The Equity Mindset

12Centering Proximate Leadership in Our Research Practices

Riddle me this: With all these research‐led advocacy groups, why haven't we solved more problems?

Research has always been a space reserved for the elite, educated, and accredited. And in some ways, it's a hustle. To be tenured at most universities, for example, an educator must produce a certain number of peer‐reviewed articles. The art of being published is, in itself, a game. Dr. Monnica T. Williams's article, “Racism in Academic Publishing,” reveals how being top‐tier in the world of research means creating content that can get published, that is, catering to the mostly white‐dominated audience:

… my success as a research psychologist hinges on my ability to keep churning out high‐quality, publishable, scientific material—an endeavor made doubly difficult because most of my scholarship is about race, racism, and mental health inequities. I have found that these are not favored topics by editors and reviewers, and it can be easier for them to desk reject an article than do the work of identifying qualified people for peer review.¹

Of course, no one tells you in third grade that the majority of research stems from such an exclusive and competitive space that lacks diversity and curiosity. The long pipeline of education, formal and informal, tells us to trust scientific approaches and outcomes. And embedded in that socialization is the soft whisper of “they know more than you do.”

I personally remember this pressure ...