Methodological Interest Convergence: Research Site Anonymity's Maintenance of Structural Racism

• In Event: Convergences: Locating Advocacy and Justice

Abstract

Anonymity is an unquestioned norm within educational research, yet few scholars have theorized how this methodological standard reaffirms racialized oppression. This practice is critical to question given the presiding mismatch between the rhetoric and practice of diversity within academic communities. Using interest convergence as a critical race framework, this paper argues anonymity as a practice allowing the interests of both the institution and research participants to converge, thereby limiting substantive and conceptual gains that could be made by naming institutions and the racism that manifests within them. Anonymity, then, serves as a normalized tool to reaffirm structural racism and prioritize the interests of predominantly white institutions. I conclude by offering limitations and additional methodological points of consideration.

Author

• Michael Wade Moses, University of California - Riverside