The threat of unexamined secondary data: a critical race transformative convergent mixed methods

Abstract

This article uses a critical race theory framework to conceptualize a Critical Race Transformative Convergent Mixed Methods (CRTCMM) in education. CRTCMM is a methodology that challenges normative educational research practices by acknowledging that racism permeates educational institutions and marginalizes Communities of Color. The focus of this article is to examine the quantitative component of the mixed methods to interrogate ‘objective’ and ‘scientific’ assumptions of the statistical practices used in analyzing secondary datasets. To demonstrate this method, we analyze the ways in which race and ethnicity are treated as a variable in a secondary higher education dataset, and highlight how the conflation of both can influence how a sample is taken. We argue that it is imperative that theoretical frameworks used in research are not only applied to the research questions, analysis or interpretation, but also the secondary datasets being used.

Keywords:

• Critical race theory
• higher education
• secondary data
• mixed methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. While we explore definitions within the field of Psychology, we are aware of the extensive history in the social sciences. Specifically, anthropologists may be one the first to point to ‘race constructions’ and the material consequences based on these constructions for People of Color (Smedley and Smedley 2012).

2. The focus of this study articulates and develops a transformative convergent design. For further explanation of intervention and multistage evaluation, see Creswell (2014).

3. While the focus of this article is on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of a convergent design, we would argue that critical race theory could be implemented in any of the mixed method designs. Our purpose is to provide an example of how to integrate critical theories within methods. Depending on your research question and data collection the mixed method designs you adopt will vary. See Creswell (2014).

4. Dolores Delgado Bernal defines cultural intuition as, ‘a personal quality of the researcher based on the attribute of having the ability to give meaning to data’ (1998, 563).