A convenient rhetoric or substantial change of teacher racial diversity? - A Text Mining Analysis of Federal, State, and District Documents

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by acoobca

Teacher racial diversity has been widely considered important in education, yet its coverage across federal, state, and district levels remains unclear. Using text mining, the study collected and analyzed over three million documents across these governance levels. Results show limited discussion of recruiting and retaining racially diverse teachers, and especially scant attention to recruiting and retaining Hispanic teachers. When addressed, recruitment sources mainly came from organizations serving people of color.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages28

Reading Time1 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Key Findings

Policy Recommendations

| education policy analysis archives
A peer-reviewed, independent, open access, multilingual journal | | | --- | --- | | Arizona State University | | | Volume 30 Number 78 June 7, 2022 ISSN 1068-2341 | | A Convenient Rhetoric or Substantial Change of Teacher Racial Diversity? A Text Mining Analysis of Federal, State, and District Documents Sing Hui Lee Briana N. Keith Yasmine Bey Yinying Wang Xiulong Yang Xiang Li & Shihao Ji Georgia State University United States Citation: Lee, S. H., Keith, B. N., Bey, Y., Wang, Y., Yang, X., Li, X., & Ji, S. (2022) . A convenient rhetoric or substantial change of teacher racial diversity? A text mining analysis of federal, state, and district documents. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 30 (78) . [https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.30.6677](https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.30.6677) Abstract: Teacher racial diversity has been widely considered important in education. However, it remains unclear to what extent and how teacher racial diversity has been addressed at the federal, state, and district levels. In this study, we employed text mining to collect and analyze over three million documents at the federal, state, and district levels. We found that while students of color had disproportionately less access to racially diverse teachers, the documents under our analysis insufficiently discussed the recruitment and retention of racially diverse teachers. Our findings also reveal that education agencies at the federal, state, and district levels paid scant attention to recruiting and retaining Hispanic teachers. For the states and districts that discussed the recruitment of racially diverse teachers, they primarily recruited teachers from institutions and organizations that primarily serve people of color, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the Columbia Latino/a Law Student Association, the National Association of Asian American Professionals, and the National Black MBA Association. Given the findings and the projected growth of Black and Hispanic student enrollment in the United States, we provide five policy recommendations for policymakers and leaders to racially diversify the teacher workforce amid shifting student demographics, particularly Hispanic students. Keywords: education policy; racial diversity; teacher diversity; teacher preparation; teacher recruitment; teacher retention; text mining ¿Una retórica conveniente o un cambio sustancial de la diversidad racial docente? Un análisis de text mining de documentos federales, estatales y distritales Resumen: La diversidad racial docente ha sido ampliamente considerada importante en laeducación. Sin embargo, sigue sin estar claro en qué medida y cómo se ha abordado la diversidad racial de los docentes a nivel federal, estatal y distrital. En este estudio, empleamos la text mining para recopilar y analizar más de tres millones de documentos anivel federal, estatal y distrital. Descubrimos que, si bien los estudiantes de color tenían unacceso desproporcionadamente menor a maestros racialmente diversos, los documentos bajo nuestro análisis discutían de manera insuficiente el reclutamiento y la retención de maestros racialmente diversos. Nuestros hallazgos también revelan que las agencias deeducación a nivel federal, estatal y distrital prestaron poca atención a la contratación yretención de maestros hispanos. Para los estados y distritos que discutieron el reclutamiento de maestros racialmente diversos, reclutaron principalmente maestros de instituciones y organizaciones que atienden principalmente a personas de color, como los Colegios y Universidades Históricamente Negros, la Asociación de Estudiantes de Derecho Latino/a de Columbia, la Asociación Nacional de Profesionales asiáticoamericanos y la Asociación Nacional Negra de MBA. Dados los hallazgos y el crecimientoproyectado de la inscripción de estudiantes negros e hispanos en los Estados Unidos, brindamos cinco recomendaciones de políti

FAQs

What question does the study address?

The study examines whether teacher racial diversity reflects a “convenient rhetoric” or a substantial change across federal, state, and district documents.

How was the evidence collected?

Text mining was used to collect and analyze more than three million documents from federal, state, and district levels.

What do the findings indicate about teacher diversity policies?

The documents insufficiently discussed recruiting and retaining racially diverse teachers, and they showed limited attention to Hispanic teachers in particular.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by acoobca