Our Children Oregon’s Research & Data Justice Statement

“Research Justice is a strategic framework that seeks to achieve self-determination for marginalized communities. It centralizes community voices and leadership in an effort to facilitate genuine, lasting social change.” — DataCenter

Here at Our Children Oregon, we are committed to conducting our research and data work in alignment with the frameworks of equity and justice. Historically, the research sector has upheld oppressive systems of bias, underinvestment, and discrimination towards various communities via practices that have ultimately caused undue harm. As such, we are heeding the call from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), queer/trans, and disability advocates, among others, to remediate these wrongs by more strategically applying the tenets of research & data justice to our scope of work.

This means centering the voices of Oregon’s systemically excluded communities as advocates for change by honoring their lived experiential knowledge and listening to community-level expertise; unpacking and redressing the impacts of colonization, capitalism, racism, white supremacy, and other systems of oppression on established research and data norms; and disseminating findings in ways that cultivate self-determination and highlight narratives of desire, resilience, and hope, rather than perpetuating deficits and insufficiencies.

Over the last year, we have begun the long-term process of establishing greater equity in our research work via the following means:

• reassessing the standard child well-being indicators we report annually to be more reflective of the realities currently faced by various Oregonian communities;
• shifting our data emphasis from quantitative, jargon-heavy reporting to qualitative, narrative-based methodologies that reflect the humanity behind the numbers;
• making our work more accessible and understandable to a greater diversity of audiences; and consulting with stakeholders across Oregon to garner insights on how to further improve the inclusivity and equity of our work.

As we’re all in a place of learning, we welcome further discussions and partnerships in growing our commitment to engendering research and data justice in our work to better the lives of children, youth, and families across our state.  standing issues and barriers f

acing caregivers, providers, and children alike across the state. Research from state universities and national organizations is consolidated in a new issue brief from Our Children Oregon entitled Oregon’s Child Care Conundrum: Hurdles, Disparities, and Opportunities Amidst the COVID–19 Pandemic. This brief details how the COVID–19 pandemic has further exacerbated issues of affordability and availability for families, capacity and well–being oiders, and quality of care necessary for our state’s working parenmy, and society to thrivege