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Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research

Daniel G. Solórzano and Tara J. Yosso
Qualitative Inquiry 2002; 8; 23

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QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002
Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY

Critical Race Methodology:

Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical
Framework for Education Research

Daniel G. Solórzano
University of California, Los Angeles
Tara J. Yosso
University of California, Santa Barbara

This article addresses how critical race theory can inform a critical race methodology in
education. The authors challenge the intercentricity of racism with other forms of subor-
dination and exposes deficit-informed research that silences and distorts epistemologies
of people of color. Although social scientists tell stories under the guise of “objective”
research, these stories actually uphold deficit, racialized notions about people of color. For
the authors, a critical race methodology provides a tool to “counter” deficit storytelling.
Specifically, a critical race methodology offers space to conduct and present research
grounded in the experiences and knowledge of people of color. As they describe how they
compose counter-stories, the authors discuss how the stories can be used as theoretical,
methodological, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism and
work toward social justice.

Necesitamos teorías [we need theories] that will rewrite history using
race, class, gender, and ethnicity as categories of analysis, theories that
cross borders, that blur boundaries—new kinds of theories with new the-
orizing methods . . . We are articulating new positions in the “in-
between,” Borderland worlds of ethnic communities and academies . . .
social issues such as race, class, and sexual difference are intertwined
with the narrative and poetic elements of a text, elements in which theory
is embedded. In our mestizaje theories we create new categories for those
of us left out or pushed out of existing ones.

—Anzaldúa (1990, pp. xxv-xxvi)

Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1990) epigraph challenges us to develop new theories

that will help us to better understand those who are at the margins of society.
She also suggests that along with new theories, we need new “theorizing
methods” to conduct the research that would answer the problems posed by

Qualitative Inquiry, Volume 8 Number 1, 2002 23-44

© 2002 Sage Publications

23

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24 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

these theories. Research and theory that explicitly address issues of race and
racism have the potential to fill this void. In this article, we elaborate on and
expand work in critical race theory to include what we call critical race method-
ology. We define critical race methodology as a theoretically grounded
approach to research that (a) foregrounds race and racism in all aspects of the
research process. However, it also challenges the separate discourses on race,
gender, and class by showing how these three elements intersect to affect the
experiences of students of color;1 (b) challenges the traditional research para-
digms, texts, and theories used to explain the experiences of students of color;
(c) offers a liberatory or transformative solution to racial, gender, and class
subordination; and (d) focuses on the racialized, gendered, and classed expe-
riences of students of color. Furthermore, it views these experiences as
sources of strength and (e) uses the interdisciplinary knowledge base of eth-
nic studies, women’s studies, sociology, history, humanities, and the law to
better understand the experiences of students of color.
This exercise in developing critical race methodology must begin by defin-
ing race and racism. According to James Banks (1993), Eurocentric versions of
U.S. history reveal race to be a socially constructed category, created to differ-
entiate racial groups and to show the superiority or dominance of one race
over another. This definition leads to the question: Does the dominance of a
racial group require a rationalizing ideology? One could argue that dominant
groups try to legitimate their position through the use of an ideology (i.e., a
set of beliefs that explains or justifies some actual or potential social arrange-
ment). Because racism is the ideology that justifies the dominance of one race
over another, we must ask, how do we define racism? For our purpose, Audre
Lorde (1992) may have produced the most concise definition of racism as “the
belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the
right to dominance” (p. 496). Manning Marable (1992) also defined racism as
“a system of ignorance, exploitation, and power used to oppress Afri-
can-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Pacific Americans, American Indians and
other people on the basis of ethnicity, culture, mannerisms, and color” (p. 5).
Marable’s definition of racism is important because it shifts the discussion of
race and racism from a Black-White discourse to one that includes multiple
faces, voices, and experiences. Embedded in the Lorde and Marable defini-
tions of racism are at least three important points: (a) One group deems itself
superior to all others, (b) the group that is superior has the power to carry out
the racist behavior, and (c) racism benefits the superior group while nega-
tively affecting other racial and/or ethnic groups. These two definitions take
the position that racism is about institutional power, and people of color in the
United States have never possessed this form of power. These definitions of
race and racism are our guides as we embark upon a discussion of critical race
theory and critical race methodology.

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 25

CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND

CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY2
To develop critical race methodology, we must define its theoretical foun-
dation, critical race theory. Critical race theory draws from and extends a
broad literature base in law, sociology, history, ethnic studies, and women’s
studies.
Mari Matsuda (1991) views critical race theory as

the work of progressive legal scholars of color who are attempting to develop a
jurisprudence that accounts for the role of racism in American law and that work
toward the elimination of racism as part of a larger goal of eliminating all forms
of subordination. (p. 1331)

We extend Matsuda’s definition and argue that critical race theory advances a
strategy to foreground and account for the role of race and racism in educa-
tion and works toward the elimination of racism as part of a larger goal of
opposing or eliminating other forms of subordination based on gender, class,
sexual orientation, language, and national origin. Indeed, for our purpose
here, critical race theory in education is a framework or set of basic insights,
perspectives, methods, and pedagogy that seeks to identify, analyze, and
transform those structural and cultural aspects of education that maintain
subordinate and dominant racial positions in and out of the classroom (see
Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, &
Crenshaw, 1993; Tierney, 1993).
Critical race theory and methodology in education have at least the fol-
lowing five elements that form their basic insights, perspectives, methodol-
ogy, and pedagogy (see Solórzano, 1997, 1998; Solórzano & Delgado Bernal,
2001; Solórzano & Yosso, 2000, 2001, in press-a).3
The intercentricity of race and racism with other forms of subordination. A criti-
cal race theory in education starts from the premise that race and racism are
endemic, permanent, and in the words of Margaret Russell (1992), “a central
rather than marginal factor in defining and explaining individual experiences
of the law” (pp. 762-763). Although race and racism are at the center of a criti-
cal race analysis, we also view them at their intersection with other forms of
subordination such as gender and class discrimination (Crenshaw, 1989,
1993). As Robin Barnes (1990) has stated, “Critical race scholars have refused
to ignore the differences between class and race as a basis for oppres-
sion . . . Critical race scholars know that class oppression alone cannot account
for racial oppression” (p. 1868). A critical race methodology in education also
acknowledges the intercentricity of racialized oppression—the layers of sub-
ordination based on race, gender, class, immigration status, surname, pheno-
type, accent, and sexuality.4 Here, in the intersections of racial oppression, we

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26 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

can use critical race methodology to search for some answers to the theoreti-
cal, conceptual, methodological, and pedagogical questions related to the
experiences of people of color.
The challenge to dominant ideology. Acritical race theory challenges the tradi-
tional claims that educational institutions make toward objectivity, meritoc-
racy, colorblindness, race neutrality, and equal opportunity. Critical race
scholars argue that these traditional claims act as a camouflage for the self-
interest, power, and privilege of dominant groups in U.S. society (Calmore,
1992; Solórzano, 1997). A critical race methodology in education challenges
White privilege, rejects notions of “neutral” research or “objective” research-
ers, and exposes deficit-informed research that silences and distorts
epistemologies of people of color (Delgado Bernal, 1998).
The commitment to social justice. A critical race theory is committed to social
justice and offers a liberatory or transformative response to racial, gender,
and class oppression (Matsuda, 1991). We envision a social justice research
agenda that leads toward the following:

• the elimination of racism, sexism, and poverty and

• the empowering of subordinated minority groups.

Critical race researchers acknowledge that educational institutions oper-

ate in contradictory ways, with their potential to oppress and marginalize
coexisting with their potential to emancipate and empower. Likewise, a criti-
cal race methodology in education recognizes that multiple layers of oppres-
sion and discrimination are met with multiple forms of resistance.
The centrality of experiential knowledge. Critical race theory recognizes that
the experiential knowledge of people of color is legitimate, appropriate, and
critical to understanding, analyzing, and teaching about racial subordina-
tion. In fact, critical race theorists view this knowledge as a strength and draw
explicitly on the lived experiences of people of color by including such meth-
ods as storytelling, family histories, biographies, scenarios, parables, cuentos,
testimonios, chronicles, and narratives (Bell, 1987; Carrasco, 1996; Delgado,
1989, 1993, 1995a, 1995b, 1996; Olivas, 1990). Critical race methodology in
education challenges traditional research paradigms, texts, and theories used
to explain the experiences of people of color. It exposes deficit-informed
research and methods that silence and distort the experiences of people of
color and instead focuses on their racialized, gendered, and classed experi-
ences as sources of strength (Solórzano & Solórzano, 1995; Valencia &
Solórzano, 1997).
The transdisciplinary perspective. A critical race theory challenges
ahistoricism and the unidisciplinary focus of most analyses and insists on
analyzing race and racism by placing them in both historical and contempo-

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 27

rary contexts (Delgado, 1984, 1992; Garcia, 1995; Harris, 1994; Olivas, 1990).
Critical race methodology in education uses the transdisciplinary knowledge
and methodological base of ethnic studies, women’s studies, sociology, his-
tory, law, and other fields to guide research that better understands the effects
of racism, sexism, and classism on people of color.
These five themes are not new in and of themselves, but collectively, they
represent a challenge to the existing modes of scholarship. Indeed, critical
race theory names racist injuries and identifies their origins. In examining the
origins, critical race methodology finds that racism is often well disguised in
the rhetoric of shared “normative” values and “neutral” social scientific and
educational principles and practices (Matsuda et al., 1993). However, when
the ideology of racism is examined and racist injuries are named, victims of
racism can find their voice. Furthermore, those injured by racism and other
forms of oppression discover they are not alone in their marginality. They
become empowered participants, hearing their own stories and the stories of
others, listening to how the arguments against them are framed, and learning
to make the arguments to defend themselves.

RACISM, WHITE PRIVILEGE,

AND STORYTELLING
The use of a master narrative to represent a group is bound to provide a very nar-
row depiction of what it means to be Mexican-American, African-American,
White, and so on . . . A master narrative essentializes and wipes out the complex-
ities and richness of a group’s cultural life . . . A monovocal account will engen-
der not only stereotyping but also curricular choices that result in representa-
tions in which fellow members of a group represented cannot recognize
themselves. (Montecinos, 1995, pp. 293-294)

We concur with Carmen Montecinos (1995) and assert that the ideology of
racism creates, maintains, and justifies the use of a “master narrative” in sto-
rytelling. It is within the context of racism that “monovocal” stories about the
low educational achievement and attainment of students of color are told.
Unacknowledged White privilege helps maintain racism’s stories. As such,
we are defining White privilege as a system of opportunities and benefits con-
ferred upon people simply because they are White (Delgado & Stefancic,
1997). Indeed, Whiteness is a category of privilege. Beverly Tatum (1997)
writes about the underresearched issue of White privilege as she reminds her
readers that “despite the current rhetoric about affirmative action and ‘re-
verse discrimination,’ every social indicator, from salary to life expectancy,
reveals the advantages of being White” (p. 8). White privilege is often invisi-
ble—it is the norm (McIntosh, 1989). Tatum continues, “In very concrete
terms, it [White privilege] means if a person of color is the victim of housing
discrimination, the apartment that would otherwise have been rented to that
person of color is still available for a White person” (p. 9). So while the person

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28 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

of color is still stressed with finding adequate housing, the White person is
“knowingly or unknowingly, the beneficiary of racism, a system of advantage
based on race” (Tatum, 1997, p. 9).
Because “majoritarian” stories generate from a legacy of racial privilege,
they are stories in which racial privilege seems “natural.” Indeed, White priv-
ilege is often expressed through majoritarian stories; through the “bundle of
presuppositions, perceived wisdoms, and shared cultural understandings
persons in the dominant race bring to the discussion of race” (Delgado &
Stefancic, 1993, p. 462). However, majoritarian stories are not just stories of
racial privilege, they are also stories of gender, class, and other forms of privi-
lege. As such, they are stories that carry layers of assumptions that persons in
positions of racialized privilege bring with them to discussions of racism, sex-
ism, classism, and other forms of subordination. In other words, a
majoritarian story is one that privileges Whites, men, the middle and/or
upper class, and heterosexuals by naming these social locations as natural or
normative points of reference.
People of color often buy into and even tell majoritarian stories. Ironically,
although Whites most often tell majoritarian stories, people of color can also
tell them.5 In the same way, misogynistic stories are often told by men but can
also be told by women. As an example of minority majoritarian storytelling,
African American scholar Thomas Sowell (1981) claimed that “the goals and
values of Mexican Americans have never centered on education” (p. 266) and
that many Mexican Americans find the process of education “distasteful”
(p. 267). Another example can be found with a Latino, Lauro Cavazos, who as
United States Secretary of Education, stated that Latino parents deserve
much of the blame for the high dropout rate among their children because
“Hispanics have always valued education . . . but somewhere along the line
we’ve lost that. I really believe that, today, there is not that emphasis” (Snider,
1990, p. 1). Indeed, Linda Chavez (1992), who writes about the necessities of
cultural and linguistic assimilation, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas, whose writings demonstrate his stance against the civil rights of
people of color and of women, are two other examples of minority
majoritarian storytellers (see Higginbotham, 1992). Whether told by people
of color or Whites, majoritarian stories are not often questioned because peo-
ple do not see them as stories but as “natural” parts of everyday life.
Whether we refer to them as monovocals, master narratives, standard sto-
ries, or majoritarian stories, it is important to recognize the power of White
privilege in constructing stories about race. For example, as Lisa Ikemoto
(1997) challenges the medical profession for forcing women of color to
undergo procedures during childbirth without their consent, she reveals the
often-unquestioned power of majoritarian stories.

The act of subordinating occurs first in the mind of those with authority. It is the
implicit assumption that women of color, particularly those who live in poverty,

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 29

are not fit for motherhood. This assumption is rooted in the experience of domi-
nation and in the construction of stories—negative stereotypes—about the
“Others” to justify the resulting privileged status. (p. 140)

She further explains how this standard blinds and silences the racial dis-
course through majoritarian storytelling as follows:

The standard legal story does not expressly speak to race and class. By failing to
look to the experience of women who have been raced and impoverished, we let
the standard story blind and silence us. The de facto standard then used to iden-
tify, prioritize, and address subordination is the experience of White middle
class women. This excludes and diminishes women of color, particularly those
who live in poverty. (Ikemoto, 1997, p. 136)

A majoritarian story distorts and silences the experiences of people of

color. Using “standard formulae,” majoritarian methods purport to be neu-
tral and objective yet implicitly make assumptions according to negative ste-
reotypes about people of color (Ikemoto, 1997). For example, when White
middle-class people fall victim to violence in their own neighborhoods and
their schools, the shock comes from the standard story: “How could this hap-
pen? This is a good neighborhood” or “We never thought this could happen
here. This is a good school.” The standard story implies that violent crimes
such as these are unheard of in White middle-class communities. At the same
time, the standard story infers that communities of color and working-class
communities may be more accustomed to violence. The silence within state-
ments about “good neighborhoods” and “good schools” indicates racialized
and classed dimensions underlying “standard” understandings of these
communities and schools. Within the silence, one may note negative stereo-
types reinforcing images of “bad neighborhoods” and “bad schools.” The
unspoken discourse is that White communities are “good” communities that
house “good” schools, and these “good” places do not experience such trage-
dies. “Other” communities, “colored” communities, or those “bad” commu-
nities are the ones who experience such events.
The majoritarian story tells us that darker skin and poverty correlate with
bad neighborhoods and bad schools. It informs us that limited or Span-
ish-accented English and Spanish surnames equal bad schools and poor aca-
demic performance. It also reminds us that people who may not have the
legal documents to “belong” in the United States may be identified by their
skin color, hair texture, eye shape, accent, and/or surname. Standard,
majoritarian methodology relies on stock stereotypes that covertly and
overtly link people of color, women of color, and poverty with “bad,” while
emphasizing that White, middle- to upper-class people embody all that is
“good.” Morally, the silence within which assumptions are made about good
versus bad describes people of color and working-class people as less intelli-
gent and irresponsible while depicting White middle-class and upper-class
people as just the opposite.

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30 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

RACISM AND DEFICIT

SOCIAL SCIENCE STORYTELLING
Whether explicitly or implicitly, social science theoretical models explain-
ing educational inequality support majoritarian stories. We draw on the work
of Valencia and Solórzano (1997) to demonstrate the consistent language of
biological and cultural deficit in these majoritarian stories. For example,
Valencia and Solórzano outline biological deficiency models, which assume
that students of color lack the biological traits necessary for success within the
educational system. Using such models, scholars proclaim Mexicans, Blacks,
and Native Americans to be biologically deficient compared with Whites. For
instance, a majoritarian story told by Lewis Terman in 1916 claimed

high grade or border-line deficiency . . . is very, very common among Spanish-

Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among Negroes. Their
dullness appears to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which
they come . . . Children of this group should be segregated into separate
classes . . . They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made efficient
workers . . . There is no possibility at the present of convincing society that they
should be allowed to reproduce, although from a eugenic point of view they
constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding.
(pp. 91-92)

In 1994, 78 years later, the debate over The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray,
1994) demonstrates that some scholars continue to draw upon the beliefs of
eugenicists such as Terman (1916) to tell majoritarian stories about the educa-
tional failure of students of color. Arguing over the merits of the Standardized
Aptitude Test, social scientists and educators resurrected biological defi-
ciency models to claim that Chicana/Chicano, Latina/Latino, and Black chil-
dren do not have the mental capacity of their White peers (Dunn, 1987;
Jensen, 1969).
Within deficiency models, however, biological explanations for inequity
have not been as pervasive as cultural explanations (Coleman et al., 1966;
Lewis, 1968). Indeed, what some scholars originally attributed to the biology
and genetics of students of color were reclassified and described as cultural
deficits. For example, a majoritarian cultural deficit story told by Cecilia
Heller (1966) states the following:

The kind of socialization that Mexican American children generally receive at

home is not conducive to the development of the capacities needed for advance-
ment in a dynamic industrialized society. This type of upbringing creates stum-
bling blocks to future advancement by stressing values that hinder mobility—
family ties, honor, masculinity, and living in the present—and by neglecting the
values that are conducive to it—achievement, independence, and deferred grat-
ification. (p. 34)

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 31

Indeed, culture continues to be cited as the leading cause of the low socio-
economic status and educational failure of students of color. For instance,
John Ogbu’s (1990) majoritarian story argues, “Involuntary minorities
[Blacks, Chicanas/Chicanos, and Native Americans] have not developed a
widespread effort optimism or a strong cultural ethic of hard work and perse-
verance in the pursuit of education” (p. 53). A more recent example of cultural
deficit theorizing (i.e., majoritarian storytelling) comes from an African
American linguistics professor, John McWhorter. In a Los Angeles Times arti-
cle, McWhorter claims that

the sad and simple fact is that while there are some excellent Black students . . .
on average, Black students do not try as hard as other students. The reason they
do not try as hard is not because they are inherently lazy, nor is it because they
are stupid . . . these students belong to a culture infected with an anti-intellectual
strain, which subtly but decisively teaches them from birth not to embrace
school-work too whole-heartedly. (George, 2000, p. E3)

Currently, many teacher education programs draw on majoritarian stories to

explain educational inequity through a cultural deficit model and thereby
pass on beliefs that students of color are culturally deprived (Kretovics &
Nussel, 1994; Persell, 1977).
The main solution for the socioacademic failure offered by cultural deficit
majoritarian storytellers is cultural assimilation. Specifically, they argue that
students of color should assimilate to the dominant White middle-class cul-
ture to succeed in school and in life (Banfield, 1970; Bernstein, 1977; Schwartz,
1971). Methods by which this cultural assimilation may take place include
learning English at the expense of losing Spanish and becoming an individual
“American” success story by loosening or cutting family and community ties.
This cultural assimilation solution becomes a major part of the curriculum in
teacher education programs and is thereby brought to the schools in commu-
nities of color. Therefore, according to cultural deficit storytelling, a success-
ful student of color is an assimilated student of color. Given the current rheto-
ric of “at-risk” and the resurrection of terms such as disadvantaged, it is clear
that just as insidiously as racism has changed forms, so has the cultural deficit
terminology used by social scientists (Solórzano, 1998; Valencia, 1997; Valen-
cia & Solórzano, 1997).
Some scholars critique our focus on race and racism by telling stories that
forefront class-based or gender-based theories and discuss racialization as
one of many unfortunate by-products of capitalism. In response, we argue
that it is crucial to focus on the intersections of oppression because storytell-
ing is racialized, gendered, and classed and these stories affect racialized,
gendered, and classed communities. This means that when examining the
experiences of students of color, a class-based theory or even a class-gender
theory is insufficient. Methodologies that dismiss or decenter racism and its

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32 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

intersections with other forms of subordination omit and distort the experi-
ences of those whose lives are daily affected by racism—those “at the bottom
of society’s well” (Bell, 1992, p. vi). In other words, downplaying the inter-
centricity of race and racism in the discourse helps tell majoritarian stories
about the insignificance of race and the notion that racism is something in the
past. Such stories are sometimes found in “critical” social science literature.6
Indeed, these stories can actually serve to reinforce the majoritarian story.

STORYTELLING RESISTANCE:
THE COUNTER-STORY
We define the counter-story as a method of telling the stories7 of those peo-
ple whose experiences are not often told (i.e., those on the margins of society).
The counter-story is also a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the
majoritarian stories of racial privilege. Counter-stories can shatter compla-
cency, challenge the dominant discourse on race, and further the struggle for
racial reform.8 Yet, counter-stories need not be created only as a direct
response to majoritarian stories. As Ikemoto (1997) reminds us, “By respond-
ing only to the standard story, we let it dominate the discourse” (p. 136).
Indeed, within the histories and lives of people of color, there are numerous
unheard counter-stories. Storytelling and counter-storytelling these experi-
ences can help strengthen traditions of social, political, and cultural survival
and resistance.

Types of Counter-Narratives and/or Stories

Storytelling has a rich and continuing tradition in African American (see

Bell, 1987, 1992, 1996; Berkeley Art Center, 1982; Lawrence, 1992), Chicana/
Chicano (see Delgado, 1989, 1995a, 1996; Olivas, 1990; Paredes, 1977), and
Native American (see Deloria, 1969; R. Williams, 1997) communities. Richard
Delgado (1989) reminds us that “oppressed groups have known instinctively
that stories are an essential tool to their own survival and liberation” (p. 2436).
Critical race scholars continue in this tradition and have practiced coun-
ter-storytelling in at least three general forms.9

Personal Stories or Narratives

Personal stories or narratives recount an individual’s experiences with

various forms of racism and sexism. Often, these personal counter-stories are
autobiographical reflections of the author, juxtaposed with their critical race
analysis of legal cases and within the context of a larger sociopolitical critique.

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 33

The work of Patricia Williams (1991), Margaret Montoya (1994), and Leslie
Espinoza (1990) illustrates personal counter-storytelling.

Other People’s Stories or Narratives

A narrative that tells another person’s story can reveal experiences with
and responses to racism and sexism as told in a third person voice. This type
of counter-narrative usually offers biographical analysis of the experiences of
a person of color, again in relation to U.S. institutions and in a sociohistorical
context. Work by Lawrence and Matsuda (1997) as well as Lilia Fernández’s
(2002 [this issue]) story of Pablo offer examples of telling other people’s
counter-stories.

Composite Stories or Narratives

Composite stories and narratives draw on various forms of “data” to

recount the racialized, sexualized, and classed experiences of people of color.
Such counter-stories may offer both biographical and autobiographical anal-
yses because the authors create composite characters and place them in social,
historical, and political situations to discuss racism, sexism, classism, and
other forms of subordination. The work of Bell (1987, 1992, 1996), Delgado
(1995a, 1995b, 1996), Solórzano and Yosso (2000, 2001, in press-a, in press-b),
Solórzano and Delgado Bernal (2001), and Solórzano and Villalpando (1998)
exemplify composite counter-narratives.

Creating Counter-Stories

To create our counter-stories, we begin by finding and unearthing sources

of data. To accomplish this task, we borrow from the works of Strauss and
Corbin (1990) and Dolores Delgado Bernal (1998). Strauss and Corbin (1990)
use a concept called theoretical sensitivity and refer to it as

a personal quality of the researcher. It indicates an awareness of the subtleties of

meaning of data. One can come to the research situation with varying degrees of
sensitivity depending upon previous reading and experience with or relevant to
the data. It can also be developed further during the research process. Theoreti-
cal sensitivity refers to the attribute of having insight, the ability to give meaning
to data, the capacity to understand, and capability to separate the pertinent from
that which isn’t. (pp. 41-42)

Delgado Bernal’s (1998) notion of “cultural intuition” differs from theoret-

ical sensitivity in that it “extends one’s personal experience to include collec-
tive experience and community memory, and points to the importance of par-

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34 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

ticipants’ engaging in the analysis of data” (pp. 563-564). She further explains
as follows:

A Chicana researcher’s cultural intuition is achieved and can be nurtured

through our personal experiences (which are influenced by ancestral wisdom,
community memory, and intuition), the literature on and about Chicanas, our
professional experiences, and the analytical process we engage in when we are
in a central position of our research and our analysis. Thus, cultural intuition is a
complex process that is experiential, intuitive, historical, personal, collective,
and dynamic. (pp. 567-568)

Using Strauss and Corbin’s theoretical sensitivity (1990) and Delgado

Bernal’s cultural intuition (1998), we created counter-stories from (a) the data
gathered from the research process itself, (b) the existing literature on the
topic(s), (c) our own professional experiences, and (d) our own personal expe-
riences. For example, in one counter-story we created, the first form of data
came from primary sources, namely, focus groups and individual interviews
we conducted with Chicana and Chicano undergraduate and graduate stu-
dents, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty (see Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). We
searched and sifted through these data for examples of the concepts we were
seeking to illuminate (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). We used the critical lenses of
race, gender, and class and the experiences of Chicana and Chicano under-
graduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty to exam-
ine the concepts of self-doubt, survivor guilt, impostor syndrome, and
invisibility.
Next, we looked to other sources for secondary data analysis related to
these concepts in the social sciences, humanities, and legal literature. For the
article previously mentioned, we decided to focus on a specific set of manu-
scripts we had recently read on the theme of women of color and resistance in
the academy (see Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). In sifting through this literature,
we began to draw connections with previous readings and the relevant focus
group and/or individual interview data. Just as in the interview analysis, we
listened to the voices of these women as we read and discussed the articles.
We often heard varying emotions, even in traditional academic style texts. For
us, literary analysis from poetry and short story segments helped tap into
these emotions and challenged us to look more deeply into the humanities
and social sciences to find these pained yet triumphant voices of experience.
Finally, we added our own professional and personal experiences related to
the concepts and ideas. Here, we not only shared our own stories and reflec-
tions but also drew on the multiple voices of family, friends, colleagues, and
acquaintances.
Once these various sources of data were compiled, examined, and ana-
lyzed, we created composite characters who helped us tell a story. We
attempted to get the characters to engage in a real and critical dialogue about
our findings from the interviews, literature, and experiences. This dialogue

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 35

emerged between the characters much like our own discussions

emerged—through sharing, listening, challenging, and reflecting. As the dia-
logue began to emerge between the characters, we started to insert the vari-
ous forms of related data from fields such as literature, art, music, theatre,
film, social sciences, and the law.
As an example, we offer the following excerpt from the previously men-
tioned article (Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). Our characters are Professor Leticia
Garcia, an untenured sociology professor at a western university, and
Esperanza Gonzalez, a 3rd-year graduate student at the same university in
the education department. For a moment, we ask you to suspend judgment.
We find these two women engaged in dialogue. We begin with Leticia’s
comments.

“Olivia Espin (1993) talks about silence being a mode of self preservation. And
heaven knows, we need to preserve ourselves. Between 1980 and 1990, all of the
graduate schools in the U.S. combined produced only 751 Chicana doctorates in
all fields and they represented only 0.7% of all female doctorates (Solórzano,
1994, 1995). Given these facts, I think that both strategic silence and action are
strategies we should not overlook.”
Esperanza pressed on, “You’re right, but there comes a time when I can no
longer stay silent.”
As I listened to her pained comments, I asked, “Have you read Audre
Lorde’s (1978) ‘Litany of Survival’? She is actually responding to you through
poetry. She writes:
‘and when we speak we are afraid/
our words will not be heard/
nor welcomed/
but when we are silent/
we are still afraid/
So it is better to speak/
remembering/
we were never meant to survive.’” (pp. 31-32)
Esperanza put her head in her hands, took in a deep breath, and sighed. “She
says it exactly. Those contradictory feelings we have all bundled up inside. So
when we do speak out, people often do not understand the depth of emotion
welling up in our throats. And if we show any emotion it makes it that much eas-
ier to write us off as ‘supersensitive,’ or ‘out of control.’ It’s exactly like Lorde
writes, afraid to speak and afraid to stay silent.” Esperanza paused to take a bite
of her carrot muffin before she continued, “In my classes, because I didn’t have a
strong grasp of the many languages of the institution, the challenges I raised
against the liberal ideas of social justice that ignore Chicanas/os fell on deaf ears.
So at that point, I felt that a silent revolution was better than a clamoring battle
cry quickly stifled.”
I smirked at the image of myself in a faculty meeting dressed in a suit of
armor with a sword, thwarting off blows from my colleagues as if in the midst of
a battle. “Often it’s hard to know which strategy is most appropriate in which
context. Choosing our battles is not easy, but our energies are limited,” I said.
“Too bad ignorance isn’t!” Esperanza shot back. (Solórzano & Yosso, 2001,
pp. 482-483)

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36 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

This excerpt of a counter-story demonstrates how we create dialogue that

critically illuminates concepts, ideas, and experiences while it tries to use the
elements of critical race theory. We hear Esperanza as she expresses her con-
cerns about her experiences as a Chicana being silenced in the classroom. We
also listen to Leticia talking about maintaining strategic silence and develop-
ing strategies of resistance.
We believe counter-stories serve at least four functions as follows: (a) They
can build community among those at the margins of society by putting a
human and familiar face to educational theory and practice, (b) they can chal-
lenge the perceived wisdom of those at society’s center by providing a context
to understand and transform established belief systems, (c) they can open
new windows into the reality of those at the margins of society by showing
possibilities beyond the ones they live and demonstrating that they are not
alone in their position, and (d) they can teach others that by combining ele-
ments from both the story and the current reality, one can construct another
world that is richer than either the story or the reality alone.
Counter-storytelling is different from fictional storytelling. We are not
developing imaginary characters that engage in fictional scenarios. Instead,
the “composite” characters we develop are grounded in real-life experiences
and actual empirical data and are contextualized in social situations that are
also grounded in real life, not fiction.

DISCUSSION
Most of our research asserts that U.S. educational institutions marginalize
people of color. Often, educational marginalization is justified through
research that decenters and even dismisses communities of color—through
majoritarian storytelling. We continually ask, “Whose stories are privileged
in educational contexts and whose stories are distorted and silenced?” U.S.
history reveals that White upper-class and middle-class stories are privi-
leged, whereas the stories of people of color are distorted and silenced. We
further ask, “What are the experiences and responses of those whose stories
are often distorted and silenced?” In documenting the voices of people of
color, our work tells their stories.
Critical race methodology in education offers a way to understand the
experiences of people of color along the educational pipeline (see Solórzano
& Yosso, 2000). Such a methodology generates knowledge by looking to those
who have been epistemologically marginalized, silenced, and disempowered
(Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Critical race theory challenges traditional method-
ologies because it requires us to develop “theories of social transformation
wherein knowledge is generated specifically for the purpose of addressing
and ameliorating conditions of oppression, poverty, or deprivation” (Lin-
coln, 1993, p. 33). Critical race methodology in education focuses research on

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 37

how students of color experience and respond to the U.S. educational system.
From developing research questions to collecting, analyzing, and presenting
data, critical race methodology centers on students of color.
Using critical race methodology confirms that we must look to experi-
ences with and responses to racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism in
and out of schools as valid, appropriate, and necessary forms of data. Critical
race methodology contextualizes student-of-color experiences in the past,
present, and future. It strategically uses multiple methods, often unconven-
tional and creative, to draw on the knowledge of people of color who are tra-
ditionally excluded as an official part of the academy. Critical race methodol-
ogy in education challenges biological and cultural deficit stories through
counter-storytelling, oral traditions, historiographies, corridos, poetry, films,
actos, or by other means.
Critical race scholarship concurs with Calmore (1997), noting that what is
noticeably missing from the discussion of race is a substantive discussion of
racism. We further this claim to assert that substantive discussions of racism
are missing from critical discourse in education. We believe critical race meth-
odology can move us toward these discussions. As we work from our own
positions in the margins of society, we hold on to the belief that the margin can
be “more than a site of deprivation . . . it is also the site of radical possibility, a
space of resistance” (hooks, 1990, p. 149). As Anzaldúa (1990) explains:

Theory, then, is a set of knowledges. Some of these knowledges have been kept
from us—entry into some professions and academia denied us. Because we are
not allowed to enter discourse, because we are often disqualified and excluded
from it, because what passes for theory these days is forbidden territory for us, it
is vital that we occupy theorizing space, that we not allow whitemen and
women solely to occupy it. By bringing in our own approaches and methodolo-
gies, we transform that theorizing space. (p. xxv)

We argue that critical race methodology, with its counter-stories and even
poetic modes of expression, articulates a response to Anzaldúa’s (1990) chal-
lenge that “if we have been gagged and disempowered by theories, we can
also be loosened and empowered by theories” (p. xxvi). Our response draws
on the strengths of communities of color. If methodologies have been used to
silence and marginalize people of color, then methodologies can also give
voice and turn the margins into places of transformative resistance
(Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001; Solórzano & Yosso, in press-a). We know
that many would discount the histories, experiences, and lives of people of
color through majoritarian stories. Revealing the deficit discourse in
majoritarian stories reveals White privilege, and this often is perceived as a
threat to those who benefit from racism. However, as a strategy of survival
and a means of resistance, we will continue to work to tell the counter-stories
of those “at the bottom of society’s well” (Bell, 1992, p. v). We are deeply grate-
ful for those who have shared their counter-stories with us and who continue
to struggle, survive, and thrive in the intersections of racial oppression.

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38 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

NOTES
1. For this study, the terms students, people, persons, and communities of color refer to
those persons of African American, Chicana/Chicano, Latina/Latino, Asian Ameri-
can, and Native American ancestry. It should be noted that each of these terms has a
political dimension that this article does not discuss.
2. According to Sandra Harding (1987), a research method is a technique for gather-
ing evidence such as interviews, focus groups, participant observation, ethnographies,
and surveys. On the other hand, research methodology is “a theory and analysis of how
research does or should proceed” (p. 3). We define methods as the specific techniques
used in the research process, such as data gathering and analysis. Whether we use
quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of methods depends on which techniques of
data gathering and analysis will best help us answer our research questions. We define
methodology as the overarching theoretical approach guiding the research. For us,
methodology is the nexus of theory and method in the way praxis is to theory and prac-
tice. In other words, methodology is the place where theory and method meet. Critical
race methodology is an approach to research grounded in critical race theory. We
approach our work and engage in various techniques of data gathering and analysis
guided by critical race theory and Latino critical race (LatCrit) theory (see note 4). Criti-
cal race methodology pushes us to humanize quantitative data and to recognize
silenced voices in qualitative data.
3. For three comprehensive annotated bibliographies on critical race and LatCrit
theory, see Delgado and Stefancic (1993, 1994) and Stefancic (1998).
4. Our definition of critical race methodology is formulated based on the work of
critical race theorists as well as LatCrit theorists. LatCrit theory extends critical race
discussions to Chicanas/Chicanos and Latinas/Latinos in education. Our working
definition of LatCrit theory informs our definition of critical race methodology. As
such, we feel it is important to state the following working definition, which is adapted
from the LatCrit Primer (2000):
A LatCrit theory in education is a framework that can be used to theorize and
examine the ways in which race and racism explicitly and implicitly impact on
the educational structures, processes, and discourses that effect people of color
generally and Latinas/os specifically. Important to this critical framework is a
challenge to the dominant ideology, which supports deficit notions about stu-
dents of color while assuming “neutrality” and “objectivity.” Utilizing the expe-
riences of Latinas/os, a LatCrit theory in education also theorizes and examines
that place where racism intersects with other forms of subordination such as sex-
ism, classism, nativism, monolingualism, and heterosexism. LatCrit theory in
education is conceived as a social justice project that attempts to link theory with
practice, scholarship with teaching, and the academy with the community.
LatCrit acknowledges that educational institutions operate in contradictory
ways with their potential to oppress and marginalize co-existing with their
potential to emancipate and empower. LatCrit theory in education is
transdisciplinary and draws on many other schools of progressive scholarship.

We see LatCrit theory as a natural outgrowth of critical race theory, but we do not
see them as mutually exclusive. For us, LatCrit scholarship is evidence of an ongoing
process of finding a framework that addresses racism and its accompanying
oppressions. LatCrit draws on the strengths outlined in critical race theory, while at the

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 Solórzano, Yosso / CRITICAL RACE METHODOLOGY 39

same time, it emphasizes the intersectionality of experience with oppression and resis-
tance and the need to extend conversations about race and racism beyond the
Black-White binary. We believe, as we have defined it, critical race methodology is
driven by our LatCrit consciousness. This means that our own experiences with the
multiplicity of racialized oppression and our responses to and resistance against such
oppressions from our positions of multiple marginality inform and shape our research.
5. It is important to note that often, being a “minority” majoritarian storyteller
means receiving benefits provided by those with racial, gender, and/or class privilege.
For an example, see the character of Professor Gleason Golightly in Derrick Bell’s (1992)
Faces at the Bottom of the Well, chapter 9, “The Space Traders” (pp. 163-164).
6. Often, those who tell these stories dominate the “critical” discourse, and more
often than not, they omit the “critical” work of people of color. For example, Delgado
(1984, 1992) looked at this phenomenon of “selective citing” in civil rights legal scholar-
ship through his articles titled “The Imperial Scholar” and “The Imperial Scholar
Revisited.” Delgado exposed a racial citation pattern wherein White authors (imperial
scholars) cite each other and are much less likely to cite scholars of color. A similar pat-
tern exists in the social science literature. Just as some Whites do not often venture into
communities of color to do research, White scholars do not often venture into eth-
nic-specific journals or other scholarly writings to read the work of scholars of color (see
Graham, 1992; Rosaldo, 1994). We know some may try to excuse this pattern by arguing
that scholars of color just do not publish as much as Whites. However, we refute this
notion. Instead, we believe there may be at least two reasons for racially selective citing:
(a) They either do not know where to go or (b) they know where to go, but they choose
to ignore the scholarship.
7. So as not to confuse the reader, we clarify here that a “story” can refer to a
majoritarian story or a counter-story. A story becomes a counter-story when it begins to
incorporate the five elements of critical race theory. In this article, we refer to people of
color who draw on the elements of critical race theory in their writing as telling a story
or a counter-story. Storytelling that draws on the elements of critical race theory is syn-
onymous with counter-storytelling.
8. As we speak of this struggle for racial reform, we recognize the work of Gorz
(1967), Strategies for Labor: A Radical Proposal. Andre Gorz outlines three types of social
reforms: reformist, nonreformist, and revolutionary. He explains that reformist reforms
are those that maintain the status quo and do not challenge the system of inequality. For
example, a reformist reform might work to reform a school bureaucracy, only to make
the bureaucracy marginalize students of color more efficiently. According to Gorz,
nonreformist reforms move to change the system but keep the system intact. The differ-
ence here is that the nonreformist reform works to change the system into something
more equitable, but it works within the system to make this happen. As a result, the sys-
tem itself is not challenged. Finally, revolutionary reforms work toward a radical trans-
formation of the present system and the creation of an entirely different, more equitable
system. Although we concede that at best, much of our work probably falls into the cat-
egory of nonreformist racial reform, we maintain our hopes for and continue to strug-
gle toward revolutionary racial reform. We believe counter-storytelling in the critical
race tradition offers a small but important contribution in this struggle to “advance
toward a radical transformation of society” (Gorz, 1967, p. 6).
9. We cite only a few of the many critical race and LatCrit scholars who have written
in this counter-storytelling tradition.

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40 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2002

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Daniel G. Solórzano is chair of the Department of Education and an associate

professor in social sciences and comparative education at the University of Cal-
ifornia, Los Angeles (UCLA), Graduate School of Education and Information
Studies. He is also an adjunct associate professor in the Cesar E. Chavez Center
for Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCLA. His teaching and research interests
include: sociology of education, critical race theory, Latino critical race
(LatCrit) theory, and race, gender, and class relations, with a special emphasis
on the educational access, persistence, and graduation of underrepresented
minority undergraduate and graduate students in the United States.

Tara J. Yosso is an assistant professor in the Chicano Studies Department at the

University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research and teaching focuses on
educational equity through the frameworks of critical race theory, Latino criti-
cal race (LatCrit) theory, and critical media literacy. She works to document
and analyze experiences with and strategies of resistance against racism, sex-
ism, classism, nativism, monolingualism, and homophobia as part of the strug-
gle toward social justice.

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© 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.