Bias, risk, racism: Reconciling critical and quantitative approaches to understanding racial inequality in child welfare system outcomes
本文调和批判性与计量经济学方法，通过因果图与反事实模型，揭示种族主义如何复杂影响儿童福利系统结果，并倡导将公平与伤害作为核心伦理关切的分析框架。
Abstract In this essay, I seek to reconcile critical and econometric approaches to diagnosing the causes of deep racial inequalities in child welfare system outcomes. Using a series of causal diagrams and critical engagement with the counterfactual causal model, I suggest policy analysts embrace a theoretical framework for quantitative inference that recognizes the complex ways that racism impacts families, places, and policy systems. Common approaches that partition inequalities into risk and bias components normatively imply that some inequalities are legitimate and some illegitimate. As we push toward foundational reform in how policy systems work with children and families, we must embrace analytic approaches that 1) map more convincingly onto real‐world processes and 2) take questions of equity and harm as central ethical concerns.