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ABSTRACT
This paper considers what it could mean to say that epistemologies and methodologies are racially just or unjust. It has been argued that this has nothing to do with whether an individual researcher is racist: he or she could be anti-racist but still use an epistemology that is racially biased. To explore this issue, some pioneering research by Allison Davis, an influential African-American scholar in the 1940s and 1950s, is examined. This research dealt with the effects of social class cultures on academic achievement in the United States. While Davis was well-known at the time, his work in this field is now largely forgotten. Two senses of ‘racially-just’ are examined in this paper, relating: to the intrinsic character or origin of epistemologies and methodologies; or to the implications for and likely consequences of their use. Davis’s investigations employed methods and assumptions that are rejected by many educational researchers today. I will address the question of whether these can be criticised as racially unjust; and, if so, on what basis. This evaluation will lead to a consideration of the broader question of the terms in which it is appropriate to assess educational research, and in particular the epistemologies and methodologies on which it depends.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Varel’s book, and earlier thesis (Varel Citation2015), are a very useful source of background information (though in my view some of his interpretations of Davis’s work, and of the context in which it took place, are open to question). See also Hillis (Citation1995). Davis’s writings are one of the sources drawn on in the early work of Basil Bernstein (Citation1958), who participated in the conference on Education and Cultural Deprivation organised by Davis and reported in Bloom et al. (Citation1965).
2 Hammersley (Citation2011:ch1). ‘Methodology’ is also sometimes used almost as a synonym for ‘method’; so that, for instance, interviewing may be described as a methodology.
3 For a discussion of the many meanings given to the term ‘theory’, see Hammersley (Citation2012 or Citation2023:ch12).
4 I am treating the words ‘justice’ and ‘equity’ as synonymous here.
5 Conversely, equal distribution could extend beyond the population of a particular society to apply to all human beings, or even all forms of life, but much use of notions of distributive justice is more limited in application.
6 For an account of Warner’s research programme, see Gilkeson (Citation2010).
7 It should be noted that this argument came out of the research that produced Deep South in which Davis played a central role, and in many ways it reflects Davis’s own experience (see Varel Citation2018). See also Davis (Citation1939).
8 Davis’s views more or less reflected those of his colleagues in the Committee for Human Development, see Warner et al. (Citation1944).
9 Varel (Citation2018) seems to me to play down the extent to which Davis very much followed in Warner’s footsteps in methodological and theoretical terms. But, in my view, that he did so does not detract from the originality and value of his work.
10 This largely developed from his work as a member of the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago (Varel Citation2018: ch7). It is worth noting that there are two versions of cultural deficit theory. One treats culture as crucial for psychological and social development and as a variable, so that the greater the degree of culture (defined in some way) the greater the likely psychological and social development, individually and collectively. The second defines ‘deficit’ entirely in terms of what counts as culture within the education system and what is therefore necessary for educational achievement within that system. Davis drew on both.
11 His work on this had a significant public impact: see Varel (Citation2018: ch8).
12 On the idea of ethical principles as external constraints on research, see Hammersley and Traianou (Citation2012). There must also be recognition of other sorts of constraint, ones which may conflict with ethical considerations. For example, when carrying out research in Mississippi, reported in Deep South, Davis and his team had to conform to the segregation of the races, and the superordinate status of whites, because failure to do this would not only have scuppered the research but also have put their lives in danger (Davis et al. Citation1941).