Critical race theory

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/critical-race-theory

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is Critical race theory known for?Intersectionality, the social construction of race, and critique of colorblindness
2. What is the academic discipline?A framework for examining the intersection of race, law, and power structures
3. What is the originating period?Developed in the United States from the mid-1970s through the 1980s
4. Why do people say race is a social construct?Because people create and use ideas about race to give some groups more power, and it isn’t a natural fact.
5. How does Critical Race Theory look at the criminal justice system?It shows that higher numbers of people from certain races in prisons can be due to laws and rules that work against them, not just individual choices.

Critical Legal Studies: An academic movement that critiques the neutrality and objectivity of law.
Systemic Racism: The normalization and legitimization of an array of actions and policies that results in the reproduction of racial inequality.
Social Construction of Race: The concept that race is a human-created social category, not a biological reality, used to organize society.
Intersectionality: The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.