Shifting Educational Measurement from an Agent of Systemic Racism to an Anti-Racist Endeavor

ABSTRACT

In recent years, issues of race, racism and social justice have garnered increased attention across the nation. Although some aspects of social justice, particularly cultural sensitivity and test bias, have received similar attention within the field of educational measurement, sharp focus of racism has alluded the field. This manuscript focuses narrowly on racism. Drawing on an expansive body of work in the field of sociology, several key theories of race and racism advanced over the past century are presented. Elements of these theories are then integrated into a model of systemic racism. This model is used to identify some of the ways in which educational measurement supports systemic racism as it operates in the United States. I then explore ways in which an anti-racist frame could be applied to combat the system of racism and reorient our work to support racial liberation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ This summary of the origins of the term race is based on the Merriam Webster dictionary (https://www.etymonline.com/word/race) and the Online Etymology Dictionary (https://www.etymonline.com/word/race). See also Doron (2012).

² Picho and Brown (2011) developed the Social Identities and Attitudes Scale and explore its relationship with stereotype threat. Fassiotto et al. (2016) also combined measures of factors theorized to be related to stereotype threat and used the measure to examine stereotype threat experienced by junior faculty in medical schools. To the best of my knowledge, similar efforts have not been conducted within the field of educational measurement.