Understanding Identity and Lived Reality: Expanding Demographic Considerations in Educational Surveys

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 2:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Inquiries into Identity, Representation, and Power in Education

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the value of expanding demographic items collected in educational surveys, considering the lived realities of respondents from socially just lenses. We argue that the social systems in which systems of education are embedded, such as racial capitalism, shape and impact the lived realities of students. Collecting additional information on these lived realities can help us actively construct more socially just educational systems. For example, in our context, an engineering college within a very high Hispanic-enrolling public university, we demonstrate collecting detailed information on aspects of students’ lived realities, including living situation, commuting, and income and employment. This provides us with information that is actionable as we strive to construct a socially just system of higher education.

Authors

• Corin Bowen, California State University - Los Angeles

• Nicolas Rabb, California State University - Los Angeles

• Lizabeth Thompson, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo

• Eva Schoirring, STEMEVAL

• Gustavo Menezes, California State University - Los Angeles

• Michael Ibrahim, California State University - Los Angeles

• Yilin Feng, California State University - Los Angeles

• Kenya Mejia, San Francisco State University