Discussions of race/ethnicity related differences in school psychology journals: A descriptive review

Abstract

In recent years there has been growing awareness of the importance of addressing equity issues in school psychology. This awareness extends to school psychology research, where there remains a need for systematic analysis to better understand how race/ethnicity and race/ethnic group differences, specifically, are reported in research. In this article, we present a descriptive review of the treatment of race/ethnicity analyses in quantitative research articles published in five major school psychology journals from 2021 to 2023. 117 articles meeting specific inclusion criteria were coded across article sections (i.e., introduction, method, and discussion) for the presence and handling of race/ethnicity-related group differences content. Descriptive statistics were employed to explore the extent and substantive focus of the discussions of race/ethnicity differences in journal articles. Results indicate widespread inclusion of race/ethnicity in journal article introduction and discussion sections, with a similar number of articles presenting race from an anti-deficit perspective than from a context-free, atheoretical perspective. However, we found that a sizable proportion of articles center the White experience and fail to discuss any limitations regarding the use of race in research. Guided by deficit thinking conceptualizations and quantitative critical methodologies, we offer recommendations to better inform and guide the research process and how research findings are communicated in school psychology journals.