The unexamined power and prejudice embedded within technologies and societies has led to direct harm to individuals of color, minoritized groups, and the US ideal of a multi-racial democracy. Rather than an accident of AI or a "glitch" of the system, these inequities highlight the invisible and oppressive architecture -- a "New Jim…

Challenges in the measurement of racial disparities in school discipline are a significant barrier to identifying policy and programmatic reforms that are effective at closing gaps. This article reviews key measurement issues and presents a set of empirical analyses as an illustrative case study. Specifically, we reframe the interpretation of…

Even as the U.S. education system becomes more ethnically and racially diverse, many racial disparities persist with regard to school segregation, educational resources, and ultimately educational outcomes. These disparities harm students individually and have significant societal impacts as well, including economic consequences. Educational…

Every student deserves to be seen, included, understood, and celebrated. For that to happen, teachers need to be culturally competent. Cultural competence is best built through reflecting on and discussing real-world experiences. Classroom vignettes support this difficult but important work. This article shares three fictional classroom vignettes…

In this article Tiffany Wu, Adriana Villavicencio, and Verenisse Ponce Soria investigate how Asian American parents define and understand diversity and explore how racial attitudes influence parents' school choices. Drawing on a broader study of a school choice policy designed to reduce racial segregation in a large, urban school district, the…

Test score outcomes continue to be disparate between races. Districts continue to face uneven funding with so-called urban districts receiving less than their so-called suburban counterparts (Morgan & Amerikaner, 2018). Students with diagnosed disabilities, those whose families are experiencing measures of economic distress, and those adding…

Background/Context: This study contributes to the theoretical development of Critical Race Theory and further advances its potential as a causal model for education policy analyses. Critical Race Theorists study the impact of American law and policies via critical social structures and resource allocations to test how they uphold white supremacy.…

Although numerous studies document different forms of discrimination in the U.S. public education system, very few provide plausibly causal estimates. Thus, it is unclear to what extent public school principals discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities. Moreover, no studies test for heterogeneity in racial/ethnic discrimination by…

Equity work can be deeply personal and may include unlearning and shifting individual biases, beliefs, and practices. This paper builds on the premise that ongoing self-reflection in equity work is critical, as failing to attend to this internal work may result in education leaders reinforcing the very systems they are seeking to disrupt. And yet,…

The criminalization of school discipline and its resulting consequences for students, particularly students of color, has been widely studied. While results from previous research have shown racial and gender differences in punitive school experiences like suspension, school-based arrest, and school-based referrals to juvenile justice systems,…

Black educators, especially Black women, face unique challenges when transitioning from teacher to leader in K-12 settings (Tran et al., 2023). Despite some existing research, there is still a lack of understanding how Black women can successfully navigate this transition. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to close this gap in the…

This dissertation investigated the racial bias and discrimination perceived by self-identified Black teachers in international schools. The literature starts with a historical account of the racial prejudice and discrimination in the United States toward Black teachers and the founding of the first schools in North America, Asia, Africa, South…

The current study leveraged comprehensive data from a large school district to better understand the degree to which disproportional representation in gifted education can be explained by mean assessment score differences across racial and socioeconomic groups. The findings indicate that after controlling for nonverbal ability, cognitive ability,…

Drawing on experiential, literary and historical narratives, this article connects the long history shaping the school-to-prison-pipeline to the contemporary experiences of Black youth in today's educational system. It maps abolitionism from its origins as a movement to end slavery through the ongoing Black freedom struggles that have challenged…

District "equity director" (ED) roles have grown rapidly over the past decade. Drawing on interviews and surveys with over 70 EDs across nearly 30 states, this study documents dramatic ED role growth from 2018 to 2022 specifically and examines why, according to EDs, such roles were established locally. Findings, drawing on scholarship on…