Beyond Leveraging Institutional Data for Student Success: Challenging Whiteness in Institutional Research Practice and Strategies

Abstract

This chapter uses critical perspectives on whiteness to critique higher education's institutional research practice. After briefly describing institutional research, we summarize scholarship about autonomy, ethics, and predictive analytics to illustrate how existing guidance and beliefs about institutional research often dehumanize students by neglecting critical considerations of oppressive systems, including racism. Universities collect and use data to shape students’ lives and experiences, yet without consideration of oppressive systems, existing guidelines, and scholarly recommendations often reinforce dehumanizing perspectives that maintain racialized inequities. This chapter contributes to ethics, privacy, and autonomy considerations by reframing assumptions about institutional data with critical attention to whiteness.