Translating Critical Race Research for Evidenced-Based Policymaking

By Royel M. Johnson

As racial inequities in education deepen — due in part to the current COVID-19 public health crisis, growing economic challenges, and state-sanctioned anti-Black violence — efforts to increase the use of research evidence in policymaking takes on heightened importance. Specifically, use of rigorous research that is anchored in critical and transformative paradigms is key to the formulation of equity-focused educational policies that improve the material conditions of our most vulnerable populations.

Yet, educational research, generally, remains inaccessible to policymakers despite calls for scholars to disseminate their findings to audiences beyond the traditional scholarly community to influence policy. Work by scholars of color is even more inaccessible due to systemic inequities in the academy such as limited access to widely circulated (“high-impact”) publications that journalists turn to for media coverage, and they are rarely invited to interact and speak with legislators.

With support from the Spencer Foundation, my colleagues Francesca Lopez, Ashley Patterson, LaWanda Ward and I partnered with Penn State’s Research-to-Policy Collaboration (RPC) to provide formal training and experiential learning for ten critical race scholars aimed at increasing their policy competencies. That is, the knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy that support effective policy engagement. These scholars, whose expertise span various subfields of education, now constitute a rapid response network that can be called upon to respond to research inquiries from state and federal legislative offices.

In December 2021, we hosted a virtual convening with congressional staffers who were invited to learn about the research of those in our network. Prior to the convening, the scholars received support in the development of fact sheets by RPC, which were the focus of their presentations. In a forthcoming special issue for Teachers College Record, my colleagues and I reflect about this experience, showcase the work scholars in the network presented, and show how they transformed traditional peer-reviewed manuscripts into accessible research fact sheets.

While we have yet to study the impact of this specific experience on scholars in our network, experimental research on RPC more broadly suggests that it can increase researchers’ policy engagement, foster collaborations between researchers and congressional offices, improve how offices value research evidence, and increase offices’ reference to research evidence in legislation. I can’t wait to share what we are learning from this work in forthcoming publications.