About

Matthew A. Diemer is a professor in the Department of Psychology and holds a position as Area Chair within the Combined Program in Education & Psychology at the University of Michigan. He is also a Faculty Associate at the Research Center for Group Dynamics, ISR, and a Professor of Educational Studies and Psychology. His research focuses on how young people reflect on, negotiate, and challenge racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and other societal constraints in various institutional settings such as school, college, work, and civic or political environments. He is particularly interested in the development of critical consciousness among marginalized groups, which involves a careful analysis of societal inequalities, motivation for social change, and participation in social or political action.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Medicine
• Law
• Pedagogy
• Gender studies
• Criminology

Selected publications

• Leveraging a Critical Quantitative Perspective and the MIMIC Approach to Produce More Equitable Measures in Vocational Psychology

  Journal of Career Assessment · 2026-03-27

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article positions Critical Quantitative methodology (CritQuant) as a justice-oriented framework for conducting quantitative research in vocational psychology that interrogates power, centers context, and resists the reproduction of structural inequities - aligning with historical and contemporary social justice currents within the discipline. To illustrate specific applications of CritQuant within vocational psychology, an empirical example applies Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) modeling to Youth Development Study (YDS) data to examine differential item functioning in a measure of intrinsic work values across subjective social class groups. This model indicates systematic differential item functioning, or DIF, in two YDS items. This illustrates how vocational psychologists could leverage a CritQuant perspective and the MIMIC approach to identify biased items, which could subsequently be removed or modified to ensure vocational measures less contaminated by class bias (in this example), along with other systems of oppression (more broadly). In sum, this article aims to illustrate how vocational psychologists can leverage quantitative approaches to attain more equitable measures, and thus produce more equitable scholarship, practice implications, and policy recommendations.

  PublisherDOI

• Brief Parent-Report Gender Identity Alignment/Distress Screener for Children

  PsycTESTS Dataset · 2025-01-01

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Capturing the Complexity of Adolescents’ Critical Reflection of Social Inequities Using Vignettes

  2025-12-10

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Critical reflection on social inequities is central to critical consciousness (CC), yet existing quantitative measures may not fully capture its complexity. This study used a vignette-based approach to examine adolescents’ critical reflection. A sample of 214 ethnically diverse German adolescents (Mage = 15.84 years, SDage = 1.21; 45% male, 51% female, 3% non-binary, 1% missing) provided open-ended responses to two social inequity vignettes and completed quantitative CC scales. Coding open-ended vignette responses indicated that adolescents’ explanations for social inequities are multifaceted, mixed, and interlinked. The vignette-based measure demonstrated reliability and validity, i.e., expected relations with quantitative CC scales. Those with more books in the household and girls (vs. boys) demonstrated more integratively complex attributions for social inequities, with the latter also providing more structural attributions. The findings underline the potential of vignettes to capture the complexities and nuances of adolescents’ critical reflection on social inequities.

  PublisherDOI

• Looking backward to look forward: Tracing critical quantitative perspectives in critical consciousness research

  Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences · 2025-05-12 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Development and Initial Validation of the Transformative Justice Scale: Assessing Teachers’ Capacity for Transformative Practices in Education

  AERA Open · 2025-11-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper details the development of a scale assessing teachers’ perceived capacity to enact transformative justice pedagogy, the Transformative Justice Scale (TJS). This measure is grounded in transformative justice (TJ) scholarship and is comprised of two subscales. The TJS factor structure was identified via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, with distinct samples of racially diverse middle and high school teachers. The TJS is time and resource efficient in that it uses teacher self-reports. The TJS contributes to the literature by providing an assessment of transformative or social justice–oriented pedagogy that is not well covered in existing measures. The TJS also would support teacher professional development and coaching because it could be used as a pre- to post-evaluative tool, to foster continuously reflective practice, or to provide structured feedback. Future work should explore these potential applications as well as further develop teachers’ capacity to enact transformative and equity-oriented approaches to practice.

  PublisherDOI

• A Primer on MIMIC Models and Critical Quantitative Methods to Increase Their Use

  AERA Open · 2025-09-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  MIMIC (Multiple Indicator and MultIple Causes) models afford powerful claims about measurement—particularly in identifying biased items—and are relatively simple to specify and test. Therefore, we argue that MIMIC models are sorely underutilized and serve important roles in ensuring sound and fair measurement in educational scholarship. When viewed from the perspective of critical quantitative (CritQuant) methodology, MIMICs hold promise in fostering equity-oriented and anti-racist measurement. The MIMIC strategy, employed from a CritQuant perspective, may also reveal how bias in measurement may lead to underestimating the impacts of racism on educational and related outcomes. To increase their use, this primer aims to explain how to specify and evaluate MIMIC models and provides sample code in R (lavaan) and MPlus. The paper concludes by articulating the advantages and disadvantages of MIMICs, from both CritQuant and technical perspectives, to inform educational research.

  PublisherDOI

• Leveraging Environmental Civic Science and the Communal Attainment Value of Stem to Foster Science Motivation Among Minoritized Youth

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Anti-racist methodological approaches to ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness scholarship

  Journal of School Psychology · 2025-11-24

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Ethnic studies and student development: Cultivating racially marginalized adolescents’ critical consciousness.

  Developmental Psychology · 2024-10-31 · 9 citations

  articleSenior author

  = 13.92) survey data, and focus group data with 19 students, revealed that ethnic studies-enrolled students grew more in their critical reflection than nonenrolled students. However, the quantitative data demonstrated decreasing critical motivation among all students, whereas the qualitative data suggested emergent critical motivation among ethnic studies-enrolled students. Furthermore, critical school socialization and teacher pedagogy were key to ethnic studies consciousness-raising. Altogether, this study highlights that ethnic studies fosters youth critical consciousness-a worthwhile outcome that should be considered in policy debates about ethnic studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Development and validation of the white critical consciousness index

  Research in Human Development · 2024-07-24 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  This study details the development and validation of the White Critical Consciousness Index (WhiCCI) as a tool for measuring the critical consciousness (CC) of white Americans. We argue that CC, when viewed from the vantage point of Freire's oppressor, must be measured differently. Therefore, new items were developed using insights from the CC and white anti-racist allyship literature to accommodate difference in CC measurement. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, this study analyzes data from over 2000 more privileged white Americans and arrives at an instrument aligned with the tripartite model of CC: Critical Reflection, Critical Motivation, and Critical Action.

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Recent grants

• Exploring the Role of Racial Socialization and Media in Black Youth's Sociopolitical Development

  NSF · $138k · 2019–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Michael Frisby

  35 shared

• Andres Pinedo

  Vanderbilt University

  25 shared

• Josefina Bañales

  University of Illinois Chicago

  23 shared

• Sara McAlister

  19 shared

• Elise Harris

  New York University

  19 shared

• Channing J. Mathews

  University of Virginia

  19 shared

• Aixa D. Marchand

  18 shared

• Luke J. Rapa

  Clemson University

  13 shared