Critical Race Design: An Emerging Methodological Approach to Anti-Racist Design and Implementation Research

This article is about introducing Critical Race Design (CRD), a research methodology that centers race and equity at the nucleus of educational opportunities by design. First, the authors define design-based implementation research (DBIR; Penuel, Fishman, Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011) as an equity-oriented education research methodology where teaching and learning is informed by robust, iterative, evidence-based research conducted by multiple stakeholders. Next, they provide a brief overview of Critical Race Theory in Education (CRT; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) as a theoretical and methodological approach that aims to unpack and disrupt the structural inequities experienced by disenfranchised racial groups. They then describe how both education methodologies informed CRD, our emerging anti-racist critical design methodology. Finally, they provide an example where they used CRD to design an online service-learning course that aimed to situate the narratives of underrepresented STEM professionals as a curricular resource for nondominant adolescents.