From Doing to Publishing QuantCrit: Perspectives on Peer Review Standards for Intersectionality and Quantitative Research

• In Event: Doing Critical Quantitative Research: Methodological Commitments to Equity and Justice

Abstract

Purpose

Across multiple fields of study, researchers are working toward engaging with and applying intersectionality theory and analysis in quantitative methodological (i.e., QuantCrit) approaches to elucidate “complexities of oppression” and institutionalized structures of inequality (Harris & Patton, 2019, p. 350; see also Collins & Bilge, 2016). This paper reports findings from a survey that focused on understanding how scholars from different academic disciplines view standards for conducting, communicating, reviewing, and publishing QuantCrit studies.

Conceptual Framework

Some scholars have watched the increasing application QuantCrit in educational and social science research and expressed concern that the theory and methods may be used in ways that undermine the critical roots of intersectionality (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Harris & Patton, 2019). For instance, Harris and Patton (2019) cautioned that “intersectionality also has a ‘feel good’ aspect that may prompt researchers to misuse it without fully realizing its complexity” (p. 365). Writing from the disciplines of gender studies and psychology, Moradi and Grzanka (2017) called for researchers, reviewers, editors, and supervisors to engage as “critical participants in responsible stewardship” of intersectionality as “a field of study, as an analytical strategy or disposition, and as critical praxis for social justice” (p. 501).

Methods and Data

I used a Delphi method as part of a larger project to develop a shared interdisciplinary understanding of how QuantCrit studies ought to be carried out, reviewed, and published. Maxey and Kezar (2016) describe the Delphi technique as consisting of “the continuous engagement of participants who are knowledgeable about an issue (i.e., experts or relevant constituencies), multiple and iterative rounds of data collection, and providing participants with structured summary feedback between rounds” (p. 1048). For this paper, I focus on sharing findings from a survey that went to one dozen well-known scholars who have published QuantCrit studies from a variet of fields (e.g., education, gender studies, political science, psychology, sociology). According to Maxey and Kezar (2016), “the first survey is typically used to determine a baseline range of views and subsequent surveys help to refine views” (p. 1049). The baseline survey included items that were adapted from prior studies that examined how social science manuscripts are reviewed and reasons they are rejected (e.g., Bonjean & Hullum, 1978; Harris et al., 2011; May et al., 2021; Mustaine & Tewksbury, 2013).

Results

Survey respondents reported that, in their roles as reviewers or editorial board members, they found that manuscript authors often do not clearly describe “intersectionality.” Authors also do not consistently conceptualize and design their studies to “attend to structures, systems, and contexts of social power and inequality” in ways that are reflected throughout the various sections of their manuscripts (e.g., literature review, research questions, justification for key variables, interpretation of findings). The full version of the paper will present additional findings.

Significance

By surveying interdisciplinary scholars who were pioneers in using intersectionality theory and quantitative research, this paper offers understanding of how QuantCrit work should be done so that it meets rigorous peer review standards and successfully makes it to publication.

Author

• Frank Fernandez, University of Wisconsin - Madison