CritSEM: Advancing QuantCrit to Examine Racialized Resegregation in Special Education

The field of education urgently needs research, aligned with QuantCrit, to disrupt the racialized overrepresentation [resegregation] of Black and Latinx students in special education. Our concern about how statistics have been (mis)applied motivated us to consider the possibility of quantitative methods for use in educational research that aims to dismantle white supremacy. Therefore, we developed CritSEM (Critical Structural Equation Modeling) as a methodological intervention for the purpose of telling a Critical Race Counterstory. Specifically, we examined the extent that anti-racist educators can disrupt processes causing the resegregation of Black and Latinx students in special education, using restricted data from the 2011 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Our study concludes with a discussion and implications about working toward an anti-racist special education system and applying QuantCrit in advanced statistical methods.