Themed Issue: Learning from anti-racist theories to reframe engineering education research on race

In this paper, we describe multiple theories that focus on the production and reproduction of demographic marginalization and that reject deficit paradigms. These theories have developed in disciplinary spaces that focus on first-order theorizing on race. Some have connections to critical race theory (CRT), while others are sociocultural theories; all are theories we have found to be valuable, important, and underused in engineering education. We introduce nine theoretical frameworks: racial and vocational identity development, color-blind racism, funds of knowledge, antideficit achievement, community cultural wealth (CCW), Nepantla, in/authenticity, ruling relations, and racialized organizations and the history of racist ideas. In each framework, we describe how we have understood the theory, how it has been used in the literature, how we have applied it to engineering education research questions and contexts, the struggles we have had in so doing, and further cautions on how it could be misused. We conclude with an overarching set of guiding principles that can support researchers' application of the frameworks in their work and that practitioners engaging in teaching-as-research can consider when restructuring their classrooms as antiracist.