “We LEED”), our research team is developing a race-focused survey and collecting data from diverse participants across different regions of the United States (US) during a time when legislative and governing powers are attacking racial justice-policies and practices. Attacks on racial justice work has become generally known as the “anti-woke” movement. Specifically, the papers in this presidential session are designed to address interrelated dilemmas, challenges, and solutions the team encountered in the process of survey development and implementation during this socio-politically charged time. These dilemmas, challenges, and solutions are

primarily those that we describe as imperatives across the papers and center on
● definitional imperatives – we are learning how to address the variations in how people conceptualize, name, and understand central constructs and terms on the survey such as race and racism;
● demographic imperatives – we are working to identify a range of participants for the study. These demographic data include areas such as race, years in education,
regional representation, subject matter expertise, and so forth;
● recruitment imperatives – as districts are increasingly being penalized for discussing race and racism, we are designing recruitment strategies that consider state policy mandates against ‘woke,’ and help us to recruit participants from diverse geographic, racial, and socio-political backgrounds;
● positionality imperative – as a diverse research team, we are striving to understand and name our positionality in the process of survey development and implementation; and
● instrumentation imperatives – our team is conducting cognitive interviews with survey participants that shed light on how participants might interpret and understand survey items in their responses.
In addition to these imperatives, we discuss the process of securing funding from a grantor to conduct racial equity research that was not part of the grantor’s original request for proposals. We’ll explain our specific approach to pursuing and securing funding for racial equity research, particularly in this anti-woke and anti-DEI socio political milieu, and how we engage our program officer in the survey development process.
Across the papers described below, several interrelated questions guide the focus of this panel: What challenges might researchers encounter in race-based research in an era of anti-wokeness? How do researchers address dilemmas and challenges, such as instrumentation development and recruitment, while constructing a race-based survey? What transferable lessons have we learned to support researchers interested in race based survey development? How do researchers build solutions that boldly confront racism and the related challenges that emerge from established literature (such as construct definitional variation) or those that are not explicitly in the literature?
We believe our race-focused survey research accurately heeds the call articulated in the 2024 AERA convention theme as we “unapologetically center race [and] racial injustice... [to build educational] spaces of emancipation, justice, and dignity.” We hope this session will be illuminating and inspiring for scholars who are perplexed or panicked about conducting race-focused survey research in an antagonistic anti-woke environment.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Sean T. Coleman, Bowie State University

Papers

• Building a Racial Equity Survey: From Conceptualization to Implementation - Dana Thompson Dorsey, Vanderbilt University; Lisa Bass, North Carolina State University; Rich Milner, Vanderbilt University

• Decision-Making Processes in Instrument Development and Implementation - Ira E. Murray, Vanderbilt University; Christopher E. Darby, ARE-LO Strategies

• We Hear You: Amplifying Participants’ Voices in Race-Focused Survey Development - Christopher E. Darby, ARE-LO Strategies; Ira E. Murray, Vanderbilt University; Jawanza Kalonji Rand, Teachers College, Columbia University; Lisa Bass, North Carolina State University; Dana Thompson Dorsey, Vanderbilt University; Rich Milner, Vanderbilt University

• Fugitive Strategies: Rac(e)ing to Recruit for Racial Equity in an Anti-Woke/DEI Era - Dena Lane-Bonds, Princeton University; Jawanza Kalonji Rand, Teachers College, Columbia University; Lonnie D. Manns, North Carolina State University; Rich Milner, Vanderbilt University

Discussant

• Gretchen Givens Generett, Duquesne University