Discussions about educational content on race and racism have captured widespread public and political attention, with much of this debate falling under the umbrella of critical race theory (CRT). Despite this attention, we currently do not know whether it is the content in these lessons or the CRT label that is influencing opinion on this issue. Are critics of CRT reacting to the content that CRT encapsulates? Or does the phrase “CRT” trigger partisan beliefs that are unrelated or only weakly tied to the central claims CRT advances? We use original data from two experiments in national surveys (N = 1,983) to answer these questions. In the first experiment, respondents were randomly assigned to one of three vignette conditions that described a local high school board’s decision to ban a lesson by either (1) describing the content of the lesson, (2) labeling the lesson as CRT, or (3) both describing and labeling the lesson. In the second experiment, a subset of respondents was assigned to conditions where the school board approved the lesson rather than banning it. Results indicate that labeling a lesson as CRT leads to opposition—either agreeing with its ban or disagreeing with its approval—regardless of whether a description of the lesson is included. Subgroup analyses are suggestive of the idea that although baseline levels of support varied, this label impacts individuals across a wide array of sociodemographic and political groups.

中文翻译：

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批判性种族理论的标签力量：来自全国调查实验的证据


关于种族和种族主义教育内容的讨论引起了公众和政治的广泛关注，其中大部分辩论都属于批判性种族理论 （CRT） 的范畴。尽管受到了这种关注，但我们目前不知道是这些课程中的内容还是 CRT 标签影响了对这个问题的看法。CRT 的批评者是否对 CRT 封装的内容做出反应？或者，“CRT”一词是否触发了与 CRT 推进的核心主张无关或仅弱相关的党派信念？我们使用来自全国调查中两个实验的原始数据 （N = 1,983） 来回答这些问题。在第一个实验中，受访者被随机分配到三个小插图条件之一，这些小插图条件描述了当地高中董事会决定禁止一门课，方法是 （1） 描述课程的内容，（2） 将课程标记为 CRT，或 （3） 同时描述和标记课程。在第二个实验中，一部分受访者被分配到学校董事会批准该课程而不是禁止该课程的条件。结果表明，将课程标记为 CRT 会导致反对——要么同意它的禁令，要么不同意它的批准——无论是否包含对该课程的描述。亚组分析表明，尽管支持的基线水平各不相同，但该标签会影响广泛的社会人口和政治群体中的个人。