Abstract Recent years have witnessed intensified political controversies surrounding the teaching of race in educational contexts, manifesting in curricular restrictions and opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. This article employs conceptual engineering, building on Sally Haslanger's influential framework, to propose a process‐oriented reconceptualization of race specifically for instructional contexts. Rather than treating race as a fixed property of individuals, this approach frames race as a dynamic process that distributes morally significant vulnerabilities across populations. This reconceptualization addresses three key challenges: integrating with student experiences, avoiding accusations that teaching race perpetuates racism, and reconfiguring debates about educator expertise. The article argues that this instructional approach can preserve the educational goals of race advocates while navigating contemporary political constraints, without limiting students' capacity to develop more sophisticated understandings of race in other social contexts.
Winston C. Thompson (Sun,) studied this question.