Researchers on instructor diversity should define race carefully and posit non-essentialist explanations for identity-outcome associations¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (2 mixed) · 1 study (1 review), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The review recommends that studies of instructor racial/ethnic diversity avoid using racial/ethnic identity as an untheorized proxy for educator knowledge, practices, biases, or expectations. It argues that "research on instructor racial/ethnic diversity should carefully define and conceptualize the meaning and significance of race and should (at the very least) posit non-essentialist explanations for why particular attributes or outcomes may be associated with instructors' racial/ethnic identities," including theorizing higher-level mechanisms such as labor-market discrimination that could produce such associations.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Explicit theorization of how constructs like cultural synchronicity arise and how they might be operationalized

Constraints¶

• The review focuses narrowly on college STEM classrooms rather than K-12 settings, given contextual differences

Target Learners¶

• education researchers studying instructor diversity in STEM higher education

Target Learning Goals¶

• designing diversity research that avoids racial essentialism and generates testable predictions

Affordances¶

• Ecological Systems Model Systemic Racism Stem

Claims¶

• Racially marginalized faculty self-report using inclusive pedagogy at slightly but significantly higher rates than White faculty [~W]
• Within STEM, only Asian and multi-racial faculty identities were significantly associated with greater self-reported culturally inclusive teaching [~W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Sedlacek, Q., Villa, A. M., III, Friend, M., Pérez, G., Dozier, S., Haeger, H., Lomelí, K., & Mejia, J. A. (2025). How Representation Matters: Conceptualizing Systemic Racism to Develop Diversity Research Agendas for Undergraduate STEM Education. Educational Psychology Review, 37:49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-025-10021-7