Minority Research is Not a Spin Off Posted on March 19, 2007 Don't let your research be marginalized, advises Ruth Chao (bio).

One of the things I think of in terms of advice for ethnic minority researchers, young scholars, is they really have to be aware of the bigger picture in terms of where their research fits in because other individuals I think sometimes will refer to their research as though it's some spin off of something or it's that "special" population or that and really it's really is much more than that. It's addressing the theories and constructs that we have and their relevancy, who are they relevant for? And so I think they have to be able to ground the populations that they're focused on into where that fits with the mainstream research.

And I just worry with ethnic minority researchers they get sort of marginalized because they think, oh, you just study that group and they don't have their own conceptual and theoretical framework. The departments may bend over backwards for, you know, the ethnic minority researchers, but not really take them seriously in terms of the new theories and paradigms coming out and, and they need to be able to ground what they do in those new theories and paradigms and make the argument for why they're inadequate very clear.

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