Publications

2024

Bennett, Nichole, Anthony Dudo, John Besley, and Yasmiyn Irizarry. 2024. “Race-Evasive Ideology in U.S.-based Science Communication Fellowship Staff Discourse.” JCOM 23(1):A06.

A critical examination of science communication training programs may uncover barriers to cultivating inclusive, equitable, and just science communication spaces. In this study, we analyzed science communication fellowship director's discourse for evidence of race-evasive ideology — language that avoids talk of race and justifies current racial inequity as the outcome of nonracial processes [Bonilla-Silva, 2006]. We found the four frames of race-evasive ideology (minimization, abstract liberalism, cultural racism, and naturalization) pervasive in interviews with science communication fellowship directors. We discuss how these findings might explain why structural racism persists in science communication organizations despite their directors' best intentions.

Erving, Christy L., Izraelle I. McKinnon, Courtney S. Thomas Tobin, Mirian E. Van Dyke, Raphiel Murden, Reneé H. Moore, Bianca Booker, Viola Vaccarino, and Tené T. Lewis. 2024. “Black Women as Superwomen? The Mental Health Effects of Superwoman Schema, Socioeconomic Status, and Financial Strain.” Social Problems OnlineFirst.

Informed by Black feminist thought and intersectionality, Superwoman Schema (SWS) is a construct that captures a collective response of Black women to racial and gender marginalization by highlighting expectations that they exude strength, suppress emotions, resist vulnerability, succeed despite limitations, and help others to their own self-neglect. Using a sample of Black women (N = 390) in early-midlife (between 30 and 46 years old; M= 37.54 years; SD = 4.29), this study integrates the intersectionality framework and the stress process model to examine the independent and interactive effects of SWS endorsement as well as socioeconomic status (SES) and financial strain on Black women's mental health. Study results reveal that SWS dimensions "emotion suppression" and "obligation to help others" are associated with elevated depressive symptoms. In addition, net worth and financial strain, but not traditional measures of socioeconomic status such as education and income, moderate the association between SWS endorsement and depressive symptoms. Specifically, the association between SWS and depressive symptoms is strongest among Black women reporting negative net worth or high financial strain (eg., not being able to make ends meet). Broader implications and future research directions are discussed.

Childs, J., Zarch, R., Dunton, S., Madkins, T. c., Trautmann, K., Taylor, Z. W., Jacobson, M., Ozturk, S., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2024). Advancing Equity and Access: Addressing the Side Effects of Broadening Participation in Computer Science K–12 Education. Review of Research in Education, 48(1), 121-153.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a concentrated effort on expanding K–12 pathways, experiences, and access in computer science education (CSEd). Computer science (CS) is a multifaceted discipline within education, and the current emphasis in education policy has focused on how to expand access for K–12 students in CSEd that will lead to increased innovation and bring new participants into the United States labor economy. Industry partners have advocated for policies and incentives to increase pathways to CS opportunities. This chapter interrogates the side effects of CSEd and offers a framework for considering how side effects impact CS teaching and learning. We highlight the barriers that exist within CS and CSEd and how broadening participation in computing efforts could address longstanding equity and disparity issues.

2023

Lee, Karen Hanhee, Carmen Gutierrez, and Becky Pettit. 2023. “Racial Polarization in Attitudes towards the Criminal Legal System.” Social Problems 72(2): 570–593.

Existing research often views attitudes toward the U.S. criminal legal system as reflections of punitive sentiment, overlooking racial differences in how people respond to questions related to crime and punishment. Using over four decades of nationally representative survey data from the General Social Survey, we employ latent class analysis to examine racial variation in attitudes about the U.S. criminal legal system across time. We find that among White Americans, support for increased spending to combat crime corresponds with support for harsher courts and the death penalty. In contrast, many Black Americans support increased spending on crime but oppose harsher courts and the death penalty, indicating simultaneous concern about crime and a more punitive criminal legal system. Although aggregate trends in punitiveness change similarly across race and time, we show that while preferences for punitive policies remain high among White Americans, the proportion of Black Americans who are simultaneously concerned about crime and a punitive criminal legal system rose from 14 percent in 1994 to 56 percent in 2018. These results highlight the salience of race in shaping how people evaluate the criminal legal system and draw attention to racial polarization in views on punishment and justice.

Irizarry, Yasmiyn, Ellis P. Monk, and Ryon J. Cobb. 2023. “Race-shifting in the United States: Latinxs, Skin Tone, and Ethnoracial Alignments.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 9(1): 37-55.

In the study, we engage the question of racial “fluidity” by examining patterns of ethnoracial identification in adolescence and, importantly, shifts in ethnoracial identification between adolescence and adulthood using two waves of data from a nationally representative, longitudinal study of adolescents who were in Grades 7 to 12 during the 1994 to 1995 school year. Our theoretical framework draws from social identity theory and brings together bodies of research in race and immigration to make a case for the importance of phenotype, ancestry, and sociocultural elements as potential mechanisms for patterns among Latinx youth, as shifts in ethnoracial identification are predominantly a Latinx phenomenon. The bulk of the findings suggest that both phenotype and immigration are important factors for ethnoracial self-identification among Latinx youth, as well as shifts in their ethnoracial identification in young adulthood. Given what we know about ethnoracial categorization and ascription, findings suggest that, overall, shifts in ethnoracial identification among Latinx youth are primarily about bringing their self-identification into alignment with how they think they tend to be (and most likely are) perceived by others, which we suggest represents a Sedimentation of the Color Line. We close by discussing the myriad implications of our findings for the U.S. racial order and the ongoing debate about how to “measure” the Latinx population.

2022

Madkins, Tia C., and Christina R. Nazar. 2022. "Theoretical Perspectives for Developing Antiracist Teaching Dispositions and Practices in Preservice Teacher Education." Science Education 106(5):1118-1134.

For some time, scholars who are guided by critical theories and perspectives have called out how white supremacist ideologies and systemic racism work to (re)produce societal inequities and educational injustices across science learning contexts in the United States. Given the sociopolitical nature of society, schooling, and science education, it is important to address the racist and settled history of scientific disciplines and science education. To this end, we take an antiracist stance on science teaching and learning and seek to disrupt forms of systemic racism in science classrooms. Since teachers do much of the daily work of transforming science education for minoritized learners, we advocate for preparing teachers who understand what it means to engage in antiracist, justice-oriented science teaching. In this article, we share our framework for supporting preservice teachers in understanding, developing, and implementing antiracist teaching dispositions and instructional practices. In alignment with other researchers in teacher education who emphasize the importance of anchoring teacher education practice and research in prominent educational theory, we highlight the theories undergirding our approach to antiracist science teaching. We offer considerations for how researchers and science teacher educators can use this framework to transform science teacher education.

Takeuchi, Miwa A., Shakhnoza Kayumova, Zandra de Araujo, and Tia C. Madkins. 2022. "Going Beyond #RetireELL: A Call for Anti‐Colonial Approaches to Languages in STEM Education." Journal of Research in Science Teaching 59(5): 876-879.

Projects aimed at retiring deficit-oriented naming imposed upon racially and linguistically minoritized students (see García & Leiva, 2014 and a recent commentary by Gonzalez-Howard & Suarez, 2021) are critical moves in countering deficit views perpetuated through policy documents and research publications. However, merely changing labels from “English language learner” to “emergent bilingual” or “multilingual”(which are often actualized as a replacement of an acronym, ELL to another, ML) is insufficient to desettle the colonial matrix of power continued within and through STEM disciplinary domains (Bang & Marin, 2015; Mignolo, 2009). We argue that a retirement of the term“English language learner”(#RetireELL) can still fail to improve the structures that have created the conditions of marginalization for these students in the first place unless we challenge underlying white normativity, Eurocentrism, and intersectional oppressions.

Iwama, Janice, Yasmiyn Irizarry, Amy Ernstes, Melissa Ripepi, Anthony A. Peguero, Jennifer M. Bondy, and Jun Sung Hong. 2022. “Segregation, Securitization, and Bullying: Investigating the Connections between Policing, Surveillance, Punishment, and Violence.” Race and Justice OnlineFirst.

Over the past twenty years, scholarly research on the disproportionate control, surveillance, and punishment of racial/ethnic minority students within U.S. public schools have indicated that these youth are subject to greater levels of violence and bullying. Many scholars have conceptualized the term “youth control complex.” This term references the hyper-criminalization of racial and ethnic minority youth across the U.S., which leads to greater levels of over-policing, surveillance, and punishment in U.S. public schools with large populations of racial and ethnic minority students. Using the 2015–2016 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) data, this study addresses two major research questions. First, do racially/ethnically segregated schools have higher rates of policing, surveillance, and punishment? Second, do policing, surveillance, and punishment within segregated schools moderate the rate of bullying? Our findings indicate that majority-Black and majority-Latina/o/x schools do in fact experience hyper-criminalization in U.S. public schools in comparison to majority-White schools. Yet, these increased crime control and punishment efforts in majority-Black and majority-Latina/o/x schools do not have a significant impact on the rate of bullying. Moreover, our findings highlight the educational inequities between majority-Black, majority-Latina/o/x, and majority-White schools.

2021

Madkins, Tia C., and Karisma Morton. 2021. "Disrupting Anti-blackness with Young Learners in STEM: Strategies for Elementary Science and Mathematics Teacher Education." Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education 21: 239-256.

If we envision a future for Black young learners where their full humanity is honoured and educators facilitate rigorous science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning experiences that are justice-focused, we must disrupt systemic racism now. In this article we discuss how anti-Blackness is pervasive in science and mathematics education, especially for young learners. We also address why teacher educators must disrupt anti-Black racism in our work with elementary teacher candidates and in our research. We argue that to do this work and disrupt anti-Blackness, elementary teacher educators and teacher candidates need political clarity (Beauboeuf-LaFontant, 1999). Political clarity is the understanding of how structural and school inequalities work to (re)produce differential learning experiences for minoritized learners. We offer suggestions for how teacher educators can further develop their teacher candidates’ political clarity. Drawing upon our prior research, course assignments, and experiences as Black women educators and teacher educators, we share examples of how an individual’s political clarity can be developed within science and mathematics methods courses. In doing so, we build upon prior research in STEM teacher education on how teachers come to see teaching as a political act and engage in the hard work of equity-focused STEM teaching.

McKinney de Royston, Maxine, Tia C. Madkins, Jarvis R. Givens, and Na’ilah Suad Nasir. 2021. "'I’m a Teacher, I’m Gonna Always Protect You': Understanding Black Educators’ Protection of Black Children." American Educational Research Journal 58(1): 68-106.

Many Black educators in the United States demonstrate a political clarity about white supremacy and the racialized harm it cultivates in and out of schools. We highlight the perspectives of some of these educators and ask, (1) How do they articulate the need to protect Black children? and (2) What mechanisms of protection do they enact in their classrooms and schools? Through further elaborating the politicized caring framework, our analyses show how Black educators disrupt the racialized harm produced within schools to instead (re)position Black students as children worthy of protection via caring relationships, alternative discipline policies, and other interpersonal and institutional mechanisms. This study has implications for teaching, teacher education, and how the “work” of teachers is conceptualized and researched.

Peguero, Anthony A., Yasmiyn Irizarry, Janice A. Iwama, Jessica L. Dunning-Lozano, Jun Sung Hong, and Sanna King. 2021. “Context of Reception and School Violence: Exploring the Nexus of Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, Place, and School Crime.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 7(3): 420-449.

Of course, ensuring safe environments in the U.S. educational system is paramount. It is also evident, however, inequalities associated with immigration, race/ethnicity, and situational context can impede school safety pursuits. Although prior research has revealed a pattern between “downward” assimilation and increased experiences with student-level violence and disorder for the children of racial/ethnic immigrants (i.e., first- and second-generation), investigations about school-level rates of violence and disorder associated with the context of reception remain uncertain. Our study seeks to contribute to the research about immigration, racial/ethnic inequality, education, and violence by examining the associations between context, school violence, and crime, and the schooling of children of immigrants by drawing on a context of reception conceptual framework to address three research questions. First, is there an association between an increasing proportion of children of immigrants and school crimes (i.e., violence, property damage, and substance use)? Second, are there differences linked to the context of reception (i.e., urban, suburban, town, and rural) in the association between the increasing proportion of children of immigrants and school crime? Third, are there racial/ethnic differences in the association between the increasing proportion of children of immigrants and school crimes in distinct contexts? Findings indicate that the children of racial/ethnic minority immigrants have significantly distinct associations with rates of school violence and crime across all contexts; however, there are important and distinctive nuances that are presented and examined.

Irizarry, Yasmiyn. 2021. “On Track or Derailed? Race, Advanced Math, and the Transition to High School.” Socius 7: 1-21.

Recent scholarship has examined how accelerated math trajectories leading to calculus take shape during middle school. The focus of this study is on advanced math course taking during the critical yet understudied period that follows: the transition to high school. Data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 are used to examine advanced math course taking in ninth grade, including both track persistence among students who took advanced math in middle school and upward mobility among students who took standard math in middle school. Results reveal sizable racial gaps in the likelihood of staying on (and getting on) the accelerated math track, neither of which are fully explained by prior academic performance factors. Interactions with parents and teachers positively predict advanced math course taking. In some cases, interactions with teachers may also reduce inequality in track persistence, whereas interactions with counselors increase such inequality. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

2020

Madkins, Tia C., Nicol R. Howard, and Natalie Freed. 2020. "Engaging Equity Pedagogies in Computer Science Learning Environments." Journal of Computer Science Integration 3(2).

In this position paper, we advocate for the use of equity-focused teaching and learning as an essential practice within computer science classrooms. We provide an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of various equity pedagogies (Banks & Banks, 1995), such as culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2006) and share how they have been utilized in CS classrooms. First, we provide a brief history of CS education and issues of equity within public schools in the United States. In sharing our definition of equity, along with our rationale for how and why these strategies can be taken up in computer science (CS) learning environments, we demonstrate how researchers and educators can shift the focus from access and achievement to social justice. After explaining the differences between the relevant theoretical frameworks, we provide practical examples from research of how both practitioners and researchers might use and/or examine equity-focused teaching practices. Resources for further learning are also included.

2019

Madkins, Tia C., and Maxine McKinney de Royston. 2019. "Illuminating Political Clarity in Culturally Relevant Science Instruction." Science Education 103(6): 1319-1346.

Failure to improve achievement in K-12 science for racially minoritized students and students living in poverty continues to challenge the inclusionary rhetoric of science for all. Science education researchers, teacher educators, and educators must consider the racialized and classed inequalities that continue to limit students’ opportunities to learn. To achieve this, we must be able to conceptualize sociopolitical pedagogical approaches and learn from empirical examples of science teachers who consciously attend to their students’ realities in empowering rather than deficit-oriented ways. We argue for the importance of utilizing culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and attending to and theorizing an educator's sociopolitical consciousness and enactments of political clarity in science instruction. Our analysis highlights how an African American male science teacher responds to his middle school students’ realities and identities as African American youth and children growing up contexts with limited economic resources. Through classroom observations and interviews with the teacher, we nuance our understanding of sociopolitical consciousness, the third tenet of CRP, as reliant upon a teacher's political clarity and examine how, through instruction, science teachers can position students and their realities as consonant with knowing and doing science and being scientists.

Riegle-Crumb, Catherine, Barbara King, and Yasmiyn Irizarry. 2019. “Does STEM Stand Out? Examining Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Persistence across Postsecondary Fields.” Educational Researcher 48(3): 133-144.

Informed by the theoretical lens of opportunity hoarding, this study considers whether STEM postsecondary fields stand apart via the disproportionate exclusion of Black and Latina/o youth. Utilizing national data from the Beginning Postsecondary Study (BPS), the authors investigate whether Black and Latina/o youth who begin college as STEM majors are more likely to depart than their White peers, either by switching fields or by leaving college without a degree, and whether patterns of departure in STEM fields differ from those in non-STEM fields. Results reveal evidence of persistent racial/ethnic inequality in STEM degree attainment not found in other fields.

Irizarry, Yasmiyn, and Emma D. Cohen. 2019. “Of Promise and Penalties: How Student Racial-Cultural Markers Shape Teacher Perceptions.” Race and Social Problems 11(2): 93-111.

Scholars document considerable disparities in teacher perceptions of students, yet absent from this literature is an examination of how race, ethnicity, and immigration status intersect to influence teacher ratings. This study extends previous research by examining variation in teachers’ ratings of academic ability across four conventional racial/ethnic groups as well as thirteen racialized subgroups. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999, we find that black first-graders receive lower ratings in language and literacy, a pattern that holds for both black Americans and black immigrants. In contrast, Asian first-graders receive higher ratings in math; however, this is primarily driven by teachers’ much higher ratings of East Asian and Southeast Asian immigrants. These subgroup differences remain even after controlling for a host of background and contextual factors, as well as students’ tested ability and academic growth in math and reading. Teacher perceptions of student academic behavior explain lower language and literacy ratings for black Americans and higher math ratings for Southeast Asian immigrants that are present net background and performance, but higher math ratings for East Asian immigrants remain. We conclude by discussing implications of our approach and findings.

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