Racial Knowledge and the Tenets of Critical Race Theory: Is Opposition to CRT Due to Ignorance?

Abstract

Is racial ignorance a cause of lay opposition to critical race theory (CRT)? In Study 1, undergraduates completed a test of racial knowledge and indicated support for CRT tenets (e.g., that racism is common and structural; that race is socially constructed and intersectional). Accurate racial knowledge, determined by signal detection analysis, predicted tenet support, even when controlling for racial prejudice, social dominance, and political conservatism. In three experiments, White undergraduates learned critical knowledge about race vs. poverty or transportation (Studies 2 and 3, respectively) or structural racism vs. pig intelligence (Study 4). In each, critical racial knowledge increased CRT tenet support. In Study 1, racial knowledge predicted blind patriotism negatively but constructive patriotism positively. Acquiring critical racial knowledge in Studies 2–4 did not lead participants to distance from America, despite claims of cultural critics. Teaching critical knowledge about race may be an effective means to promote racial understanding.

Keywords

racism prejudice/stereotyping political psychology attitudes

Matters of race and racism have long been central to America’s so called “culture wars.” Busing, affirmative action, and the Black Lives Matter movement, as examples, have all exposed tensions in the United States, typically along racial and/or partisan lines. Critical race theory (CRT) is no exception, as increasing numbers of Republican-led state legislatures pass laws restricting or banning the teaching of books and curricula ostensibly related to it (Alexander et al., 2023). Among the most stated justifications for these laws is the concern that learning about race and racism promotes hatred for America (e.g., Bertrand et al., 2024). Our research tests an ironic, alternative explanation—that opposition to CRT is due, in part, to ignorance about the history of race and racism in the United States.

Critical Race Theory

CRT is a dynamic, interdisciplinary framework focused on the study and transformation of the oppressive relationship between race, racism, and power in society (Delgado & Stefanic, 2017). The theory reconsiders society, politics, economics, and the law (and psychology; Jones, 1998; Salter & Adams, 2013) through a “critical lens” (i.e., one that exposes and challenges existing power structures). In contrast to narratives that emphasize discrimination and bigotry as unfortunate, infrequent, and/or isolated events perpetrated by individuals, CRT underscores the systemic perpetuation of racism embedded within laws and institutions and emphasizes its historical inherence in America. By this account, colorblind perspectives do little to redress ongoing racial disparities and may instead provide rationalizations for these inequalities (Bonilla-Silva, 2021; Salter et al., 2018).

There are a variety of beliefs among proponents of CRT, but certain propositions about race and racism are widely shared and represent basic tenets of the theory. These tenets include the ideas that (a) racism is an everyday experience for people of color (i.e., racism is ordinary); (b) racism advances the interests of dominant racial groups through laws, policies, and institutions (i.e., material determinism/structural racism); (c) race is a social invention with no biological or genetic reality (i.e., race is a social construct); (d) minorities are racialized at different times based on shifting needs of dominant racial groups (i.e., differential racialization); and (e) the multiple social identities of individuals intersect such that no one can be adequately identified or understood by only one (i.e., intersectionality) (e.g., Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Crenshaw, 1989; Delgado & Stefanic, 2017). Support for these tenets of CRT was the focus of our research.¹

Possible Explanations for Opposition to CRT

As an academic framework, CRT is discussed in post-secondary education and has engendered debate within this context. Few in the public at large are familiar with the theory or its specifics, and yet many, particularly on the political right, oppose it. What factors might explain this lay opposition to CRT? One possibility is racial prejudice. Because CRT underscores the importance of race and racism in society, those holding racial animus might belittle or disparage CRT. Relevant evidence comes from symbolic racism perspectives in which racial prejudice is blended with conservative ideology to explain opposition to race-based policies (e.g., Kinder & Sears, 1981; McConahay & Hough, 1976; Sears & Henry, 2005). Social dominance perspectives also see racial prejudice and conservative ideology as linked, in this case due to a common preference for group-based hierarchy that explains opposition to race-based policies in turn (e.g., Federico & Sidanius, 2002; Sidanius et al., 1992, 1996). Germane to CRT tenet support, endorsement of group-based hierarchy has been found to predict lower perceptions of institutional racism against Blacks vs. Whites (Marshburn et al., 2023). Other accounts of opposition to race-based policies downplay prejudice as a causal factor and instead posit a non-racist, “principled” conservatism (e.g., Sniderman et al., 1991, 2000; Sniderman & Piazza, 1993). In fact, it has been Republican-led state legislatures that have banned the teaching of CRT, ostensibly due to concerns regarding equality and fairness (e.g., Arkansas Department of Education, 2023). Any of these variables or all—racial prejudice, social dominance, and/or political conservatism—might explain lay opposition to CRT.

Opposition Due to Ignorance About Race and Racism

Another possible explanation is ignorance about race as a concept and/or racism as a system of oppression (Golash-Boza, 2016); opponents of CRT may know little about the history of race in America, the aftereffects of past mistreatment, and how these aftereffects combine with ongoing practices to maintain racial disparities. In the absence of this historical and contemporary, contextual knowledge, it would be hard to appreciate its importance and easy to be swayed otherwise by peers, pundits, and politicians.

The idea that knowledge about race and racism can improve racial attitudes has a long history in social psychology. Reckless and Bringen (1933), for example, reported findings that suggested positive associations between racial knowledge about Blacks (e.g., history, crime, culture, and religion) and favorable attitudes toward same. Similarly, Nettler (1946) reported small but positive correlations between knowledge about Japanese Americans (e.g., anthropological and contemporary knowledge) and favorable attitudes toward this minoritized group. Learning about (racial) outgroups is also a mechanism through which intergroup contact improves intergroup attitudes in Allport’s (1954) formulation of contact theory.

Yet other studies (e.g., Bolton, 1935) found neither positive associations between racial knowledge and racial attitudes nor changes in racial attitudes when learning about issues faced by Black Americans. One reason for these null effects may have been participants’ lack of critical knowledge, that is, knowledge that identifies and challenges existing power dynamics and recurring patterns of injustice. Neutral facts, and especially lessons that promote negative cultural stereotypes (e.g., a lesson delivered in Bolton’s research noted earlier was titled “The education of the primitive Negro in Africa”), would do little to undercut racial hegemony or buoy support for racial parity.

More recently, Nelson and colleagues (2013) considered the role of critical historical knowledge in explaining racial differences in perceptions of racism. Critical knowledge predicted perceptions of racism—isolated and systemic—and racial differences in these perceptions (i.e., more racism perceived by Blacks than Whites) were partly mediated by group differences in critical knowledge (see also research by Zell & Lesick, 2022, but cf. Strickhouser et al., 2019). Bonam et al. (2019) replicated these findings and went further by manipulating the acquisition of critical historical knowledge and found increased recognition of systemic racism in turn (for related findings in the context of critical knowledge and anti-indigenous racism, see research by Efimoff & Starzyk, 2023 and Neufeld et al., 2022).

Critical knowledge challenges dominant narratives and should make ways for understanding the world that question oppressive systems more plausible and more likely (e.g., Freire, 1970). In the context of race and racism, critical knowledge makes systemic racism more likely to be perceived (e.g., Bonam et al., 2019; Nelson et al., 2013), but it should also make people more likely to believe racism is an ongoing, persistent problem, embedded into laws and institutions, and in a way that serves the interest of dominant groups. Similarly, critical racial knowledge should render people less willing to essentialize race and more likely to recognize the importance of intersecting identities when it comes to understanding differential treatment involving race. Endorsement of these ideas would represent a psychological dismantling of racial privilege in response to critical racial knowledge rather than denying or distancing from it (e.g., Knowles et al., 2014). Said another way, critical knowledge should increase support for the tenets of CRT.

Present Research

In four studies, we tested the effect of critical knowledge about race and racism in America on support for CRT. Due to the charged political climate manufactured around the phrase “Critical Race Theory” itself, we did not ask about CRT support directly but instead asked about support for its tenets (e.g., that racism is common, embedded in laws and institutions, and serves the interests of dominant groups, and that race is socially constructed and intersectional). In Study 1, we created a measure of CRT tenet support and a test of racial knowledge that included information about outcomes experienced by racial minorities and racial historical events in America. We expected these variables to be positively correlated, even when accounting for racial prejudice, social dominance, and conservative ideology. In Studies 2 and 3, we manipulated exposure to critical racial knowledge by having participants read information about race vs. poverty (Study 2) or transportation (Study 3) in America. Study 4 also manipulated critical racial knowledge, this time narrowing the focus to the structural aspects of racism in U.S. housing (vs. pig intelligence). In each, presentations of critical knowledge made it difficult for participants to deny racism, and thus, we expected those who acquired critical racial knowledge to adopt a dismantling posture and report more support for the tenets of CRT. In all studies, we also addressed the criticism that learning about race and racism might lead participants to distance (devalue or detach from) their country.

Predictions, procedures, sample size, and analyses for all studies were pre-registered on the Open Science Framework and can be found at the following pages: Study 1 (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/PWFEH), Study 2 (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6WSCY), Study 3 (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SY7UA), and Study 4 (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/W5D24). This research was approved by the University of Arkansas Institutional Review Board.

Study 1

In Study 1, participants judged the veracity of several statements about race in America that were factually true or false. Using a signal-detection paradigm (e.g., Nelson et al., 2013), we computed the accuracy of participants’ racial knowledge and correlated this score with a measure of CRT tenet support. We expected a positive relationship such that the more accurate participants’ knowledge about race, the more they would support the tenets of CRT. We also measured participants’ racial prejudice, social dominance beliefs, and conservative ideology, expecting each to negatively predict support for CRT tenets but hypothesized that the relationship between racial knowledge and CRT support would hold when accounting for these other variables.

As an initial look into the cultural criticism that CRT encourages hatred for America, we also assessed two forms of national attachment: blind patriotism, an unquestioning allegiance to one’s country that views criticism as perfidious, and constructive patriotism, an allegiance that embraces criticism in service of making things better (Schatz et al., 1999). We predicted that critical racial knowledge and CRT tenet support would correlate negatively with blind patriotism but positively with constructive patriotism.

Method

Participants

We pre-registered a desired sample size of at least 300 participants, intending to collect data until the end of the academic term. Ultimately, a convenience sample of 356 undergraduates (M_age = 19.26, SD = 1.09) from a large, Midwestern/Southern university completed the study in exchange for credit toward a class requirement in an introductory psychology course. Of these, 180 (50.6%) were female, 171 (48.0%) were male, 1 (0.2%) were transgender, 2 (0.6%) were non-binary, and 2 (0.6%) reported “other.” Most (269, 75.6%) reported their race/ethnicity as White; 6 (1.7%) as American Indian; 13 (3.7%) Asian; 19 (3.3%) Black; 25 (7%) Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish Origin; 1 (0.3%) Middle Eastern or North African; 15 (4.2%) multiethnic; and 8 (2.2%) chose not to disclose. On average, the sample was politically moderate (M = 4.26, SD = 1.64, on a 1–7 scale where higher values indicated more support for conservative ideology).

Procedure

Participants self-selected for an online study about current issues using an online, department sign-up system. After providing informed consent, participants completed the measures described in the following section in random order, except the knowledge test (which always came first) and demographics (which always came last). Upon completing these measures, participants were thanked, debriefed, and awarded credit.

Measures

Knowledge Test

We created a 30-item knowledge test containing statements about the current conditions and history of race in America. Many of these statements were taken from past research (Bonam et al., 2019; Nelson et al., 2013) and new statements were drawn from a variety of resources. Of the 30 statements, 22 were factually true and loosely corresponded to the tenets of CRT noted earlier. Examples, with their corresponding tenet in parentheses, included “On average, Black men who commit the same crimes as White men receive longer sentences” (racism is ordinary), “According to the census Bureau, individuals of North African descent are considered White” (race is a social construct), and “The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted access to American citizenship to include only White immigrants” (material determinism/structural racism). An additional eight test items were false. Some came from the work by Nelson et al. (2013), and all served as distractors (e.g., “In the 1970s, the F.B.I. developed a program to ensure high unemployment rates among African American people to maintain an inexpensive pool of workers”). Our decision to use more true than false statements was based on the precedent set by Nelson et al. (2013) and Bonam et al. (2019), as well as our own understanding of signal detection theory (we expected more “signal” than “noise” trials to lead participants to adopt a more liberal criterion, resulting in higher hits but also more false alarms). Novel false statements were formatted to be in line with true statements and to loosely correspond with CRT tenets (e.g., The false item “According to the Census Bureau, Italians are not White” corresponded to the tenet “race as a social construct”). The complete list of test statements is included in the Supplemental Materials.

Statements appeared one at a time, in random order, and participants indicated whether each was true or false. We then used signal-detection analysis (Swets, 1988) to determine participants’ accuracy by calculating d’, the difference between the standardized proportions of correct recognitions (“hits”) and false recognitions (“false alarms”).

Support for CRT Tenets

We created an initial 19-item measure that tapped each tenet of CRT noted earlier. Example items, with corresponding tenets in parentheses, were “Racism remains ordinary in America” (racism is ordinary), “Racial categories are human inventions” (race is a social construct), “Racism is embedded in American policies, laws, and institutions” (material determinism/structural racism), “The ways racial minorities are viewed depends on the needs of dominant racial groups” (differential racialization), and “Social categories such as race, class, gender, and sexuality create overlapping and interdependent forms of discrimination” (intersectionality). Conceptually, we consider the tenets of CRT to be interrelated. Accordingly, many items tapped more than one tenet, and we expected an internally consistent scale. After exploratory factor analysis (EFA; see EFA and Construct Validity of the CRT Tenet Support Scale), the scale was reduced to 15 items and is presented in Supplemental Materials in full. Statements were presented one at a time in random order. Participants responded to each using a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. Responses were averaged, after reverse-scoring where necessary, to form an index of CRT tenet support (α = .91).

Racial Prejudice

Most items in our knowledge test and CRT measure referenced Black Americans, so we focused our measure of racial prejudice on this group. Because there is conceptual overlap between some items in our CRT measure and common measures of racial prejudice (e.g., Henry & Sears, 2002; McConahay, 1986), we used feeling thermometers that asked how participants felt about Black/African and White/Caucasian Americans on a 0 (very cold/negative) to 100 (very warm/positive) scale. To make our intent in using these items less obvious, they were embedded among other feeling thermometer items about other groups (e.g., homosexuals, Russians, and immigrants). We subtracted participants’ favorability ratings of White Americans from favorability ratings of Black Americans so that higher numbers indicated greater favorability toward White relative to Black Americans.²

Political Ideology

We used a single-item measure of political ideology because such measures typically perform as well as multi-item scales (Knight, 1999). Participants indicated where they fell, in terms of politics, on a 1 (more of a liberal) to 7 (more of a conservative) scale.

Social Dominance Orientation

To measure participants’ preference for group-based hierarchy (vs. egalitarianism), we used the social dominance orientation 7 (SDO-7) scale (Ho et al., 2015). Participants responded to 16 items (e.g., “Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups” and “We should work to give all groups an equal chance to succeed”) using a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. All items were averaged, after reverse-scoring where necessary, to form a measure of preference for group-based hierarchy (i.e., SDO; α = .90).

Blind and Constructive Patriotism

To measure the patriotism of participants, we used the blind and constructive patriotism scale (Schatz et al., 1999). These two forms of national attachment are considered orthogonal, with blind patriotism, characterized by an unflinching national allegiance that eschews criticism of America (e.g., “It is unamerican to criticize this country”), and constructive patriotism, characterized by criticism in service of making the country better (e.g., “If you love America, you should notice its problems and work to correct them”). Participants responded to each statement in random order using a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. The 12 items measuring blind patriotism and the 6 items measuring constructive patriotism were averaged, after reverse-scoring where necessary, and formed reliable scales of each construct (αs = .88 and .86, respectively).

Ancillary CRT Measures

We included additional items about CRT for exploratory and construct validation purposes. Specifically, we asked participants if they had heard of critical race theory, and if so, how much they knew about CRT (1 = not at all, 5 = a great deal), how they felt about CRT (1 = extremely negative, 5 = extremely positive), and how much they agreed with CRT (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

Demographics

At the survey’s end, participants indicated their gender, age, race/ethnicity, native language, and political ideology.

Results

EFA and Construct Validity of the CRT Tenet Support Scale

We first conducted an EFA on our 19 CRT items using the psych and GPArotation packages in R (Bernaards & Jennrich, 2005; Revelle, 2017). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy averaged MSA = .94, suggesting factor analysis was appropriate. Bartlett’s test of sphericity likewise suggested the data were factorable, χ²(171) = 2930.47, p < .001.

An initial parallel analysis suggested the presence of up to four factors, although visual inspection of the scree plot and the use of Kaiser’s rule each suggested 1–2 factors at most. We therefore began with a four-factor EFA using principal axis factoring and oblique (promax) rotation. This first round of EFA suggested the presence of no more than two factors, with some outliers. We iteratively removed outliers until our model converged on a single factor with 15 items loading ≥.34 and explaining 42% of the variance in CRT tenet endorsement (see Supplemental Materials).³

To provide evidence of construct validity, we correlated this measure of CRT tenet support with participants’ feelings about and agreement with CRT, questions only asked of the 149 participants (41.85%) who indicated having heard of CRT. Consistent with predictions, both correlations were positive and significant, rs (147) = .71 and .74, respectively, both ps < .001.

Correlations With Primary Study Variables

Correlations among primary study variables are presented in Table 1 below the diagonal (descriptive statistics for primary and ancillary variables can be found in Supplemental Materials). Consistent with predictions, the correlation between racial knowledge and support for CRT tenets was positive and significant (p < .001). Racial knowledge was negatively correlated with conservative ideology, social dominance, and blind patriotism, and positively correlated with constructive patriotism (all ps < .001). CRT tenet support was also significantly, negatively correlated with conservative ideology, social dominance, and blind patriotism, and positively correlated with constructive patriotism (all ps < .01).

Table 1.

Bivariate Correlations Between Primary Variables in Study 1 for Full Sample and White Participants Only.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Racial knowledge	—	.36***	−.16*	−.22***	−.32***	−.31***	.35***
2. CRT tenet support	.38***	—	−.32***	−.68***	−.48***	−.59***	.34***
3. Racial prejudice	−.10	−.34***	—	.31***	.37***	.31***	−.17**
4. Political ideology	−.25***	−.67***	.35***	—	.44***	.66***	−.20**
5. SDO	−.30***	−.44***	.31***	.39***	—	.65***	−.56***
6. Blind patriotism	−.32***	−.60***	.29***	.63***	.64***	—	−.40***
7. Constructive patriotism	.35***	.31***	−.13**	−.18***	−.54***	−.39***	—

Note 1. Racial Knowledge = calculated d’; Racial prejudice = feelings toward Black/African Americans subtracted from feelings toward White/Caucasian Americans; SDO = social dominance orientation.

Note 2. Correlation coefficients below the matrix diagonal are with the full sample (n = 356); coefficients above the matrix diagonal are with White participants only (n = 269).

p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

We did not pre-register predictions about a relationship between racial prejudice and both racial knowledge and CRT tenet support given norms about the expression of prejudice (e.g., Crandall et al., 2002). Racial prejudice was not correlated with racial knowledge but was positively correlated with support for CRT tenets, such that more positive feelings toward Black Americans predicted more support for CRT tenets (p < .001).

Because these correlations concerning matters of race could be confounded with participants’ racial/ethnic group membership, analyses were repeated for only White participants in our sample. As can be seen above the diagonal in Table 1, all correlations remained significant and in the same direction, and all but one still at p < .001, with one exception. When only looking at White participants, the negative association between racial knowledge and racial prejudice became significant.

Racial Knowledge and CRT Tenet Support When Accounting for Other Variables

To test the hypothesis that racial knowledge would predict CRT tenet support over and above other relevant variables, we regressed participants’ support for CRT tenets on accuracy of racial knowledge (i.e., d’ scores), racial prejudice, conservative ideology, and preference for hierarchy (i.e., SDO). Results from this regression analysis are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2.

Regression Analyses in Study 1.

Variable	Full sample				White participants only
Variable	B	β	95% CI	p	B	β	95% CI	p
Intercept	6.26			<.001	6.24			<.001
Racial knowledge	0.38	.20	[0.04, 0.35]	<.001	0.39	.20	[0.02, 0.38]	<.001
SDO	−0.16	−.15	[−0.25, −0.06]	.001	−0.15	−.14	[−0.25, −0.04]	.007
Racial prejudice	−0.004	−.09	[−0.09, −0.08]	.042	−0.004	−.07	[−0.07, −0.06]	.157
Political ideology	−0.34	−.54	[−0.59, −0.48]	<.001	−0.34	−.55	[−0.61, −0.49]	<.001

Note. Racial knowledge = calculated d’; Racial prejudice = difference between = feelings toward Black/African Americans subtracted from feelings toward White/Caucasian Americans; SDO = social dominance orientation.

The overall model was significant, F(4, 306) = 89.66, p < .001, R² = 0.54. Consistent with predictions, racial knowledge continued to be a significant predictor of CRT tenet support, over and above the simultaneous inclusion of racial prejudice, conservative ideology, and SDO. In this model, racial prejudice, conservative ideology, and SDO were likewise significant predictors of CRT tenet support.

When this analysis was repeated with only White participants, racial prejudice was no longer a significant predictor of CRT tenet support, but there were no other substantive changes (see Table 2). The overall model was again significant, F(4, 237) = 68.26, p < .001, R² = 0.53. Racial knowledge still predicted CRT tenet support, over and above racial prejudice, conservative ideology, and SDO. In this model, racial prejudice was not a significant predictor of CRT tenet support, but conservative ideology and SDO were.

Discussion

Results from Study 1 support our predictions. Accurate knowledge about race in America predicted support for CRT tenets—that racism is common, embedded within laws, policies, and institutions, and serves the interest of racial majorities, and that race is socially constructed and intersecting. Other race-relevant variables—racial prejudice, conservative ideology, and SDO—also predicted CRT tenet support as bivariate correlations, and conservative ideology and SDO predicted CRT tenet support when all predictors were controlled for using multiple regression. Importantly, accurate racial knowledge still predicted CRT tenet support when controlling for these other variables in the same regression model, a finding that held when only data from White participants were analyzed.

Both CRT tenet support and accurate racial knowledge also negatively predicted blind patriotism, a form of national attachment that eschews criticism of country but positively predicted constructive patriotism, a form of national attachment that embraces criticism in service of improvement. These findings are inconsistent with the claim that knowledge about race in America increases hatred of one’s country.

Study 2

Study 1 suggests that racial knowledge is an independent determinant of racial attitudes that represent CRT tenets and without the consequence of loathing one’s country as claimed by critics. But Study 1 was correlational. We accounted for racial prejudice, political ideology, and SDO, potential “third variables” that could explain the relationship between racial knowledge and CRT tenet support, but there may be other relevant variables that were not measured. It is also plausible that those more supportive of CRT tenets are more likely to seek knowledge about race and racism. Stronger evidence for a causal relationship between racial ignorance and CRT tenet support requires the manipulation of racial knowledge.

This was done in Study 2. White undergraduates were randomly assigned to learn critical facts about race or poverty in America. We hypothesized that learning critical facts about race would increase CRT tenet support but not change feelings toward or identification with America. To take seriously the possibility that learning critical facts about race is threatening, Study 2 also included a manipulation of self-affirmation, a process that has been shown to lower defensiveness (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). If learning critical facts about race is threatening, the effectiveness of racial knowledge may only emerge when participants are self-affirmed.

Method

Participants

Anticipating a small effect for our manipulation of critical racial knowledge, we sought at least 100 participants per condition and pre-registered a desired sample size of at least 400. Ultimately, a convenience sample of 446 White undergraduates (M_age = 19.27, SD = 2.33) from a large, Midwestern/Southern university completed the study in exchange for credit toward a requirement in an introductory psychology course. Of these, 298 (66.8%) were women, 144 (32.3%) men, and 4 (0.9%) identified as transgender, non-binary, or another gender. On average, the sample was politically moderate (M = 4.35, SD = 1.64, on a 1–7 scale where higher values indicated more support for conservative ideology). We pre-registered the removal of participants who failed one or both of two attention checks (N = 49) but later discovered that exclusions differed by condition.⁴ To avoid any concern that effects were due to violations of random assignment, analyses reported in the following sections include all participants. Statistical significance and direction of effects were the same regardless of whether exclusions were made, and analyses with pre-registered exclusions are reported in Supplemental Materials.

Procedure

Participants first completed the same assessment of CRT tenet support from Study 1 during an online department prescreening (M = 4.39, SD = 1.28, α = .93). White participants who completed this Time 1 measure of CRT tenet support were eligible to self-select for an online study about personal characteristics and memory through a department sign-up system up to 3 months later.

Those who signed up for the study were told they would consider some personal qualities and then read an essay about a current event from which questions would later be asked. After providing informed consent, participants ranked 11 characteristics (e.g., athletic skills, creativity, and relations with friends and family) from most to least important. To manipulate self-affirmation, participants were asked to consider the characteristic they ranked most important and write a few sentences indicating why (self-affirmation condition), or the characteristic they ranked least important and why it might be important to the typical student (no self-affirmation condition).

Participants were then randomly assigned to read one of two short essays. In the Race condition, the essay was titled “Race in America” and touched on CRT tenets. The essay noted examples of racial disparities, how intersecting identities compound the problem, structural factors as a possible cause from which racial majorities benefit, and how the concept of race has changed across time. Examples of specific topics included redlining and the one-drop rule. In the Poverty condition, the essay, “Poverty in America,” followed the same structure and made the same overarching points but with reference to poverty. In this condition, the essay noted disparities based on wealth, how intersecting identities compound the problem, structural factors as a possible cause from which the wealthy benefit, and how the definition of poverty has changed across time. In both, evidence was provided, and references were cited. Essays are in the Supplemental Materials.

Following these orthogonal manipulations, participants completed a Time 2 measure of CRT tenet support (M = 4.75, SD = 1.17, α = .94), identical to the measure used in Study 1 and at Time 1. Participants then responded to measures assessing the devaluing of and disidentification with America. First, they were asked how they felt about being an American and how they felt about the United States (0 = very negative, 50 = neutral, 100 = very positive, answered in 10-point increments). Responses were strongly correlated, r = .77, p < .001, and combined to form a Feelings About America index (M = 72.92, SD = 22.68). Participants also completed the four-item Identity subscale of the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992), modified to reference being American (e.g., “Being American is an important reflection of who I am”). These items were averaged, after reverse-scoring where necessary so that higher numbers indicated more identification, to form an identification with America index (M = 3.73, SD = 1.51, α = .87).

As attention checks, participants were asked to give a particular response to one question embedded in the measure of CRT tenet support (“This is an attention check. Please select ‘Strongly Agree’ for this question”) and to indicate the title of the essay they read. Regarding the latter, five options were offered, including “Race in America” and “Poverty in America,” correct answers depended on the condition to which participants were randomly assigned. To confirm their attention to the self-affirmation manipulation, participants were asked to indicate the importance of the characteristic about which they wrote (1 = not at all, 3 = very).

To finish, participants responded to some exploratory and demographic questions, including the same single-item measure of political ideology used in Study 1. After an opportunity to share any thoughts about the study, participants were thanked, debriefed, and awarded credit.

Results

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

To confirm the factor structure of our measure of CRT support, we submitted the items in the CRT support index to a confirmatory factor analysis using the R package lavaan (Rosseel, 2012). A one-factor structure fit the data well, χ²(90) = 377.29, p < .001, CFI = .93, TLI = .92, RMSEA = .09, SRMR = .05. This suggests that our scale continued to function well as a unitary measure of CRT tenet support.

CRT Tenet Support

To test our prediction that acquiring critical racial knowledge would increase CRT tenet support, we computed a mixed-model ANOVA with racial knowledge and self-affirmation as between-participants factors and time (CRT tenet support at prescreening, Time 1, vs. post-manipulation, Time 2) as a within-participants factor.¹ This analysis yielded only two effects, a main effect for time, F(1, 440) = 90.88, p < .001, η² = .02 (Time 1: M = 4.39, SD = 1.28; Time 2: M = 4.75, SD = 1.17), and a Racial Knowledge × Time interaction, F(1, 440) = 14.90, p < .001, η² = .004. The main effects for self-affirmation (F(1, 440) = 1.45, p = .230) and racial knowledge (F(1, 440) = 0.67, p = .412) and the interactions between self-affirmation and racial knowledge (F(1, 440) = 0.91, p = .342), self-affirmation and time (F(1, 440) = 0.16, p = .694), and the three-way interaction (F(1, 440) = 1.05, p = .306) were all nonsignificant.

Post tests comparing CRT tenet support from Time 1 to Time 2 indicated that this support increased in both race (F(1, 221) = 84.88, p < .001, η² = .05; Time 1: M = 4.36, SD = 1.20; Time 2: M = 4.88, SD = 1.15) and poverty (F(1, 221) = 17.46, p < .001, η² = .007; Time 1: M = 4.42, SD = 1.35; Time 2: M = 4.63, SD = 1.19) conditions, but this increase was greater in the race condition (per the significant interaction).

Devaluing of and Disidentification With America

To test if learning about race in America would lead participants to devalue or disidentify with America, we first submitted the Feelings About America index to a 2 (Racial Knowledge) × 2 (Self-Affirmation) ANOVA. There were no significant effects, all Fs(1, 439) < 1.09, all ps > .298. More specifically, there were no differences in feelings about America between the race (M = 74.00, SD = 21.64) and poverty (M = 71.83, SD = 23.69) conditions. This analysis was repeated using the Identification with America index. Here too, there were no significant effects, all Fs(1, 442) < 0.66, all ps > .417, and again there was no difference between race (M = 3.79, SD = 1.51) and poverty (M = 3.67, SD = 1.51) conditions. Sensitivity analyses for α = .05, 1 – β = .80 suggested we were adequately powered to detect effects as small as η² = .03.

Discussion

Study 2 provided causal evidence that critical racial knowledge increases CRT tenet support. When participants received a brief lesson about racial disparities, redlining, and the one-drop rule, among other things, CRT tenet support increased compared to learning about poverty. At the same time, there was no negative change in participants’ feelings toward and identification with America in response to a race (vs. poverty) lesson, contrary to CRT critics.

A manipulation of self-affirmation did not impact CRT tenet support or moderate the impact of knowledge on this support. It is possible that our manipulation was not effective; we confirmed that participants found the value they wrote about more important in the self-affirmation condition, but we did not directly assess whether those in the self-affirmation condition felt more affirmed. Still, the manipulation we used is common, and the null effects for self-affirmation simply may mean that learning critical facts about race is less threatening than cultural critics of CRT imply.

The effect of critical racial knowledge on CRT tenet support was small. One reason may be the comparison condition we chose that detailed the history of poverty in America. There was no direct mention to race in this condition, but Black Americans being poor is a common cultural stereotype (e.g., Brown-Iannuzzi et al., 2017; Devine & Elliot, 1995; Lei & Bodenhausen, 2017). Using poverty as a comparison condition also may have inadvertently and unfairly advantaged the predicted null effect on our measures of distancing from America: treatment of minoritized groups and the poor could both be seen as tarnishing the United States and its values. We addressed these concerns in Study 3 by employing a comparison condition that focused on a non-social, structural force within the United States less negative in tone.

Study 3

Study 3 was a conceptual replication of Study 2 with a different, non-social, and less negative comparison condition. White participants were randomly assigned to read an essay about race or transportation in America. They then completed the same measures of CRT tenet support and feelings toward and disidentification with America from Study 2. We chose not to include a pre-testing measure or the self-affirmation manipulation from Study 2 to simplify the design. We predicted that learning facts about race, compared to transportation, would increase CRT tenet support but not change feelings toward or identification with America.

Method

Participants

We again recruited only White participants, pre-registering a desired sample size of 300 (to ensure more than 100 participants per cell). Ultimately, a convenience sample of 303 White undergraduates (M_age = 19.54, SD = 2.54) from a large, Midwestern/Southern university completed the study in exchange for credit toward a requirement in an introductory psychology course. Of these, 218 (71.9%) were women, 79 (26.1%) men, and 6 (1.9%) identified as transgender, non-binary, or another gender. On average, the sample was politically moderate (M = 4.25, SD = 1.63, on a 1–7 scale, where higher values indicated more support for conservative ideology). We pre-registered the removal of participants who failed an attention check (N = 23), and although these exclusions did not differ by condition, we included all participants in analyses reported in the following sections to be consistent with Study 2. Statistical significance and direction of effects were the same regardless of whether exclusions were made, and analyses with pre-registered exclusions are reported in Supplemental Materials.

Procedure

Participants self-selected for an online study about social attitudes, facts, and memory. After providing informed consent, participants were told they would be randomly assigned to read an essay containing facts that they would be asked to remember later in the study. Participants were told the facts were true and, to reduce demand effects (see, e.g., Bonam et al. (2019), that the views expressed in the essay were neither endorsed nor not endorsed by the researchers.

Participants were then randomly assigned to read one of two short essays. In the Race condition, participants were shown the same “Race in America” essay from Study 2. In the Transportation condition, the essay, “Transportation in America,” followed a similar structure and made similar points but with reference to the systemic aspects of transport. In this condition, the essay noted how transportation impacts quality of life (e.g., commute time impacts well-being), intersects with other factors (e.g., public transportation use increases with population density), can be explained by structural forces (e.g., car usage increased with the Interstate Highway Act of 1956), and has changed over time (e.g., societal shifts brought about the dismantling of passenger rail infrastructure). In both conditions, evidence was provided, and references were cited. Essays are in the Supplemental Materials.

Following this manipulation, participants completed the same measure of CRT tenet support from Studies 1 and 2 (M = 4.62, SD = 1.06, α = .92), followed by the same Feelings About America index (M = 71.24, SD = 23.57) and Identification with America index (M = 3.70, SD = 1.39, α = .84) from Study 2. As an attention check, participants were asked to give a particular response to one question embedded in the measure of CRT tenet support (“This is an attention check. Please select “Strongly Agree” for this question”).

Results

CRT Tenet Support

To test our prediction that racial knowledge would increase support for the tenets of CRT, we submitted the CRT tenet support index to an independent samples t-test. This analysis was significant, t(301) = −2.756, p = .006, d = .317. Participants who learned about race in America reported more support for CRT tenets (M = 4.79, SD = 1.04) than participants who learned about transportation in America (M = 4.46, SD = 1.05).

Devaluing of and Disidentification With America

To test if learning about race in America would lead participants to devalue or disidentify with America, we submitted the Feelings About America and Identification with America indexes to independent samples t-tests. Neither analysis was significant, t(293) = 0.13, p = .895 (M_race = 71.05, SD = 23.62; M_{transportation} = 71.42, SD = 23.60) and t(301) = 0.12, p = .905 (M_race = 3.69, SD = 1.36; M_{transportation} = 3.71, SD = 1.43), respectively. Sensitivity analyses suggested we were adequately powered to detect effects as small as d = .34 at α = .05, 1 – β = .80.

Discussion

Study 3 provided additional causal evidence that racial knowledge increases CRT tenet support. When participants read a brief essay about race in America, CRT tenet support increased compared to learning about the systemic and structural aspects of transportation. Also consistent with Study 2, there was no negative change in feelings toward and identification with America in response to a race (vs. transportation) lesson.

Study 4

A possible criticism of Studies 2 and 3 is the conceptual space between the critical knowledge we presented to participants and our measure of tenet support: Both were created to tap the same five facets of CRT, which raises the possibility that our outcome variable was as much a manipulation check as an assessment of attitude change. We argue that learning critical knowledge makes ways of understanding the world that question oppressive systems—including support for CRT tenets—more plausible and more likely. A stronger test of our claim would demonstrate that manipulating critical knowledge regarding one CRT tenet generalizes to increase support for all tenets.

To address this concern, in our final study, we used a manipulation of critical knowledge that focused only on one CRT tenet (material determinism/structural racism), taken from the study by Bonam et al. (2019). White participants were randomly assigned to listen to either a historian describe how U.S. housing policies created Black ghettos or a control condition that discussed pig intelligence. Participants then completed the same measures of CRT tenet support and feelings toward and disidentification with America from Studies 2 and 3. We predicted that learning critical facts about structural racism would increase CRT tenet support but not change feelings toward or identification with America.

Method

Participants

We pre-registered a desired sample size of 300 White participants but were only able to recruit 272 given the time in the semester data were collected. This convenience sample of White undergraduates from a large, Midwestern/Southern university (M_age = 19.81, SD = 2.77) consisted of 202 (74.0%) women, 68 (24.9%) men, and 3 participants (0.1%) who identified as transgender, non-binary, or another gender. On average, the sample was politically moderate (M = 4.28, SD = 1.72, on a 1–7 scale where higher values indicated more support for conservative ideology). Participants completed the study in exchange for credit toward a requirement or extra credit in an introductory psychology course. We again pre-registered the removal of participants who failed one or both of two attention checks (N = 21), and although these exclusions did not differ by condition, we included all participants in analyses reported below to be consistent with Studies 2 and 3. Statistical significance and direction of effects were the same regardless of whether exclusions were made, and analyses with pre-registered exclusions are reported in Supplemental Materials.

Procedure

Participants self-selected for an online study about social attitudes. After providing informed consent, participants were told they would be randomly assigned to listen to an audio clip, and later they would answer some questions about what they heard. To reduce demand effects, participants were told that the views expressed in the audio clip were neither endorsed nor not endorsed by the researchers.

Participants were then randomly assigned to listen to one of two audio clips used in the study by Bonam et al. (2019) that were taken and edited from the National Public Radio show Fresh Air (Gross, 2015a, 2015b). In the Structural Racism condition, participants listened to an edited interview with the historian Richard Rothstein discussing how U.S. housing policies (e.g., restricted covenants and redlining) created Black ghettos. In the control condition, participants listened to an edited interview about pig intelligence.

Following this manipulation, participants were asked to share their initial thoughts about what they heard in a text box and then completed the same 15-item measure of CRT tenet support from Studies 1–3 (M = 4.59, SD = 1.03, α = .91), followed by the same Feelings About America index (M = 71.75, SD = 23.12) and Identification with America index (M = 3.76, SD = 1.46, α = .86) from Study 2. As attention checks, participants were asked to indicate the topic of the interview they listened to (by choosing from a list of three) and among whom the interview took place (a man and a woman, two men, or two women).

To finish, participants responded to some exploratory and demographic questions. After an opportunity to share any thoughts about the study, participants were thanked, debriefed, and awarded credit.

Results

CRT Tenet Support

To test our prediction that critical racial knowledge about structural racism would increase CRT tenet support, we submitted the CRT tenet support index to an independent samples t-test. This analysis was significant, t(268) = −2.33, p = .021, d = .28. Participants who learned about structural racism in the context of U.S. housing policy reported more support for CRT tenets (M = 4.74, SD = 1.03) than participants who learned about transportation in America (M = 4.45, SD = 1.02).

Devaluing of and Disidentification With America

To test if learning about structural racism in America would lead participants to devalue or disidentify with America, we submitted the Feelings About America and Identification with America indexes to independent samples t-tests. Neither analysis was significant. For Feelings about America, Ms = 70.29 and 73.06, SDs = 22.87 and 23.34, t(269) = 0.99, p = .324; for Identification with America, Ms = 3.67 and 3.85, SDs = 1.43 and 1.49, t(268) = 1.02, p = .308. A sensitivity analysis for a two-tailed test at α = .05, 1 – β = .80 suggested we were adequately powered to detect effects as small as d = .34.

Discussion

Study 4 provides evidence that learning critical knowledge about structural racism generalizes to increase CRT tenet support more broadly. When participants learned about U.S. housing policies and laws that created Black ghettos, participants’ acknowledgment of structural racism—but also CRT tenets more broadly (e.g., acknowledgment that racism is common, and that race is socially constructed and intersectional)—increased.⁵ This finding supports our claim that learning critical racial knowledge increases support for CRT tenets and attitudes that psychologically dismantle racism. Also consistent with Studies 2 and 3, there was again no evidence that participants distanced from their country by devaluing or disidentifying from it upon learning about structural racism in the United States.

General Discussion

Four studies support our claim that opposition to CRT is due in part to racial ignorance. In Study 1, we found our predicted positive correlation between accurate knowledge about current and historical racial conditions in America and support for CRT tenets—that racism is common, structural, and benefits racial majorities, and that race is socially constructed and intersectional. Racial knowledge continued to predict tenet support when racial prejudice, social dominance, and conservative ideology were accounted for, indicating that knowledge was an independent predictor of CRT tenet support. These findings held when only data from White participants were considered.

We then manipulated critical racial knowledge in three experiments with White participants. We found that a brief lesson about race and racism in America, compared to poverty (Study 2) or transportation (Study 3), increased CRT tenet support. Even when our manipulation of critical knowledge was narrowed to focus on structural racism in U.S. housing (vs. information about pig intelligence; Study 4), endorsement of CRT tenets increased. When made aware of critical knowledge about race and racism, participants expressed attitudes that challenged dominant narratives concerning these concepts.

This critical knowledge did not come at the expense of participants’ national attachment, despite claims of cultural critics. In Study 1, we found that as racial knowledge increased, blind allegiance to the United States decreased but constructive patriotism—a willingness to criticize one’s country to make it better—increased. Furthermore, participants neither devalued nor disidentified from the United States when exposed to critical racial knowledge in Studies 2–4. When racial privilege was made salient and hard to deny, our White participants did not choose to distance themselves from their country.

Critical Knowledge and Conscientization

Knowledge comes in many forms, and its operationalization in research linking it with racial attitudes is no exception. Examples include knowledge about demographics, history, and culture (Reckless and Bringen (1933); anthropological knowledge (Nettler, 1946); and knowledge of similarities vs. differences in opinion (e.g., Rokeach & Mezei, 1966). Our own research emphasized the differential outcomes and experiences of racial minorities as part and parcel with broader social systems of oppression, a form of critical knowledge, that is, knowledge that identifies and challenges power dynamics and recurring patterns of injustice within systems and institutions across time.

This critical approach to knowledge acquisition echoes Paulo Freire’s (1970) concept of conscientização, or conscientization. Freire’s pedagogical framework emphasizes the transformative potential of the oppressed becoming aware of the oppressive social, political, and economic forces that shape their material realities. Because of these realities, Freire (1970) argued that the oppressed are best prepared to understand their own oppression. Indeed, minoritized groups generally possess more critical racial knowledge, see more systemic racism, and perceive less racial progress than their White counterparts (e.g., Bonam et al., 2019; Eibach & Ehrlinger, 2006; Nelson et al., 2013). But Freire recognized that oppressors are also capable of conscientization via critical pedagogies. There are disincentives for dominant groups—critical knowledge may threaten their status, identity, and legitimacy (e.g., Branscombe et al., 2007; Knowles et al., 2014; Unzueta & Lowery, 2008)—but our research, and the research of others (Bonam et al., 2019; Efimoff & Starzyk, 2023; Nelson et al., 2010), demonstrates the conscientizing effects of critical pedagogy among dominant group members.

Implications and Limitations

Our research shows that racial ignorance can be redressed and with positive attitudinal consequences. A theme of CRT, and our measure of its tenets, is that racism remains a problem. As such, these studies add to bodies of related research showing that knowledge can reduce political extremism (Fernbach et al., 2013), increase recognition of racism (Bonam et al., 2019; Nelson et al., 2013), and reduce prejudice (Netler, 1946; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008; Reckless & Bringen, 1933). Ours is an optimistic approach; racial knowledge may be easier to change than racial prejudice or other variables that have been found to covary with it (e.g., SDO or political ideology).

But there is also room for cynicism. Evidence that racial knowledge can improve racial attitudes is not always strong or consistent (e.g., Bolton, 1935; see Stephan & Stephan, 1984, for a review). Although our manipulation of critical racial knowledge impacted support for CRT tenets, this effect, too, was small. That brief exposure to a bit of critical knowledge impacted participants’ racial attitudes is meaningful (Prentice & Miller, 1992), but our small effects highlight the importance of other processes also at work. In Study 1, social dominance, racial prejudice (when the full sample was considered), and political ideology also explained unique variance in CRT tenet support. In fact, we found ideology to be the strongest predictor of tenet support but—compared to racial knowledge—one likely more difficult to influence. Political and motivational forces need to be considered when trying to understand opposition to CRT and other race-based issues (e.g., Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs).

The racial knowledge we presented to participants provided them with the opportunity to consider and then challenge existing knowledge and social conditions (“problem-posing” education, in the words of Freire) but also had elements of “banking” modes of education, in which knowledge is treated as something to be deposited by the teacher into passive students who are expected to uncritically receive, memorize, and regurgitate information (Freire, 1970). Active dialogue with participants who are engaged and reflective could increase the strength and durability of our effects. A more extensive education that rivals the status quo in frequency and duration might have a greater, and more durable, impact as well.

We acknowledge that our student samples were not representative. Most of our participants were from the United States, and our racial knowledge manipulations focused on a predominantly American context. We have argued that it is critical knowledge that increased CRT tenet support, but our manipulations did not compare critical vs. non-critical facts about race (Study 2, however, compared critical facts about race vs. poverty). This is an important limitation of our research. More generally, we did not measure potential mechanisms through which our critical knowledge manipulation had its effect. We considered self-affirmation as a moderator in Study 2, but other variables are likely to determine if and to what extent racial knowledge impacts racial attitudes, including CRT tenet support. Any generalization of our findings must be made cautiously.

Concluding Remarks

Those with status, power, or who otherwise represent the status quo are more likely to misjudge and misunderstand those who do not (Fiske, 1993; Keltner & Robinson, 1997; Robinson et al., 1995). In the context of race, the burdens of these misperceptions seem borne mostly by minoritized racial groups (e.g., Hacker, 2003). Assuming a common goal of achieving a more fair and just society, our data suggest racial ignorance can be redressed with critical knowledge, that legal restriction to such knowledge is counter-productive, and that age-appropriate teachings about race and racism could advance racial understanding.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672251321993 – Supplemental material for Racial Knowledge and the Tenets of Critical Race Theory: Is Opposition to CRT Due to Ignorance?

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672251321993 for Racial Knowledge and the Tenets of Critical Race Theory: Is Opposition to CRT Due to Ignorance? by Scott Eidelman, Mejdy Jabr, Emily Vance, Marie Altgilbers Roweton and Austin Eubanks in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Scott Eidelman

Mejdy Jabr

Emily Vance

Marie Altgilbers Roweton

Austin Eubanks

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material is available online with this article.

Notes

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