Toward a Critical Race RPP: how race, power and positionality inform Research Practice Partnerships

ABSTRACT This research article challenges the normative construction of RPPs as an inherently equitable, post-racial and ungendered methodological framework. By utilizing critical race theory broadly, and whiteness as property in particular, we highlight how without explicit consideration for the racialization of research identities, RPPs are incapable of disrupting oppressive power structures that hinder equity and social change. As WOC researchers working on a large National Science Foundation granted study, we witnessed two issues in RPP methodologies: (1) institutional power granted by Academe is negated when whiteness is prioritized and minoritized race/gender identities are involved; and (2) niceness is weaponized as a means of protecting education and research as the property of whites in order to maintain the status quo. By utilizing our counterstories to unpack and interrogate the onto-epistemological and sociopolitical infrastructure of RPPs, we offer implications and best practices for how to foster more transformative and racially-just research partnerships. Specifically, we use CRT to theorize a Critical Race-RPP (CR-RPP) methodology that seeks to decentre whiteness and privilege the voices and needs of People of Color and other marginalized communities within schools and academia.