The very frequent inquiry made after my lectures is "What can I do to help the cause?" The answer always is: "Tell the world the facts." —Ida B. Wells-Barnett, The Red Record

Publications

2025

Lowe, Jr., R. H., Irizarry, Y., Vargas, E. D., López, N., & Montufar, S. (2025). Black and Some Other Race: Examining shifts in the Black Latino population in the Census Bureau’s 2020 race question. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity OnlineFirst.

The 2020 census race question featured a write-in response area to the Black race category as a way to capture detailed race responses. Evidence suggests that respondents who wrote a Hispanic or Latino origin response (i.e., Dominican or Panamanian) in this response area were reclassified as “Black” and “Some Other Race” (SOR) and tabulated as multiracial. In effect, the number of single-race Black Latinos declined by 3 percent since 2010, while the Black and SOR Latino count surged by 223 percent. These trends have been difficult to observe empirically because write-in responses to the race question are not readily available in public microdata. In this study, we leverage ancestry data from the American Community Survey (ACS) to assess how these changes may have influenced the odds of multirace classification among Black Latinos. Our findings suggest that Black Latinos who reported racially distinct ancestries (e.g., African American and Panamanian) were less likely to be classified as multiracial in the 2020 question design compared to those who solely reported a Hispanic or Latino ancestry. This implies that coding schemes used in the 2020 race question could be overestimating multiracial counts by disqualifying Hispanic or Latino origin responses from Black categorical membership. Moreover, these shifts point to the construction of a boundary that officially draws a line between “Black” and “Hispanic or Latino” membership at the cost of disregarding those Black Latinos who may see both categories as mutually inclusive.

Deckard, F. M., Malone Gonzalez, S., Irizarry, Y., & Hsu, J. H. (2025). Perpetual encounters: Reconceptualizing police contact and measuring its relationship to Black women’s mental health. Social Forces, soaf070.

Research and media discussion of police contact routinely conceptualize it as time-constrained interactions between officers and civilians. However, extant literature documents preparation for encounters and post-encounter advocacy, which each challenge restricted understandings of contact and, importantly, its relationship to mental health. We introduce “perpetual encounters” to both theoretically and empirically move closer to the temporally unbounded and enduring way that police contact is experienced in black women’s everyday lives. Utilizing a novel, nationally representative dataset on their policing experiences, we explore how mental health is independently and conjointly associated with three dimensions of police contact: preparation, police stops, and advocacy against police violence. Beyond exemplifying how pervasive the police are in the day-to-day lives of marginalized communities, extending the scope of contact recognizes preparation as a significant threat to mental health and advocacy as a health-promoting activity. This study supports moving beyond discrete notions and measurement of police contact to process-oriented understandings and relational modeling.

Fong, C., & Irizarry, Y. (2025). Too quant to crit? Advancing QuantCrit methodologies in educational psychology. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 80.

For educational psychology to be leveraged for the greater good and the creation of anti-racist bodies of knowledge, the value systems and patterns of thinking that undergird quantitative approaches require a re-orientation. In this paper, we critique quantitative educational psychologists’ reliance on objectivity and neutrality by drawing attention to methodological trauma and describing tenets of QuantCrit as an alternative approach. Specifically, we discuss the importance of 1) the centrality of racism, 2) numbers are not neutral, 3) categories are neither natural nor given, 4) voice and insight, and 5) a social justice and equity orientation (Gillborn et al., 2018). When appropriate, we highlight empirical examples aligned with these principles to provide methodological guidance for transforming quantitative research in the field. We end with recommendations for engaging in this work toward a more just and equitable research agenda for educational psychology.

Lowe, Jr., R. H., & Irizarry, Y. (2025). Becoming (non)-white by U.S. standards: Recategorization in the 2020 Census race question. Population Research and Policy Review, 44(10).

The present study explores categorical shifts in the White Latino population in the U.S. Census following recent changes to the 2020 race question. We use ancestry data from the American Community Survey to simulate differences in how the U.S. Census Bureau may have coded race write-in responses both before and after changes to the 2020 design. We find that White Latinos who solely wrote Hispanic or Latino ancestries in the 2020 design have higher odds of multiracial classification than those who reported two racially distinct (multiracial) ancestries. In the pre-2020 question design, this association was reversed, indicating that entry into White categorical membership has become more rigid for White-identifying Latinos across question designs. Second, we observe a systematic shift among various Latino ethnic groups from White categorical membership to multiracial between designs. This shift is particularly notable for Cubans, who prior to the new race question, typically reported singularly as White in the Census. We refer to the reclassification of White Latinos from White categorical membership to multiracial membership as statistical bronzing. Finally, we find that first-generation, Spanish-speaking immigrants were more likely to be classified as multiracial in the 2020 design despite having a higher likelihood for White identification in the previous design. Native-born Latinos with limited Spanish-fluency and higher educational attainment levels appear more likely to achieve White classification in the new race question, supporting Bonilla-Silva’s ‘Honorary White’ thesis that situates assimilated White Latinos alongside traditional White ethnic groups in an emerging “tri-racial” U.S. racial classification system.

Erving, C. L., McKinnon, I. I., Thomas Tobin, C. S. , Van Dyke, M. E., Murden, R., Moore, R. H., Booker, B., Vaccarino, V., & Lewis, T. T. (2025). Black Women as Superwomen? The Mental Health Effects of Superwoman Schema, Socioeconomic Status, and Financial Strain. Social Problems 72(2): 759–782.

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.

2024

Varela, K. S., King, S., Caraballo, K., Irizarry, Y., Iwama, J., Lopez, A.*, Low, S., Jiang, X., Bondy, J. M., & Peguero, A. A. (2024). Immigration, race/ethnicity, and school bullying in the United States. In J. S. Hong, H. C. O. Chan, A. L. C. Fung, & J. Lee (Eds.), Handbook of school violence, bullying, and safety. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Although it is known that race, ethnicity, and immigration are associated with student-level bullying, it remains unclear how the proportion of racial/ethnic minority students and immigrant students within a school is linked to school-level bullying. Therefore, the present chapter proposes and addresses two research questions. First, is there an association between an increasing proportion of immigrant students and school-level bullying? Second, are there racial/ethnic differences in the interaction between the increasing proportion of immigrant students and school-level bullying? This study will utilize a nationally representative dataset, the 2015 to 2016 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), to answer these two research questions about the relationship between immigration and school-level bullying. Findings suggest a negative association between immigration, race/ethnicity, and school-level bullying; however, important and distinctive nuances are presented and examined. This study also discusses the implications of the complex relationship between immigration and school-level bullying.

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.

Iwama, J., Irizarry, Y., Ernstes, A., Ripepi, M., Peguero, A. A., Bondy, J. M., & Hong, J. S. (2024). Segregation, securitization, and bullying: Investigating the connections between policing, surveillance, punishment, and violence. Race and Justice, 14(3), 313-344.

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.

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

Peguero, A. A., Irizarry, Y., King, S., Dunning-Lozano, J. L., & Hong, J. S. (2023). Is there an immigration and school-level crime link? Crime and Delinquency, 69(8), 1339-1368.

Contrary to the public misperception that immigrants are likely to be involved in criminal activities, evidence suggests that immigrants are less likely to engage in violence and criminal behavior at the individual level. Little is known, however, about the relationship between immigration, violence, and delinquency at the school-level. The present study draws from the nationally representative 2015 to 2016 School Survey on Crime and Safety to address two research questions. First, is there an association between an increasing proportion of immigrant students and school-level crime? Second, are there racial/ethnic differences in the association between increasing proportion of immigrant students and school-level crime? Our results indicate no relationship between immigration and school-level crime; however, important and distinctive nuances are related to the study findings.

Irizarry, Y., Monk, E. P., & Cobb, R. J. (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, T. C., & Nazar, C. R. (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, M. A., Kayumova, S., de Araujo, Z., & Madkins, T. C. (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.

2021

Madkins, T. C., & Morton, K. 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, M., Madkins, T. C., Givens, J. R., and Nasir, N. S. (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, A. A., Irizarry, Y., Iwama, J. A., Dunning-Lozano, J. L., Hong, J. S., & King, S. (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, Y. 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.

Through 2020

Madkins, T. C., Howard, N. R., & Freed, N. (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.

Madkins, T. C., & McKinney de Royston, M. (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, C., King, B., & Irizarry, Y. (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, Y., & Cohen, E. D. (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.

Irizarry, Y., & Perry, R. K. (2018). Challenging the Black church narrative: Race, class, and homosexual attitudes. Journal of Homosexuality, 65(7), 884-911.

In recent years, scholars have pointed to the Black church as the driving force behind Blacks’ more conservative lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) attitudes. Although evidence suggests a robust association between religiosity and LGBT attitudes, contemporary scholarship has not examined the role of class or the extent to which religiosity actually explains these trends. Using the 2004–2014 waves of the General Social Survey, we find that class moderates in the effect of race on negative LGBT attitudes, resulting in a noticeably larger gap between middle-class Blacks and Whites than in the top or the bottom of the class distribution. Although religiosity and moralization explain a portion of racial differences in homosexual attitudes across class groups, we find that neither fully accounts for the more conservative attitudes of the Black middle class. We conclude by discussing the shortcomings of these narratives for understanding Blacks’ more conservative LGBT attitudes.

Irizarry, Y., & Hunt, M. O. (2016). The dynamics of ethnic identity and personal well-being: A multi-group comparison. In J. E. Stets & R. T. Serpe (Eds.), New directions in identity theory and research (pp. 395-416). Oxford University Press.

Irizarry, Y., May, D. C., Davis, A.*, & Wood, P. B. (2016). Mass incarceration through a different lens: Race, subcontext, and perceptions of punitiveness of correctional alternatives when compared to prison. Race and Justice, 6(3), 236-256.

In spite of documented harmful effects of mass incarceration, evidence to date suggests that Blacks perceive the experience of prison as less punitive than Whites. While these findings are well documented, little is known about the role of sociodemographic or contextual factors in shaping this pattern. Utilizing a quantitative intersectional framework, we analyze data from over 1000 Kentucky prison inmates who were within 12 months of their parole hearing or release date to examine the differential effects of various sociodemographic and contextual factors on perceptions of the punitiveness of regular probation, community service, and electronic monitoring (as opposed to prison) for Blacks and Whites. Findings confirm the presence of a racial gap in perceptions of the punitiveness of various alternatives to incarceration; however, results from models disaggregated by race highlight important differences in the effects of gender, parenting, and childhood locale on these perceptions. These findings demonstrate the role of various factors in shaping Blacks’ and Whites’ differential perceptions and reveal the contexts where these differences are most likely to be found.

Irizarry, Y. (2015). Utilizing multidimensional measures of race in education research: The case of teacher perceptions. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1(4), 564-583.

Education scholarship on race using quantitative data analysis consists largely of studies on the black-white dichotomy and, more recently, on the experiences of students within conventional racial-ethnic categories (white, Hispanic/Latina/o, Asian, black). Despite substantial shifts in the racial and ethnic composition of American children, studies continue to overlook the diverse racialized experiences for students of Asian and Latina/o descent, the racialization of immigration status, and the educational experiences of Native American students. This study provides one possible strategy for developing multidimensional measures of race using large-scale datasets and demonstrates the utility of multidimensional measures for examining educational inequality, using teacher perceptions of student behavior as a case in point. With data from the first grade wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort of 1998–1999, I examine differences in teacher ratings of “externalizing problem behaviors” and “approaches to learning” across 14 racialized subgroups at the intersections of race, ethnicity, and immigrant status. Results show substantial subgroup variation in teacher perceptions of problem and learning behaviors and highlight key points of divergence and convergence within conventional racial-ethnic categories.

Irizarry, Y. (2015). Selling students short: Racial differences in teachers’ evaluations of high, average, and low performing students. Social Science Research, 52, 522-538.

Education scholars document notable racial differences in teachers’ perceptions of students’ academic skills. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort, this study advances research on teacher perceptions by investigating whether racial differences in teachers’ evaluations of first grade students’ overall literacy skills vary for high, average, and low performing students. Results highlight both the overall accuracy of teachers’ perceptions, and the extent and nature of possible inaccuracies, as demonstrated by remaining racial gaps net literacy test performance. Racial differences in teachers’ perceptions of Black, non-White Latino, and Asian students (compared to White students) exist net teacher and school characteristics and vary considerably across literacy skill levels. Skill specific literacy assessments appear to explain the remaining racial gap for Asian students, but not for Black and non-White Latino students. Implications of these findings for education scholarship, gifted education, and the achievement gap are discussed.

Irizarry, Y. (2013). Is measuring interracial contact enough? Racial concentration, racial balance, and perceptions of prejudice among Black Americans. Social Science Quarterly, 94(3), 591-615. (article also appears in special issue Black Lives Matter: Articles on Protest, Policing & Punishment)

ObjectivesContact theory posits that interracial contact can reduce racial prejudice and perceptions of prejudice. This relationship typically has been looked at from the perspective of whites’ views regarding race and racial relations, but few studies have examined the implications of interracial contact for blacks’ perceptions regarding the extent of prejudice and discrimination.
MethodsWith data from the National Survey of Black Workers, I examine whether opportunities for contact in settings with varying racial concentrations in youth and adulthood are associated with blacks’ perceptions of prejudice. I use racial concentration—measured here as mostly black settings, half-black (racially balanced) settings, and mostly white settings (compared to all-black settings)—as an indicator of opportunities for interracial contact.
ResultsMultivariate analyses offer some evidence of the benefits of opportunities for contact in mixed-race and mostly white settings for blacks’ perceptions of prejudice.
ConclusionAlthough having opportunities for contact can be beneficial, this evidence is limited to noncompetitive childhood environments, namely residential neighborhoods. Findings highlight the important of accounting for the racial balance of settings where interracial contact takes place.

Google Sites

Report abuse