Campus Advisory – Update 1/14/2025
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Home – HERE Center – Resources – Critical Race Theory Resources – Fields Of Study – Social Sciences

Social Sciences

The broadly defined Social Sciences include areas such as cultural studies, urban studies, and social work. Sentences that come directly from the article are in quotation marks. CSUN students, faculty, and staff can access most articles through the University Library using CSUN credentials. Please use the library’s interlibrary loan services if an article of interest is not available.

Aguilar, C. (2019). Undocumented critical theory. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 19(3), 152–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708618817911

  • Aguilar introduces the central tenets of a developing theory that he calls Undocumented Critical Theory (UndocuCrit) “to better understand the nuanced and liminal experiences that characterize undocumented communities” in the U.S. As a theoretical framework, UndocuCrit “challenges an immigrant binary rhetoric.”

Arudou, D. (2015). Japan’s under-researched visible minorities: Applying critical race theory to racialization dynamics in a non-White society. Washington University Global Studies Law Review, 14(4), 695–723.

  • Although CRT is applied primarily to countries and societies with Caucasian majorities to analyze White privilege, this article applies CRT to Japan, a non-White majority society. After discussing how scholarship on Japan has hitherto ignored the effects of skin color on the concept of “Japaneseness,” Arudou examines an example of published research on the Post-WWII “konketsuji problem,” that is, the existence of “mixed-blood children” in Japanese society (mostly from Japanese and non-Japanese unions during the American Occupation of Japan).

Blessett, B. (2020). Urban renewal and “ghetto” development in Baltimore: Two sides of the same coin. American Review of Public Administration, 50(8), 838–850. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020930358

  • This article uses CRT “to examine the implementation of one of the first full-scale urban renewal rehabilitation projects in Baltimore, Maryland.” Using a race-conscious lens, “the tools of government (e.g., economic, institutional, personnel, and linguistic) are examined to contextualize how administrative decisions produced racially disproportionate outcomes for Black residents in the Harlem Park neighborhood.”

Bohonos, J. W. (2021). Critical race theory and working‐class White men: Exploring race privilege and lower‐class work‐life. Gender, Work and Organization, 28(1), 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12512

  • This study applies CRT “to analyze the dynamic intersection between the racial and gender privilege available to working‐class White men from their position of social and economic marginality.” It empirically “builds on the ethnographic study of a small North American company in the construction industry.”

Gonzalez-Sobrino, B., & Goss, D. R. (2019). Exploring the mechanisms of racialization beyond the Black–White binary. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(4), 505–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1444781

  • This special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies focuses on the mechanisms that undergird the operation of racialization. It empirically defines “the specific mechanisms by which racialization outside of black–white paradigm operates, in order to add knowledge to exactly how and why racialization happens.” It emphasizes racialization “beyond black and white racial categories from a broad perspective, including both global and interdisciplinary perspectives.”

Hall, R. E. (2018). The globalization of light skin colorism: From critical race to critical skin theory. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(14), 2133–2145. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218810755

  • By globalization, a “racial world order exists by locating light skin at the zenith of humanity.” The existence of a racist racial hierarchy, which replaces racism with colorism, necessitates us to move beyond race category. This article discusses: (a) the globalization of light skin, and (b) from CRT to critical skin theory.

Hartmann, D., Gerteis, J., & Croll, P. R. (2009). An empirical assessment of Whiteness theory: Hidden from how many? Social Problems, 56(3), 403–424. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2009.56.3.403

  • This paper employs data from a national survey to offer an empirical assessment of core theoretical tenets of Whiteness studies. The authors analyze three propositions “relating to whites' awareness and conception of their own racial status: the invisibility of white identity; the understanding (or lack thereof) of racial privileges; and adherence to individualistic, color-blind ideals.”

Hernandez, T. K. (2000). Exploration of the efficacy of class-based approaches to racial justice: The Cuban context. U.C. Davis Law Review, 33(4), 1135–1172.

  • Hernandez discusses the Cuban class-based approach to racial inequality and how the Cuban history of racial subordination continues to influence Cuba's political economy. Drawing upon the Cuban context, Hernandez concludes that “the Cuban and Latin American propensity for suppressing Afro-Lat identity may impede LatCrit theory's antisubordination goal” for Latinx and other communities of color in the U.S.

Jeffers, J. L. (2019). Justice Is not blind: Disproportionate incarceration rate of people of color. Social Work in Public Health, 34(1), 113–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371918.2018.1562404

  • Through the CRT lens, “this article examines race and the criminal justice system by reviewing specific aspects of the legal system and its arbitrary application of the system’s significant discretionary power, which is a major influencer in the disparate incarceration rates for people of color.”

Johnson-Ahorlu, R. N. (2017). Efficient social justice: How critical race theory research can inform social movement strategy development. The Urban Review, 49(5), 729–745. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-017-0419-8

  • This study explores “how CRT research, when joined with the efforts of activists, is even more potent with capacity to realize social justice.” In the paper, the tenets of CRT in education “serve as the foundation of a model that reveal how each tenet can shape research designs that inform decision making in social movement strategy development. The model is inspired by the author’s personal experiences with combining CRT research with social movement strategy development.”

Kerrison, E. M. (2018). Exploring how prison-based drug rehabilitation programming shapes racial disparities in substance use disorder recovery. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 140–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.08.002

  • This research examines the interview narratives of 300 former prisoners who participated in a minimum of 12 months of prison-based therapeutic community programming. It explores “the significance of language and identity construction in these carceral spaces, and how treatment providers as well as agency agendas are implicated in the reproduction of racial disparities in substance abuse recovery.”

Lemmons, B. P., & Johnson, W. E. (2019). Game changers: A critical race theory analysis of the economic, social, and political factors impacting Black fatherhood and family formation. Social Work in Public Health, 34(1), 86–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371918.2018.1562406

  • Applying the basic tenets of CRT and Michelle Alexander’s (2012) notion of Racialized “Game Changing,” this article “examines the social, political, and economic factors that have worked to undermine normative Black fatherhood involvement and family formation patterns over time.” It also discusses “factors that underlie the changes in Black family structure and formation over time.”

Limbert, W. M., & Bullock, H. E. (2005). “Playing the fool”: US welfare policy from a critical race perspective. Feminism & Psychology, 15(3), 253–274. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959-353505054715

  • The authors draw on CRT and critical race feminism to deconstruct contemporary U.S. welfare policy. “The political framing of work requirements, single motherhood, and ‘citizenship’ under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 are used to illustrate the racism, sexism, and classism that pervade current regulations.” Drawing on Hurtado’s (1996) conceptualization of the ‘Pendejo Game,’ the authors argue that “political elites feign ignorance of poverty and structural inequities to legitimate policies that maintain economic disparities.”

McKay, C. (2008). A new consciousness trudging toward leadership. Educational Gerontology, 34(8), 670–690. https://doi.org/10.1080/03601270801981149

  • Integrating elements of oppression psychology, Popular Education (1999), critical pedagogy, and CRT, this article highlights a study of seven African American elders who graduated from a Senior Advocacy Leadership Training (SALT) program. These elders confronted external and internal oppressive ideologies and challenged the stereotypes of African American elders.

Woodson, A. N. (2019). Racial code words, re‐memberings and Black kids’ civic imaginations: A critical race ethnography of a post‐civil rights leader. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 50(1), 26–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12277

  • This article uses “the construct of racial code word to advance theory about unspoken, racialized expectations that accompany seemingly neutral historical concepts.” Critical race ethnographic methods were used to examine how eight Black teenagers made sense of the term “civil rights leader” and the assumptions that supported their sense‐making. Data reveal “tension between ideals of whiteness in popular stories about black activism and the possible and desired civic identities of participants.”
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