Educators and researchers who approach their work with humility and self-awareness and consider alternative ways to think about what counts as data can discover valuable insights that are as important as the numbers themselves, BSE Professor Lisa García Bedolla, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division, told a packed room of school leaders at the launch of the 21CSLA Latinx Leaders Network.
Identifying bias requires looking into the sources and framing of data and to consider who’s asking the questions and what kinds of questions they ask, said García Bedolla, who spoke on Sept. 16, Mexican Independence Day and the start of Latinx Heritage Month.
“We don’t talk enough about how we’re consumers of information, and we’re not always trained to be literate consumers of that information,” said García Bedolla, a political scientist.
She noted in her lecture that lived experiences and emotions are just as valuable as numbers in research and that numbers may sometimes mask what we know intuitively. She talked about one of her first research projects in East Los Angeles where she interviewed young people about discrimination, and participants unanimously said they hadn’t experienced any discrimination. The students went all to discuss how they had experienced widely used “stop and frisk” police strategies, surveillance, and other discriminatory police practices, but didn’t identify those practices as “discrimination” because they happened to everyone in the community — a community made up largely of people of color.
This first research experience taught her to evaluate the language she used in her questions and to develop common definitions that are accessible to participants.
At the close of her talk, García Bedolla made a plea for educators and researchers to approach their work with humility, openness, and awareness.
“I am a woman of color who has been in the academy for a long time and I have experienced racism, sexism, classism, all of those things,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that I can’t be racist. It doesn’t mean I can’t be sexist. I don’t get a ‘get out of jail free card.’ Good intentions don’t forgive the impact.”
She said the work for equity in schools hinges on research that paints a full picture of what’s happening with our students. “If we do want to have transformational practices,” she said, “we need to have equitable and innovative data.”
Following the Saturday morning talk, 21CSLA launched a new local affinity group of Latino/x/a school leaders. The group — organized by 21CSLA and led by Richard Zapien and Alameda Regional Academy colleagues — is intended to provide an ongoing space for participants to discuss their experiences as Latino/a/x educators and school leaders. The group will meet monthly.
