Open research questions in Critical Race Theory in Education

What the literature leaves open

• Centering Black community voices within research is not only a methodological choice but also a moral and epistemological commitment to honoring the knowledge, histories, and lived experiences that have long been excluded or misrepresented in academic discourse. Based on this work, we recommend researchers center the mem- ories and counternarratives of Black teachers, parents, students, and communities as legitimate and insightful sources of knowledge. We encourage researchers to dis- 1 3The Urban Review (2026) 58:48 Page 21 of 26 48 rupt traditional research conventions that privilege institutional archives over lived experience and to design studies that honor familial and community-based stories as valid evidence (see Eggenberger & Nelms, 2007; Thain, 2023). By doing so, scholar- ship can more fully engage the historical context of Black education, particularly in relation to school closures and the resulting institutional mourning that communities continue to experience (Ewing, 2018). Centering the memories and counternarratives of those impacted by school closures contextualizes an equitable approach grounded in the community’s historical context (Grooms et al., 2025). In this study, elevating Black voices repositions community members as theo- rists, storytellers, and co-creators of knowledge, rather than as subjects of inquiry. This approach affirms that Black experiences, memories, and counternarratives hold deep intellectual and cultural value, capable of reshaping how research understands education, belonging, and justice. By grounding the work in relational accountability and community trust, researchers can challenge extractive traditions that treat Black communities as data sources rather than partners. Instead, scholarship becomes a col- laborative act of remembrance and resistance, one that uplifts Black ways of know- ing, connects present realities to historical continuities, and envisions more equitable futures rooted in the strength, creativity, and resilience of Black life. We invite schol- ars to build on this work by treating school closures as racialized urban events where social and emotional effects unfold across schools, families, and neighborhoods over time, extending this analysis comparatively across cities to examine how local histo- ries of segregation, disinvestment, and reform shape these closings.

  “The School Isn’t Closed to Me”: Transformative Social and Emotional Learning in the Open/Closed Dichotomy of School Reform · 2026 · DOI

• Further research on scholarship programs that prioritize socioeconomic and racial diversity in elite schools is necessary, particularly in non-US contexts, to understand how specific local histories and education policies shape scholarship students’ experiences.

  The Case of Escola Eleva and the Janelas Abertas Scholarship Program: De/reterritorializing Elite Notions of a Brazilian International School · 2026 · DOI

• Insights gained from the literature review will support Canadian faculty in identifying potential initial actions and considerations that can positively influence the experience of Black STEMM students and support both the quality of their experience and their successful degree attainment. However, this is only a starting place. In conducting the literature search, a promising consideration for our attempts to develop a collective impact guiding frame for the Canadian community for researchers and practitioners is “A Common agenda for the Advancement of Black Americans in Engineering” (London et al., 2022). This framing is illustrated in Fig. 1. The integrated quadrant of actions developed through literature reviews and a Delphi study of experts can be used as a reflective tool as we consider similarities and differences in US and Canadian contexts.

  Black Post-Secondary Student Experiences in STEMM Across the US and Canada: a Review of the Literature · 2026 · DOI

• Our recommendations for stewarding Black Educational Futures are threefold: 1) Black representation matters to thriving BES; 2) systemic school implementation of racial literacy can improve culturally responsive mentorship; 3) Fugitive Mentorship must be relevant to the youth it aims to serve. We hope that, through our layered autoethnographic inquiry, we illustrate how to cultivate expansive Black Educational futures that disrupt systemic anti-Blackness (Sharpe, 2017). To begin, Black adult representation remains essential when mentoring youth of color. Research shows that school systems that intentionally implement hiring and retention practices for Black faculty reduce the racial battle fatigue (Pizarro & Kohli, 2020) and do not overburden them with the sole responsibility of leading affinity spaces (Stanley, 2025). Next, school systems can systematically implement racial literacy professional development to offer more culturally responsive mentorship, rather than replicating this type of Fugitive Mentorship in other educational contexts, which would go against the aim of this paper. While some educators might have had some prior experience with culturally relevant historical literacy (Mihammad, 2020) and racial literacy framework (Sealey-Ruiz, 2022), in recent community-based mentorship literature, non-Black mentors, who make a large majority of the volunteer base (similar to educators) report not having had adequate training to discuss topics around race and culture (Jones et al., 2022). To minimize racial liberalism (Oto et al., 2020; Sealey-Ruiz, 2022), we propose that administration and teacher education departments engage with racial literacy before beginning in-service teaching. Lastly, effective BSU advisors know how to listen to young Current Issues in Education, 27(1) 15 GERMAN, SMITH, BERNARD & WILKERSON: FUGITIVE MENTORSHIP people. We know youth already act as liaisons and consultants to their respective communities. By sharing our BSU advisors’ experiences, we hope to get closer to our goal of having Black youth leaders’ voices heard and respected. By listening to the youth who hold the future in their hands, we can disrupt anti-Blackness in educational contexts by Fugitive Mentorship: co- conspire, resist, and heal together.

  Fugitive Mentorship and Cultivating Expansive Futures: · 2026 · DOI

• As we share our collaborative autoethnography of advising BSU clubs in the American Southwest, we call in other participating research practitioners to share their knowledge of their hyperlocal context. We affirm that young people’s voices must be centered through youth-driven methodologies such as Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) (Domínguez & Cammarota, 2022). Furthermore, we agree with Jones and colleagues (2022) that future research ought to examine how Black youth spaces can cultivate socio-political awareness. We ultimately underscore the critical need for research-practice partnerships to evaluate the implementation of professional development and funding given to diversity club advisors (Parry et al., 2020).

  Fugitive Mentorship and Cultivating Expansive Futures: · 2026 · DOI

• Ontario Human Rights Commission. (2025). Dreams delayed: An action plan to address anti-Black racism and discrimination in Ontario education. https://www.ohrc.on.ca Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. (2025). Black Future Educators Pathway. University of Toronto. https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/ctl/black-future-educators-pathway Ontario Ministry of Education. (2013). Policy/program memorandum No. 119: Developing and implementing equity and inclusive education policies in Ontario schools. Ontario Government. https://www.ontario.ca/document/education-ontario-policy-and-programdirection/policyprogram-memorandum-119 135 JISTE, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2026 Ontario Ministry of Education. (2022). New Teacher Induction Program: Induction Elements Manual (Revised 2021). Queen’s Printer for Ontario. https://files.ontario.ca/edu-ntip-ind uctions-manualen-2022-08-02.pdf Ortiz, N. A., & Ruwe, D. (2021). Black English and Mathematics Education: A Critical Look at Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy. Teachers College Record (1970), 123(10), 185–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681211058978 Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244 Peel District School Board. (2025). Focused recruitment of Black and Indigenous educators initiative strategy [PDF]. Peel District School Board. https://www.peelschools.org/documents/a2b377a4- 2c6b-4120-9ec5- ed8877888bed/16.3_FocusedRecruitmentofBlackandIndigenousEducatorsInitiative-Strategy.pdf Picower, B. (2009). The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: how White teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies. Race Ethnicity and Education, 12 (2) 197-215. Rotman Commerce. (2023). Reflecting on the legacy of Leonard Braithwaite. University of Toronto. https://100.rotmancommerce.utoronto.ca/stories/leonardbraithwaite/ Shimo, A. (2024, April 9). Is Canada ready to play its part in the global climate refugee crisis? Broadview. https://broadview.org/is-canada-ready-to-play-its-part-in-the-global-climate-refugeecrisis/ Smyth, E., & Hamel, T. (2016). The history of initial teacher education in Canada: Québec and Ontario. Educação & Formação (Fortaleza), 1(1), 88–109. https://doi.org/10.25053/edufor.v1i1.1606 Statistics Canada, (2025). https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/start Steketee, A., Williams, M. T., Valencia, B. T., Printz, D., & Hooper, L. M. (2021). Racial and language microaggressions in the school ecology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(5), 1075– 1098. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621995740 Toronto District School Board. (2023). Caring and Safe Schools Report 2022–23. https://www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/0/docs/Caring%20and%20Safe%20Schools%20Report%202022- 23.pdf Turner Consulting Group, Inc. (2015, May 29). Voices of Ontario Black Educators: An experiential report. Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators. https://www.turnerconsultinggroup.ca/uploads/2/9/5/6/29562979/onabse_voices_of_black_educat ors_final_report.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com journals.library.ualberta.ca+2utoronto.scholaris Turner Consulting Group. (2014, October 30). Teacher diversity gap in Ontario. https://www.turnerconsultinggroup.ca/tanas-blog/teacher-diversity-gap 136 JISTE, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2026 UNESCO. (2023). Black Canadians and public education: A scan of elementary and secondary social studies curricula. https://en.ccunesco.ca/- /media/Files/Unesco/Resources/2023/08/BlackCanadiansPublicEducation.pdf UNHCR. (n.d.). Refugees in Canada. https://www.unhcr.ca/in-canada/refugees-in-canada/ Western University. (2024). 2024-25 Bachelor of Education course descriptions. Faculty of Education, Western University. https://www.edu.uwo.ca/csw/bed/_docs/course_descriptions/2024-25-coursedescriptions.pdf York University. (2025). Consecutive BEd: How to apply 2026-27 [PDF]. Faculty of Education, York University. https://www.yorku.ca/edu/wpcontent/uploads/sites/28/2025/05/Website_Consecutive-BEd-How-to-apply-2026-27.pdf Zhao, L. & Ngai, S.S. (2022). Perceived discrimination at school and developmental outcomes among Bai adolescents: The mediating roles of self-esteem and ethnic identity, Int. J. Environ. Res.

  Towards Equity · 2026 · DOI

• This conceptual paper revisits McIntosh’s list of examples, illustrating that it is insufficient to merely identify them; we must actively dismantle the “wall of Whiteness” perpetuating racial inequality.

  Wall of Whiteness: Bricks in the Ivory Tower · 2026 · DOI

• These power differentials between students and placement instructors/faculty could be examined through the frame of epistemic injustice. Fricker (2007) articulates how those who are lacking in social power and capital often encounter experiences where they are either denied access to or excluded from language that could assist in helping to make sense of their social world and experiences. For example, during my early years as a tenure-track faculty, I requested academic accommodations for my ADHD in the form of academic copyediting for article writing and was told by my institution that my medical documentation from my family practitioner was insufficient and that I needed further “objective” proof of my disability.

  Listening with Bamms: An Autotheoretical Critique of Epistemic Injustice in Postsecondary Early Childhood Education · 2026 · DOI

• Although there have been numerous studies in student affairs that have connected student affairs burnout and attrition and few others that have connected a raced and gendered experience to that burnout as Black women or folx of color, additional research is needed, especially to examine the connection between the experience of operating within a StrongBlackWoman phenomenon and how that impacts their well-being as Black women student affairs professionals.

  The Toxicity of the StrongBlackWoman Narrative Within Student Affairs · 2025 · DOI

• It addresses the persistent elitism and growing awareness of exclusivity within UK HE while filling a gap in the literature by highlighting the lived experiences of (BMW) students, whose intersecting identities have been largely overlooked in academic discourse.

  Navigating academia: the intersectional experiences of Black Muslim female students in UK higher education · 2025 · DOI

• Harvard (SFFA), specifically with respect to a crucial aspect of the case that has not been addressed in depth in other scholarship on the decision: how key opinions conceptualize “race” in their reasoning.

  Conceptual Gerrymandering in <em>SFFA</em> and Some Thoughts On How It Enables the Case’s Weaponization · 2025

• Despite decidedly mixed results across those particular campaigns, there remained a more fundamental disjuncture between these efforts and independent Black protest, the latter shown in a close look at Memphis, where Black Power advocates worked instead with more established civil rights leaders on race-based labour and anti-poverty campaigns.

  Radical Volunteers: Dissent, Desegregation, and Student Power in Tennessee. By Katherine J.Ballantyne. University of Georgia Press, 2024. 244 pp. $29.95. · 2025 · DOI

• After the plurality of crises experienced in 2020, including but not limited to a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a national reckoning with racial violence, and political violence, one teacher and twelve college students set out to explore and create actively antiracist, self-nourishing pedagogies for elementary students.

  Read, Make, and Mend the World: College Students Developing an Antiracist, Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Children · 2023 · DOI

• Through employing critical race theory, seen-invisibility, and circuits of dispossession as theoretical frames, this article complicates discourses around equity and Black student achievement by examining the underexplored experiences of high-achieving Black Canadian students in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

  Persistently Present, Yet Invisible? Exploring the Experiences of High-Achieving Black Students in the Greater Toronto Area · 2023 · DOI

• Our individual experiences, combined with insights from the CCCC OWI Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction, provide a starting point for faculty seeking to undergo similar transformational practices and for further research into Flashback: Translation, Transformation, and “Taking it Back” 93 the effectiveness of these particular practices in relation to WAC anywhere on the F2F-online spectrum. Additional research on the effectiveness of using multi-modal ele- ments should be conducted to understand the specific relationships between multi- modal instruction and increased writing competencies across the curriculum.

  Feminist Rhetorics in Writing Across the Curriculum: Supporting Students as Agents of Change · 2022 · DOI

• So, in the context of being a faculty member engaged with students, I pose a question to you, for us, from me: What if instead of “transgressing” White supremacy, we are in fact maintaining it? Many of us in higher education have come to an understanding that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is insufficient for college teaching and student learning to positively move forward through the 21st century.

  Making Monsters · 2022 · DOI

• However, little is known about how social work educators utilize the syllabus as a tool to prepare students to develop the stamina to attend to and cope with emotional reactions that may result from engaging in critical self-discovery and difficult conversations regarding diversity and social justice.

  Discomforting pedagogies and affective learning processes in diversity & social justice courses · 2022 · DOI

• While pushing the boundaries erected between university settings and the Black liberation movement taking place in their communities (Joseph, 2003), they were limited to a precarious status as Black women teaching within White-male dominated institutions.

  Living at the Margins: Black Feminist Pedagogy as Transformative Praxis During the 1980s-1990s and Epistemic Exclusion in the 21st Century—Where Do We Go Now? · 2021 · DOI

• The findings reveal that although Canadian adult educators have progressively adopted an intersectional approach to the study of immigrant experiences in Canada, this shift is insufficient for building inclusive learning spaces that are capable of assisting marginalized immigrants in overcoming multifaceted challenges in the host society.

  Taking Stock of Research on Immigration and Adult Education in Canada: 1981- 2020 · 2021 · DOI

• In an effort to address this gap in the literature, this investigation uses quantitative survey responses from 167 non-racially specific, currently active, social work faculty and administrators, and 12 qualitative interviews with African American, currently active, social work faculty and administrators to gain a more lucid understanding of how they view the roles and impacts of whiteness and White supremacy within Social Work.

  Stories We Tell · 2021 · DOI

• TThere is little known about the experiences of Black women in schools of social work, specifically those situated within research-intensive (R-1) Carnegie-designated institutions.

  Experiences With Imposter Syndrome and Authenticity at Research-Intensive Schools of Social Work · 2021 · DOI

• Focusing on computer-generated imagery (CGI) racialized online influencers, the spectacularization of Black pain and lives, digital marketing approaches, and digital Blackface, this work contextualizes anti-Black digital racism by reflecting on its connection to centuries of white supremacy and often under-investigated racial capitalism.

  Spectacularized and Branded Digital (Re)presentations of Black People and Blackness · 2021 · DOI

• We conclude with implications from learnings from this crisis for practitioners, educator preparation programs, policy, and future research while adding to the limited literature concerning teacher SEL, anti-racism, and teacher-created communities.

  Time for Change: Understanding Teacher Social-Emotional Learning Supports for Anti-Racism and Student Well-Being During COVID-19, and Beyond · 2021 · DOI

• "How universities and K-12 schools will "address it" remains to be seen, particularly given current economic and medical constraints, how, in the past, promises have been made and then broken, and how white people seem, so often, to have awoken only to fall back asleep.

  Waking Up and Dreaming the Future: Reflections on the Art of James Baldwin and Carrie-Mae Weems and the Impossibility of Teacher Education · 2020 · DOI

• The urban Black educational crisis in the 1980s should be studied by urban, African American, and education scholars because it reflects how punishing Black children became a vital part of America’s response to the poverty, crime, and de facto segregation caused by the failures of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

  “Tough on Conduct:” Punitive Leadership in Urban Public Schools, A Case Study of <em>Angry Principal</em> Dr. Roy A. West, 1986–1991 · 2020 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Critical Race Theory in Education

• Coloring Epistemologies: Are Our Research Epistemologies Racially Biased? · Educational Researcher · 1997 · 418 citations
• Beyond Making a Statement: An Intersectional Framing of the Power and Possibilities of Positioning · Educational Researcher · 2023 · 274 citations
• Who Really Cares? The Disenfranchisement of African American Males in PreK-12 Schools: A Critical Race Theory Perspective · Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education · 2008 · 234 citations
• Sexism, racism, prejudice, and bias: a literature review and synthesis of research surrounding student evaluations of courses and teaching · Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education · 2021 · 218 citations
• Participation in the Arts by Black and White Americans · Social Forces · 1990 · 169 citations
• Racial Ideology or Racial Ignorance? An Alternative Theory of Racial Cognition · Sociological Theory · 2020 · 167 citations
• What Makes Systemic Racism<i>Systemic</i>? · Sociological Inquiry · 2021 · 158 citations
• Race, Class and the Dilemmas of Upward Mobility for African Americans · Journal of Social Issues · 2003 · 152 citations
• Asian Americans in American History: An AsianCrit Perspective on Asian American Inclusion in State U.S. History Curriculum Standards · Theory & Research in Social Education · 2016 · 146 citations
• To be, or not to be…Black: The effects of racial codeswitching on perceived professionalism in the workplace · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2021 · 145 citations

Most recent work

• Leading well: a multi-modal model to center black women principals' personal and professional wellness practices in Detroit · Journal of Educational Administration · 2026
• Centering Language and Identity to Advance a Culturally Relevant Science of Reading Framework for African American Students · Urban Education · 2026
• Teaching with a Racialized Heart: Reframing Emotion as Theory and Praxis in Trauma-Informed Education · The Urban Review · 2026
• Navigating the margins: intersectional leadership, racialised labour and the politics of belonging in UK higher education · Gender in Management An International Journal · 2026
• Epistemic exclusion in higher Education: navigating racialised gatekeeping in Australia · Whiteness and Education · 2026
• Resistance in action: a critical race theory ethnography of opposition to Texas Senate Bill 17 · Ethnography & Education · 2026
• Early Avenues of the <i>Afterlife</i> : Antiblackness in K–12 School Discipline Post- <i>Brown</i> · AERA Open · 2026
• Benefits to Canada of a Network That’s ‘All About Being Black’ in STEMM · Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education · 2026
• “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” DEI, or CRT in Florida: Anti-“WOKE” and Anti-DEI Legislation in K-12 and Higher Education · Urban Education · 2026
• Race, Class, Gender, and the Struggle for Social Justice in Higher Education: Unveiling the Unnamed Elite · Public Integrity · 2026

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