Talk @ University of New Mexico

My Journey to QuantCrit: How the Scientist Met The Fugitive In The Borderlands

The myth of meritocracy obscures the reality of injustice manifesting as educational debts along gender, racial, and other marginalized identities. Particularly, in Discipline Based Education Research (DBER), the study of equity and justice problems centers theoretical and methodological practices that perpetuate the racism-race reification process and fails to provide insight that can dismantle an unjust system. In this talk I will present (1) the “Resources for Equitable Activation of Chemical Thinking Framework”, a framework I proposed to center equity theories in Chemistry Education Research, and (2) my QuantCrit methodological approach. I will apply this equity-centered approach to unearth a counterstory to traditional and harmful explanations of the “underperformance” of Black students in an Introductory Chemistry course. Furthermore, I will show how this equity-centered approach allows us to reach conclusions with practical implications that improve instructors’ practice, and better support their marginalized students. Finally, I will present how both my theoretical and methodological perspectives will be applied to build an Equity-Centered Research Program that aims to solve both theoretical and practical issues in Chemistry Education Research.