The Work Week discussions and presentations will be guided by three key themes:
Critical Quantitative Pedagogy
Critical Quantitative Pedagogy explores effective and critical approaches to teaching quantitative methods that challenge traditional instruction rooted in positivist assumptions. This theme examines how educators can foster liberatory learning environments where students develop both technical proficiency and critical consciousness about the sociopolitical nature of quantitative research. It addresses questions of who teaches quantitative methods, to whom, and with what underlying assumptions about objectivity, neutrality, and knowledge production.
Presentations in this theme investigate innovative instructional strategies that center student agency, interrogate the hidden curriculum of traditional statistics education, and integrate critical frameworks such as Critical Race Theory, feminist epistemology, and transformative justice into methods courses. Scholars examine how to teach students to recognize the ideological foundations of statistical practices, from the eugenic origins of norm-referenced testing to the ways algorithmic systems perpetuate structural inequities. This work also explores the development of culturally responsive pedagogies that honor diverse ways of knowing while building quantitative literacy.
Critical Quantitative Pedagogy recognizes that teaching methods is never a neutral act but rather a site of ideological transmission and potential transformation. By making explicit the political dimensions of quantitative instruction, this theme seeks to prepare the next generation of researchers who can wield quantitative tools toward democratic and liberatory ends rather than in service of existing power structures.
Critical Quantitative Theory
Critical Quantitative Theory examines the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of quantitative inquiry within critical frameworks, challenging the epistemological assumptions that have traditionally positioned quantitative methods as objective, value-neutral, and apolitical. This theme interrogates how dominant paradigms in quantitative research have historically served to legitimize inequality, reify social categories, and obscure structural violence through claims of scientific objectivity. It centers theoretical traditions including Critical Race Theory, QuantCrit, intersectionality, feminist theory, and disability justice as foundations for reimagining what quantitative inquiry can be and do.
Presentations in this theme explore fundamental questions about the nature of measurement, categorization, and numerical representation within systems of power. Scholars examine how constructs like "ability," "achievement," and "risk" are theoretically constructed and operationalized in ways that reflect and reproduce hierarchies of race, class, gender, and ability. This work investigates the tensions between quantification and liberation, asking whether and how numbers can serve emancipatory purposes rather than merely documenting and naturalizing oppression. Theoretical contributions also address the epistemological status of lived experience, the role of researcher positionality, and the possibilities for knowledge production that troubles rather than reinforces dominant narratives.
Critical Quantitative Theory provides the conceptual architecture necessary for transforming quantitative practice from a tool of surveillance and control into an instrument of collective liberation. By foregrounding justice as an epistemological commitment rather than merely a research topic, this theme advances new theoretical frameworks for ethical and politically engaged quantitative scholarship.
Critical Quantitative Practice
Critical Quantitative Practice discusses the application of critical quantitative methods in diverse fields and contexts, addressing real-world challenges while centering justice, equity, and the experiences of marginalized communities. This theme showcases how researchers operationalize critical theoretical frameworks through methodological choices, analytical strategies, and interpretive practices that resist deficit narratives and challenge systems of oppression. It demonstrates the concrete ways scholars deploy quantitative tools to expose structural inequities, amplify silenced voices, and generate evidence for transformative policy and institutional change.
Presentations in this theme span multiple domains including education, healthcare, arts administration, organizational systems, and public policy. Scholars demonstrate innovative applications of advanced statistical techniques—including structural equation modeling, hierarchical linear modeling, Rasch analysis, and machine learning—while maintaining critical commitments to anti-racism, feminism, and disability justice. This work addresses methodological considerations such as sampling practices that honor community priorities, measurement approaches that avoid cultural bias, analytical strategies that interrogate rather than assume group differences, and reporting practices that resist objectifying or essentializing marginalized populations.
Critical Quantitative Practice bridges theory and action, showing how quantitative research can be conducted in ways that honor the humanity and agency of those being studied while producing rigorous evidence for systemic transformation. By centering the question "research for what and for whom," this theme models an approach to quantitative inquiry that serves liberatory goals and advances societies toward more democratic and equitable futures.