Anti-racist approach to participant observation methods in educational research

This conceptual paper examines how participant observation in communitybased educational research can either reproduce racial inequities or advance anti-racist commitments. Drawing on a methodological rupture experienced by our research team while working alongside out-of-school time educators in a racial equity initiative, we critically examine the tensions between conventional participant observation practices and anti-racist, community-centered research. We consider how researcher positionality, institutional affiliation, power, and traditional notions of observation can inadvertently reproduce racialized surveillance and outsider-driven knowledge production. In response, we propose an anti-racist participant observation framework that reimagines observation as a relational, reflexive, and equity-centered practice. The framework emphasizes critically examining power, challenging deficit perspectives, centering community knowledge and lived experiences, and aligning research processes with anti-racist commitments.