Communicating Racial Theory in Effectiveness Work: A QuantCrit Imperative

Including race in models that estimate the effectiveness of educational interventions presupposes a relationship between race and other variables of interest. However, we argue in this article that, left unexplained, this presupposition may contribute to the maintenance of essentialist theories that uphold racism. To rectify this problem, we outline an argument for more thorough engagement with racial theory to enact the imperative in QuantCrit to take responsibility for dismantling harmful ideologies. We support this argument with an empirical assessment of how published quantitative effectiveness research engages with racial theory. We find that across the field, there is a dearth of racial theory that would justify the inclusion of race and work to combat essentialist assumptions about race. We conclude with recommendations for reflective practice, primarily focusing on explicitly communicating racial theory in quantitative work. We emphasize that explaining why race would matter for inclusion in a model is important for doing sound quantitative work and actively contributing to changing racial narratives to combat racism.