Racialized Legitimacy in Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Training

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Introduction

Legitimacy, or being deemed “right and proper,” is an essential form of capital in academia (Tyler, 2006, p. 376) and is central to progression in academic life. Success in evaluations at key developmental milestones (e.g., admissions/selection, the transition to doctoral candidacy, passing one’s dissertation defense/viva, securing a faculty job) often requires individuals to not only demonstrate a deep understanding of their field or discipline’s legitimated ways of knowing and being but also their ability to adhere to them. Consequently, learning in graduate education and postdoctoral training tends to reinforce conventional notions of excellence in the disciplines (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Posselt, 2020). The result being that those who can perform and embody the knowledge and behaviors that are valued by their field or discipline are legitimated, and those who cannot or will not are frequently marginalized or even excluded altogether. In this way, legitimacy plays a key role in determining access, belonging, and advancement in academia.  

Less explored, however, are the ways normative constructions of legitimacy are often entangled with conformity to Eurocentric epistemologies and embodiments. In the context of a historically white academy, learners often come to embody narrow constructions of legitimacy that are racialized, like the organizations in which they are formed (Ray, 2019). Thus, we posit that the outcome of routine assessments and milestones of evaluation throughout early career scholars’ developmental trajectories constitute moments in which their adherence to whiteness — often disguised by terms like rigor, merit, and excellence — is assessed. 

This special issue coheres around the theory of racialized legitimacy, defined as the process through which evaluations and conferrals of legitimacy become tightly coupled with racialized conceptualizations of excellence that are entangled with whiteness and marginalize the wisdom and epistemologies inherent in globally minoritized communities. Articles in this issue will: 1) expose and challenge the routine ways that racism is embedded in the conferral of legitimacy in academic institutions globally, 2) demonstrate how graduate education and postdoctoral training reproduce the exclusion of racially minoritized students and postdocs, and 3) present new possibilities for equitable and just evaluation and assessment in the disciplines. Our special issue provides intervention in the study of graduate education and postdoctoral training by asserting these processes are shaped by the alignment of their identity, behavior, and scholarly contributions with the dominant norms and expectations rooted in whiteness and Eurocentric standards of merit and excellence. 

List of Topic Areas

Scholars interested in contributing to this special issue should submit papers that highlight how racism and racialization are embedded in the processes for assessing and conferring the legitimacy of emerging scholars. Such topics might include: 

1. Global perspectives on racialization and legitimation in graduate education and postdoctoral training, emphasizing how the socio-cultural, historical, and political particularities of various (inter)national contexts shape these processes.
2. Empirical explorations detailing the racialized dimensions of learning and evaluation in graduate education (e.g., coursework, the qualifying examination and transition to candidacy, the dissertation) or postdoctoral training settings (e.g., research labs, departmental settings, and disciplinary societies), as well as how other axes of structural oppression (e.g., gender, sexuality, dis/ability, nationality) inform students' and postdocs' experiences with racialized legitimacy.  
3. Critical interrogations of Black, Indigenous, and other racially minoritized graduate students' and postdocs' experiences engaging with common academic opportunity structures (e.g., grant and fellowship applications, peer review and publication processes, and the faculty job market).
4. Narratives and case studies describing how Black, Indigenous, and other racially minoritized graduate students and postdocs have and continue to resist racialized legitimation - and racism more broadly- in their academic journeys.
5. Visions and/or models for more just and equity-minded learning and evaluation in graduate education and postdoctoral training.  

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sgpe 
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here:  https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/sgpe 
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for abstract submission: 01/03/2026 (March 1) 
Closing date for abstract submission: 01/05/2026 (May 1)

Email for abstract submissions: arodgers4@wisc.edu  

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/06/2026 (June 1) 
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 01/11/2026 (November 1)