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This video gives a visual representation of what critical race theory is. Individuals across different fields also give their interpretation of the topic.

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Critical race theory: Experts break down what it actually means

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In this video, we hear from those who are for and against critical race theory. The individuals also explain what it means to them and why they have taken the stance.

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Critical Race Theory: Hear from Experts on Both Sides of the Debate

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This article seeks to "theorize race" and use that to analyze and understand inequity in schools. The authors also look at critical race theory as a part of the educational reform movement being seen as multicultural education.

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This article explains what critical race theory means. It gives a view of what individuals on both sides of the divide. It discusses efforts that have increased public awareness on issues that affect minorities.

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Is "critical race theory" a way of understanding how American racism has shaped public policy, or a divisive discourse that pits people of color against white people? Liberals and conservatives are in sharp disagreement.

In truth, the divides are not nearly as neat as they may seem. The events of the last decade have increased public awareness about things like housing segregation, the impacts of criminal justice policy in the 1990s, and the legacy of enslavement on Black Americans. But there is much less consensus on what the government's role should be in righting these past wrongs. Add children and schooling into the mix and the debate becomes especially volatile.

School boards, superintendents, even principals and teachers are already facing questions about critical race theory, and there are significant disagreements even among experts about its precise definition as well as how its tenets should inform K-12 policy and practice. This explainer is meant only as a starting point to help educators grasp core aspects of the current debate.

Just what is critical race theory anyway?

Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.

A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.

Today, those same patterns of discrimination live on through facially race-blind policies, like single-family zoning that prevents the building of affordable housing in advantaged, majority-white neighborhoods and, thus, stymies racial desegregation efforts.

CRT also has ties to other intellectual currents, including the work of sociologists and literary theorists who studied links between political power, social organization, and language. And its ideas have since informed other fields, like the humanities, the social sciences, and teacher education.

This academic understanding of critical race theory differs from representation in recent popular books and, especially, from its portrayal by critics-often, though not exclusively, conservative Republicans. Critics charge that the theory leads to negative dynamics, such as a focus on group identity over universal, shared traits; divides people into "oppressed" and "oppressor" groups; and urges intolerance.

Thus, there is a good deal of confusion over what CRT means, as well as its relationship to other terms, like "anti-racism" and "social justice," with which it is often conflated.

To an extent, the term "critical race theory" is now cited as the basis of all diversity and inclusion efforts regardless of how much it's actually informed those programs.

One conservative organization, the Heritage Foundation, recently attributed a whole host of issues to CRT, including the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, LGBTQ clubs in schools, diversity training in federal agencies and organizations, California's recent ethnic studies model curriculum, the free-speech debate on college campuses, and alternatives to exclusionary discipline-such as the Promise program in Broward County, Fla., that some parents blame for the Parkland school shootings. "When followed to its logical conclusion, CRT is destructive and rejects the fundamental ideas on which our constitutional republic is based," the organization claimed.

(A good parallel here is how popular ideas of the common core learning standards grew to encompass far more than what those standards said on paper.)

Does critical race theory say all white people are racist? Isn't that racist, too?

The theory says that racism is part of everyday life, so people-white or nonwhite-who don't intend to be racist can nevertheless make choices that fuel racism.

Some critics claim that the theory advocates discriminating against white people in order to achieve equity. They mainly aim those accusations at theorists who advocate for policies that explicitly take race into account. (The writer Ibram X. Kendi, whose recent popular book How to Be An Antiracist suggests that discrimination that creates equity can be considered anti-racist, is often cited in this context.)

Fundamentally, though, the disagreement springs from different conceptions of racism. CRT puts an emphasis on outcomes, not merely on individuals' own beliefs, and it calls on these outcomes to be examined and rectified. Among lawyers, teachers, policymakers, and the general public, there are many disagreements about how precisely to do those things, and to what extent race should be explicitly appealed to or referred to in the process.

All these different ideas grow out of longstanding, tenacious intellectual debates. Critical race theory emerged out of postmodernist thought, which tends to be skeptical of the idea of universal values, objective knowledge, individual merit, Enlightenment rationalism, and liberalism-tenets that conservatives tend to hold dear.

What does any of this have to do with K-12 education?

Scholars who study critical race theory in education look at how policies and practices in K-12 education contribute to persistent racial inequalities in education, and advocate for ways to change them. Among the topics they've studied: racially segregated schools, the underfunding of majority-Black and Latino school districts, disproportionate disciplining of Black students, barriers to gifted programs and selective-admission high schools, and curricula that reinforce racist ideas.

Critical race theory is not a synonym for culturally relevant teaching, which emerged in the 1990s. This teaching approach seeks to affirm students' ethnic and racial backgrounds and is intellectually rigorous. But it's related in that one of its aims is to help students identify and critique the causes of social inequality in their own lives.

Many educators support, to one degree or another, culturally relevant teaching and other strategies to make schools feel safe and supportive for Black students and other underserved populations. (Students of color make up the majority of school-aged children.) But they don't necessarily identify these activities as CRT-related.

As one teacher-educator put it: "The way we usually see any of this in a classroom is: 'Have I thought about how my Black kids feel? And made a space for them, so that they can be successful?' That is the level I think it stays at, for most teachers." Like others interviewed for this explainer, the teacher-educator did not want to be named out of fear of online harassment.

An emerging subtext among some critics is that curricular excellence can't coexist alongside culturally responsive teaching or anti-racist work. Their argument goes that efforts to change grading practices or make the curriculum less Eurocentric will ultimately harm Black students, or hold them to a less high standard.

As with CRT in general, its popular representation in schools has been far less nuanced. A recent poll by the advocacy group Parents Defending Education claimed some schools were teaching that "white people are inherently privileged, while Black and other people of color are inherently oppressed and victimized"; that "achieving racial justice and equality between racial groups requires discriminating against people based on their whiteness"; and that "the United States was founded on racism."

Thus much of the current debate appears to spring not from the academic texts, but from fear among critics that students-especially white students-will be exposed to supposedly damaging or self-demoralizing ideas.

While some district officials have issued mission statements, resolutions, or spoken about changes in their policies using some of the discourse of CRT, it's not clear to what degree educators are explicitly teaching the concepts, or even using curriculum materials or other methods that implicitly draw on them. For one thing, scholars say, much scholarship on CRT is written in academic language or published in journals not easily accessible to K-12 teachers.

What is going on with these proposals to ban critical race theory in schools?

The bills are so vaguely written that it's unclear what they will affirmatively cover.

Could a teacher who wants to talk about a factual instance of state-sponsored racism-like the establishment of Jim Crow, the series of laws that prevented Black Americans from voting or holding office and separated them from white people in public spaces-be considered in violation of these laws?

It's also unclear whether these new bills are constitutional, or whether they impermissibly restrict free speech.

It would be extremely difficult, in any case, to police what goes on inside hundreds of thousands of classrooms. But social studies educators fear that such laws could have a chilling effect on teachers who might self-censor their own lessons out of concern for parent or administrator complaints.

The laws could also become a tool to attack other pieces of the curriculum, including ethnic studies and "action civics"-an approach to civics education that asks students to research local civic problems and propose solutions.

How is this related to other debates over what's taught in the classroom amid K-12 culture wars?

The charge that schools are indoctrinating students in a harmful theory or political mindset is a longstanding one, historians note. CRT appears to be the latest salvo in this ongoing debate.

In history, the debates have focused on the balance among patriotism and American exceptionalism, on one hand, and the country's history of exclusion and violence towards Indigenous people and the enslavement of African Americans on the other-between its ideals and its practices. Those tensions led to the implosion of a 1994 attempt to set national history standards.

The culture wars are always, at some level, battled out within schools, historians say.

"It's because they're nervous about broad social things, but they're talking in the language of school and school curriculum," said one historian of education. "That's the vocabulary, but the actual grammar is anxiety about shifting social power relations."

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What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?

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Here's what you need to understand about the academic concept-and how it's portrayed in political circles.

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The Education Department was accused of misappropriating funds that were allocated for Covid relief. They were accused of using the funds for efforts to promote critical race theory.

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EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans are launching an investigation into the Department of Education for allegedly allowing COVID-19 relief funds to pay for "racially biased" and other far-left programs in public schools.

House Committee on Oversight and Reform ranking member James Comer, R-Ky., and Education and Labor Committee ranking member Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., led a series of letters signed by 30 GOP lawmakers and sent Wednesday afternoon to Education Department Secretary Miguel Cardona and others.

"Republicans are investigating the use of COVID-19 relief dollars appropriated for virus mitigation and the safe reopening of schools," the lawmakers said in their letter. "Based on recent reports, the Department of Education is allowing Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and related COVID relief funds to pay for racially biased and other progressive leftist programs."

They state that Congress allotted $13.2 billion in the CARES Act and $54.3 billion in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, which were intended to enable schools to reopen safely after the pandemic and assess learning loss.
COTTON PRESSES CARDONA ON TEACHERS UNION LETTER URGING SOCIAL MEDIA TO STIFLE OPPOSITION TO CRT

An additional $122 billion was provided under the American Rescue Plan, President Biden's signature legislation, for school reopening and to "address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Nation's students."

However, Republican lawmakers say that instead of using ESSER funds to address learning loss, some states, including California, New York and Illinois, are using those funds to "push progressive left causes."

The congressmen cite how California allegedly used ESSER funds for "LGBTQ+ cultural competency" trainings, New York used $9 billion to fund "equity warriors" development, and Illinois used over $5 billion to make "equity driven investments."

The lawmakers also accuse at least 10 other states of having plans that include a "proposal to use the ESSER funds to implement racially biased curriculum and programs based on Critical Race Theory."

One Republican committee aide told Fox News Digital that despite there being no meaningful guardrails in the legislation, the use of the funds for equity and diversity falls outside of the law's intended purpose, which was to reopen schools and make up for lost learning.

The COVID relief legislation does include a final catchall provision allowing spending on "other activities necessary to maintain the operation of a continuity of services in local education agencies," which do not mention any certain trainings or curriculum.

Republicans are demanding all documents and communications related to the use of ESSER funds being used toward critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion and other racially biased trainings or programs, according to the letter.

The letters were sent to Cardona, Education Department Inspector General Sandra Bruce, New York State Department of Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Carmen Ayala, and California Department of Education Superintendent of Public Instruction and Director of Education Tony Thurmond.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education called the investigation a "partisan political attack."

"This is an absurd partisan political attack. COVID relief dollars were used to safely re-open schools and are currently being used to provide necessary academic and mental health supports and address equity issues to help students and families most impacted by the pandemic," said the spokesperson.

"The Department of Education has encouraged states to use ESSER funds for these purposes, and states and schools have done so all across the country, including in these members' districts, despite the fact they voted against these critical school re-opening and recovery funds."

Maria Clayton, director of the communications division for the California Department of Education called the investigation "factually inaccurate" and said the agency will be clarifying the use of the funds with the members of Congress on the letter.

"It is factually inaccurate that federal funds were used for that purpose. No federal ESSER dollars were spent in that way," she told Fox News Digital.

"I understand that these types of documents can be long and dense, but it is important not to misread or misconstrue this information or to perpetuate misinterpretations," Clayton continued. "What California has done is to spend federal COVID-19 recovery funds on mitigation measures and ways to help students recover from the pandemic. We have spent this money to mitigate learning loss-- with tutoring, after school and summer programming-- on mental health counselors and wellness programs for students and on ways to keep students connected with tablets and Wi-Fi hot spots."

The New York State Department of Education did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.

The Illinois Department of Education confirmed that it used COVID-19 relief money for "equity" initiatives and that it is "troubling" that the Republicans are criticizing their action.

"Yes, equity drives all of our investments, especially our investments of federal pandemic relief funds into high-impact tutoring, closing the digital divide, summer and afterschool programs, and mental health community partnerships," responded Jackie Matthews, executive director of communications for the Illinois State Board of Education.

"Equity means providing all schools with the funding and supports they need for all students to meet high expectations -- which is a strange and troubling thing to see anyone criticize," she continued."

Cardona has previously denied that critical race theory is being taught in K-12 schools.

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House Republicans investigate Education Dept for allegedly using COVID relief to fund critical race theory

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EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans are launching an investigation into the Department of Education for allegedly allowing COVID-19 relief funds to pay for "racially biased" and other far-left programs in public schools.

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This NY Times piece gives the views of various teachers about critical race theory. Some teachers are of the view that it is not their place to teach students history related to slavery. Others think that all history is American history as well as they are not teaching critical race theory, but teaching students about American history, however complex it may be.

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Kassie Bracken, Mark Boyer, Jacey Fortin, Rebecca Lieberman and Noah ThroopAug. 17, 2022

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What’s Actually Being Taught in History Class (Published 2022)

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Schools across the country have been caught up in spirited debates over what students should learn about United States history. We talked to seven social studies teachers about how they run their classrooms, what they teach and why.

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The governor wants the "right" version of history to be taught. This would include the Civil War being taught without mention of any aspects that would lean toward Critical Race Theory.

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In Florida, we require the truth about American history to be taught in our classrooms.

We will not allow schools to twist history to align with an ideological agenda.

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In Florida, we require the truth about American history to be taught in our classrooms.

We will not allow schools to twist history to align with an ideological agenda. https://t.co/IlRe6UpC6j

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In Florida, we require the truth about American history to be taught in our classrooms.

We will not allow schools to twist history to align with an ideological agenda. pic.twitter.com/IlRe6UpC6j
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) September 20, 2022

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In Florida, we require the truth about American history to be taught in our classrooms.

We will not allow schools to twist history to align with an ideological agenda. https://t.co/IlRe6UpC6j

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In Florida, we require the truth about American history to be taught in our classrooms.

We will not allow schools to twist history to align with an ideological agenda. https://t.co/IlRe6UpC6j

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In Florida, we require the truth about American history to be taught in our classrooms.

We will not allow schools to twist history to align with an ideological agenda.

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NC Governor Roy Cooper vetoed a bill that would ban Critical Race Theory in schools.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill on Friday that was aimed at regulating how racism and antidiscrimination are taught in public schools.

The governor's rejection of House Bill 324: Ensuring Dignity & Nondiscrimination/Schools, was expected.

"The legislature should be focused on supporting teachers, helping students recover lost learning, and investing in our public schools," Cooper said Friday. "Instead, this bill pushes calculated, conspiracy-laden politics into public education."

What's become known as Critical Race Theory is a set of ideas that date at least to the 1970s when a group of researchers and college professors began writing a series of essays on racism in America. Essentially, the theory's central thesis is that race is a social invention made up by White people to suppress non-Whites. And, it says, that the United States has, through federal laws, preserved the unequal treatment of people based on their race.

While not specifically naming the theory, the bill refers to it and considers the teachings "discriminatory," and forbids public schools to compel students "to affirm or profess belief in"13 such concepts.
Lt. Gov. Robinson launches website to report indoctrination in NC public schools
"It's perplexing that Gov. Cooper would veto a bill that affirms the public school system's role to teach students the full truth about our state's sometimes ugly past," said Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham. "His invented excuse is so plainly refuted by the text of the bill that I question whether he even read it."

The legislation would have directed public schools not to compel students "to affirm or profess belief in" several discriminatory concepts, including:

That one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;

An individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive;

An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex;

A meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist;

Particular character traits, values, moral or ethical codes, privileges, or beliefs should be ascribed to a race or sex, or to an individual because of the individual's race or sex.
North Carolina schools say they need to talk about race, but disagree on how
"More broadly, Democrats' choice to oppose a bill saying schools can't force kids to believe one race is superior to another really shows how far off the rails the mainstream Democratic Party has gone," Berger said.

Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Wake County Democrat, in a previous interview with ABC11, denounced the bill as suppressing free speech.

"At the end of the day the bill to me constitutes a speech code," Chaudhuri said. "It's censorship and it's going to insert the state General Assembly into what's going to be taught and not taught."

Republicans have previously said they will look to put the issue to the voters in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment - something not subject to a governor's veto.

"I am disappointed that Governor Cooper would block legislation that simply protects students or teachers from being forced to accept the false idea that one race is superior or inferior to another," House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said.
Johnston County parents protest critical race theory; school system says it is not being taught

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Cooper vetoes bill opposing Critical Race Theory in schools

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RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill on Friday that was aimed at regulating how racism and antidiscrimination are taught in public schools . The governor's rejection of House Bill 324: Ensuring Dignity & Nondiscrimination/Schools, was expected.

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Black lawmakers did not agree with a ban on Critical Race Theory in schools. They protested by not voting and walking out of the Senate Chamber. One lawmaker was concerned about not being able to teach about anti-lynching legislation or white supremacy.

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JACKSON, Miss. - Black lawmakers walked out in protest Friday and withheld their votes as the Mississippi Senate passed a bill that would ban schools from teaching critical race theory.

The state superintendent of education has said critical race theory is not being taught in Mississippi schools and legislators have offered no evidence to show it is.

Republicans said the theory teaches "victimhood," while Democrats said the ban could squelch discussion of Mississippi's racist history.

"This bill is not morally right," Democratic Sen. Barbara Blackmon of Canton, who is Black, said during the debate.

The bill's chief sponsor, Republican Sen. Michael McLendon of Hernando, who is white, said hundreds of constituents have told him they have heard about the theory on national news and they don't want it taught to their children.

McLendon struggled to define critical race theory when he was asked about it. But he said: "Systematic racism should not be taught to our children."

Critical race theory is an academic framework that examines how racism has shaped public policy and institutions such as the legal system, and how those have perpetuated the dominance of white people in society.

Republicans across the country have been raising money for months by saying critical race theory is a threat and multiple Republican-led states have banned or limited the teaching of critical race theory or similar concepts through laws or administrative actions.

Republicans control the Mississippi House and Senate. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn are among the GOP leaders who have publicly said critical race theory is harmful.

Black senators walked out of the Mississippi Senate chamber before the vote on Senate Bill 2113. It passed 32-2, with the only votes against the bill coming from white Democrats.

The bill will move to the House for more work.

The bill doesn't define critical race theory

"Critical race theory" is in the title of the bill, but the main text of the bill does not define the phrase. The bill says no school, community college or university could teach that any "sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or inferior."

"I'm trying to find the mischief in this language, and I don't see it," said Republican Sen. Chris McDaniel of Ellisville, who is white.

McDaniel said the bill would have been considered "the most dynamic piece of civil rights legislation in this state's history" if it had been introduced in the 1950s. At that time, schools were segregated, the state Legislature was all-white and Black people faced violent repercussions for trying to vote.

Democratic Sen. John Horhn of Jackson, who is Black, questioned whether the bill could prevent schools from teaching about the late U.S. Sen. James O. Eastland of Mississippi, who led an effort to block anti-lynching legislation in 1948, or the Sovereignty Commission, a state spy agency created in 1956 to support a system of white supremacy. The commission was defunded in 1977.

Horhn said critical race theory examines how race and law impact the economy.

"The whole situation of it is based on the founding of this country and some of the precepts that we, as a country, implicitly or explicitly accepted - chief among which we justified slavery because powers that be judged Black people to be racially inferior," Horhn said. "And a lot of our laws, a lot of our systems, a lot of our customs, a lot of our practices have been impacted by that.″

Democratic Sen. David Blount of Jackson, who is white and voted against the bill, asked McLendon whether Mississippi should ban other things schools are not teaching, such as whether the sun rotates around the Earth.

"We trust our teachers to teach," Blount said. "And we don't need to pass laws to prohibit what's not being done.″

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Black Mississippi senators walk out in protest over critical race theory ban

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JACKSON, Miss. - Black lawmakers walked out in protest Friday and withheld their votes as the Mississippi Senate passed a bill that would ban schools from teaching critical race theory. The state superintendent of education has said critical race theory is not being taught in Mississippi schools and legislators have offered no evidence to show it is.

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Educators Prove Untrustworthy by Promoting Critical Race Theory

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Educators Prove Untrustworthy by Promoting Critical Race Theory

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This tweet by a US Senator does not support critical race theory. The post suggests that educators cannot be trusted if they "promote" critical race theory.

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Democrats implement mask mandates in schools. 

They promote Critical Race Theory in the classroom. 

And they think boys should compete against girls in sports. 

Do you really trust them with your kid’s education?

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Democrats implement mask mandates in schools. 

They promote Critical Race Theory in the classroom. 

And they think boys should compete against girls in sports. 

Do you really trust them with your kid’s education?

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Democrats implement mask mandates in schools.

They promote Critical Race Theory in the classroom.

And they think boys should compete against girls in sports.

Do you really trust them with your kid’s education?
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) September 23, 2022

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Democrats implement mask mandates in schools. 

They promote Critical Race Theory in the classroom. 

And they think boys should compete against girls in sports. 

Do you really trust them with your kid’s education?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Democrats implement mask mandates in schools. 

They promote Critical Race Theory in the classroom. 

And they think boys should compete against girls in sports. 

Do you really trust them with your kid’s education?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Democrats implement mask mandates in schools. 

They promote Critical Race Theory in the classroom. 

And they think boys should compete against girls in sports. 

Do you really trust them with your kid’s education?

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The Board of Education in Florida were going to vote on a bill that would change the way American History was being taught in Florida schools. If the bill passed, it would also remove teachings related to critical race theory, seen as a controversial topic.

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Researchers from different fields are looking at methods of Critical Race Theory Research to show how scholarship efforts will improve access and educational equity in schools.

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Does research suffer when we stop talking about the processes and procedures behind it? That's the question Jessica DeCuir-Gunby, a professor of educational psychology at the NC State College of Education, and her colleagues, Thandeka Chapman and Paul Schutz, posed before developing Understanding Critical Race Research Methods and Methodologies: Lessons from the Field.

In the edited collection, DeCuir-Gunby and her team bring together researchers from across the disciplines to synthesize different methods of Critical Race Theory research to demonstrate how to make scholarship efforts more significant in improving issues of educational equity and access in schools.

"We wanted to produce something that talked about how to create good critical race methods studies, research studies that are theoretically grounded and methodologically sound," she said.

Written for novice researchers, but also applicable for seasoned scholars new to Critical Race Theory, the book explores the relationship between the theory and research methods - whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In each chapter, the authors share their experiences with conducting critical race research by explicating how they use a particular methodological approach to investigate race and education.

"Theory informs the research methods that you use, and the research methods that you use in turn informs your theory," DeCuir-Gunby said. "In order to advance theory, we have to simultaneously advance research methods. Utilizing good research methods is essential to the research process."

The book acts as a field guide that helps scholars take action when it comes to Critical Race Theory and provides resources to refine the means in which research studies are designed and data are collected.

She says documenting the ways racism infiltrates schools and affects children is essential, but researchers must also focus on ways to enhance, critique and develop critical race methods to advance the field of education.

"We cannot just focus on the myriad of problems in education that need to be solved. We have to also consider the multitude of ways to address those problems."

3 Takeaways from Understanding Critical Race Methods and Methodologies

True Critical Race Theory research is grounded in the original legal writings and texts. "In order to engage in Critical Race Theory scholarship, researchers have to understand the foundational readings that formed it. Without this foundation, your research will not be truly centered within an authentic Critical Race Theory framework."

Current research methods and methodologies are not always culturally relevant. "Critical race scholarship often requires the critique of existing methodologies as well as the enhancement, extension or creation of new methods and methodologies to address the complex racial issues that exist in society.

Being a critical race scholar involves more than just conducting research. "Critical race scholarship, specifically, involves having a personal connection to the research that is conducted to address the social issues in our daily lives."

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Using Critical Race Theory Research to Inform and Improve Instruction

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In Understanding Critical Race Research Methods and Methodologies: Lessons from the Field , Professor Jessica DeCuir-Gunby brings together scholars from different disciplines to explore how qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods, and historical and archival research can help evaluate and improve issues of educational equity and access in schools.