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Educational inequality takes many forms, including inequality based on gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability, socio-economic or class status, place of residence, and other social differences. It is a deeply rooted and enduring phenomenon.
Education is considered one of the most important social institutions through which students develop their potential, so reducing educational inequalities is essential to improving social inequalities more broadly.
However, when discussing educational disparities, many focus on how institutionally marginalized students tend to lack the resources and skills needed to succeed within the educational system. tend to rely on a deficit-based approach. In other words, the deficit-based approach assumes that students who are systemically marginalized are “lacking” something that needs to be “fixed” in order to be successful.
Rather than focusing on individual deficiencies as the cause of educational disparities, the asset-based framework focuses on the structural barriers that contribute to inequality and the strengths that students from marginalized groups have that can help overcome them. emphasize.
An asset-based framework for examining inequalities can also help identify areas where the system, rather than the students, needs to “fix.”
Cultural richness of the community
Critical race scholar Tara J. Yosso calls for recognizing and valuing the unique cultural resources and skills of institutionally marginalized students to overcome structural barriers, and calls for community cultural wealth ( developed a framework called CCW). She specifies six interrelated aspects of her CCW: aspiration, language, family, society, navigation, and tolerance.
Aspirational capital is the belief in a student's ability to overcome barriers and continue their education, both externally from their families and internally from the students themselves.
Linguistic capital is a set of communication skills developed by practicing and switching between different languages and communication styles.
Family capital is a commitment to family and community, and the relationship-building skills that are built within a family.
Social capital exists as networks that provide access to instrumental and emotional support for continuing education.
Navigation capital is the ability to find and utilize the information and support needed to navigate institutions designed within the dominant paradigm.
Resistance capital includes knowledge and skills for resistance developed in contexts of structural inequality and social injustice.
Subsequent studies have built on Yosso's work by qualitatively examining the complex and interrelated nature of CCW, some of which were not explicitly mentioned in Yosso's original CCW framework. identified forms of capital.
In our new article, “Critically Quantitative: Measuring a Community’s Cultural Wealth with Research,” we use quantitative methods to examine the CCW of racially or ethnically marginalized STEM students. We are expanding this body of knowledge further.
While statistical methods have been used to uphold and maintain racial discrimination in society, Quantitative Critical Race Theory, or “QuantCrit” We argue that qualitative research on CCW can be complemented by identifying
Through exploratory factor analysis, we identify and statistically characterize the different forms of capital embedded in CCWs and recognize their dynamic and intersecting nature. The findings presented in this article are broadly consistent with the original CCW framework, but suggest important avenues for further development and refinement.
Beyond a deficit-based model
This article, which focuses on the development of the CCW scale, has practical implications for higher education institutions addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By quantitatively measuring the CCW of racially or ethnically marginalized students, higher education often fails to capture the richness of the unique cultural resources of students from marginalized groups. You can exceed the base metrics.
Instead, a focus on student assets fosters debate about how deficit-based institutional policies and practices can be considered and transformed to increase the importance and value of CCW. We believe that.
Quantifying CCW is not about student deficiencies in relation to existing paradigms, but rather between student assets, institutional policies, and what critical educationist Gloria Ladson Billings calls “educational debt.” It helps to reframe the debate on educational inequality in terms of disparities in education.
In conclusion, this study represents an important step toward bridging the gap between critical race theory and quantitative methods through the exploration of a quantitative CCW scale. The findings from our analysis open new avenues for researchers, educators, and policy makers to rethink traditional approaches to understanding and supporting systemically marginalized student populations.
We hope that subsequent research will build on our work and explore the unique cultural resources held by people other than the core population of our study, racially/ethnically marginalized STEM students in the United States. We look forward to exploring ways to measure and scale.
Daiki Hiramori is an assistant professor at the School of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Hosei University and an external researcher at the Population Dynamics and Ecology Research Center at the University of Washington, USA. Emily Knaphus-Soran is a senior research fellow and associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington STEM Equity Evaluation Research Center. James Lamar Foster is an independent consultant. Elizabeth Ritzler is director of the STEM Equity Evaluation Research Center and associate assistant professor of sociology at the University of Washington.
