Critically Quantitative: Measuring Community Cultural Wealth on Surveys

Abstract

This study explores the possibility of quantitatively measuring the concept of community cultural wealth (CCW), an asset-based approach to understanding the experiences of students from systemically marginalized racial/ethnic groups, developed by Tara J. Yosso. Grounded in critical race theory, CCW focuses on forms of capital utilized by systemically marginalized populations that are often unrecognized/undervalued by traditional social science research. Most previous studies on CCW have relied on qualitative methods to understand the assets that students from marginalized groups possess. However, quantitative critical methods, or “QuantCrit,” can complement qualitative critical methods by statistically specifying the kinds of assets possessed by students from marginalized populations as a step toward reimagining institutions that elevate the importance of those assets. This paper develops a quantitative scale of CCW to help clarify and refine the concept, while acknowledging the overlaps among and the dynamic nature of the forms of capital emphasized in the original conceptualization. We summarize the preliminary results from a pilot survey of students affiliated with Pacific Northwest Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (PNW LSAMP) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Initial findings from exploratory factor analysis are largely consistent with Yosso's conceptual CCW framework but suggest some important ways in which the framework can be further developed.