Systemic Racism and Educational Measurement: Confronting Injustice in Testing, Assessment, and Beyond

Systemic Racism and Educational Measurement provides a theoretical and historical reckoning with racism and oppression produced through educational measurement and research methodology. As scholars and professionals in the testing, measurement, and assessment of human learning and performance work to exorcise race sciences, white supremacy, and other injustices from the field’s research and practice, new insights are needed into their root causes. This book is the first to posit that the theory of the White Racial Frame was and continues to be applied to the foundations, process, dissemination, and use of educational measurement, leading to instruments, findings, and decisions that perpetuate the racialized social structure of our nation. Even among well-meaning stakeholders who aim to improve humanity and address inequities, the White Racial Frame shapes the field’s research questions, the methods utilized, the data valued, the interpretations made, and the language used throughout. Students and scholars of educational measurement, testing, and psychometrics will find invaluable clarifications of terminology, concepts, and theories integral to understanding systemic barriers in the field; explications of educational measurement’s core purposes and its influence by the White Racial Frame; and a series of alternate frames, theories, and epistemologies intended to guide educational measurement toward anti-racism and increased fairness. Read more