Set 2: Highlighted Presidential Sessions
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- America to Me: Examining Race and Schooling in the Suburban United States
- Raising Our Voices: Community-Minded Latinx Educators Reflect on Clinical Practices in Neoliberal Times
- Centering Us: The Role of Institutional Centers in Educational Sovereignty, Justice, and Liberation
- Have Your Heard: Podcasting as a Medium for Leveraging Education Research
- The Power and politics of Conducting Critical Research that Advances Educational Justice in the Age of Trump
- Innovation in Teacher Education: Towards a critical Re-Examination
- Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data
- Gentrification, Neighborhoods, and School (Re)segregation
1. America to Me: Examining Race and Schooling in the Suburban United States
A sharp distinction is traditionally drawn between urban and suburban contexts. Parliament’s (1975) classic funk track “Chocolate City” – with its references to “chocolate cities” and “vanilla suburbs” suggests that cities are Black and suburbs are White. However, during the past thirty plus years, we have seen major demographic shifts in metropolitan suburbs. In fact, suburbs are the most rapidly changing areas in the United States in terms of population demographics. Currently, 40 percent of suburban students are Asian, Black, Latinx, or Native American. Moreover, more than half of Latinx and almost half of African Americans in large metropolitan areas now attend suburban schools. Recent scholarship examines the implications of race and class in suburban districts and highlights how suburbs are currently grappling with issues of race, class and student outcomes that were once associated primarily with city districts. In this Presidential Session, we will enter the discussion of race in the suburbs through screening one episode of the Starz documentary miniseries America to Me. Filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself), has produced a 10-episode documentary miniseries for Starz focused on Oak Park River Forrest High School (OPRFHS) in Oak Park Illinois. Oak Park is nationally known as a racially diverse suburb with a long-term commitment to residential integration. It is also a place with deep racial divides and unequal outcomes for students across racial lines. The miniseries grapples with key issues of race and equity in suburban contexts and highlights critical challenges of keen interest to members of AERA.
Session Format: Film Screening
Length of Session: 2-hours
Moderator: John Diamond, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Participants:
A sharp distinction is traditionally drawn between urban and suburban contexts. Parliament’s (1975) classic funk track “Chocolate City” – with its references to “chocolate cities” and “vanilla suburbs” suggests that cities are Black and suburbs are White. However, during the past thirty plus years, we have seen major demographic shifts in metropolitan suburbs. In fact, suburbs are the most rapidly changing areas in the United States in terms of population demographics. Currently, 40 percent of suburban students are Asian, Black, Latinx, or Native American. Moreover, more than half of Latinx and almost half of African Americans in large metropolitan areas now attend suburban schools. Recent scholarship examines the implications of race and class in suburban districts and highlights how suburbs are currently grappling with issues of race, class and student outcomes that were once associated primarily with city districts. In this Presidential Session, we will enter the discussion of race in the suburbs through screening one episode of the Starz documentary miniseries America to Me. Filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself), has produced a 10-episode documentary miniseries for Starz focused on Oak Park River Forrest High School (OPRFHS) in Oak Park Illinois. Oak Park is nationally known as a racially diverse suburb with a long-term commitment to residential integration. It is also a place with deep racial divides and unequal outcomes for students across racial lines. The miniseries grapples with key issues of race and equity in suburban contexts and highlights critical challenges of keen interest to members of AERA.
Session Format: Film Screening
Length of Session: 2-hours
Moderator: John Diamond, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Participants:
- R L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, New York University
- Linn Posey-Maddox, University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Eve Ewing, University of Chicago
- Steve James, Filmmaker, America to Me
2. Raising Our Voices: Community-Minded Latinx Educators Reflect on Clinical Practices in Neoliberal Times
How do we prepare teachers to teach in high poverty communities in locally responsive ways at a time when the move to “teacher-proof” pedagogy gains momentum globally? In this interactive session we hone in on formal and informal clinical practice experiences through the lens of an intergenerational group of Latinx scholars affiliated with public and private institutions in large urban centers of the northeast. We take a regional approach because schools in urban centers in the northeast have a long history of experimenting with alternative instructional approaches, including the recruitment and preparation of Latinx teachers for high poverty schools, one consequence of the civil and educational rights movement of the 1960s. Participants have also been affiliated with a unique collaboration known as the National Latino Education Research and Policy Agenda Project (NLERAP), an educational reform effort that recognizes and builds curriculum around the developmental assets of children who live in high poverty communities, assets that include bilingual and biliteracy skills that are often viewed by the uninformed as impediments to learning English. The majority of children in these under-performing schools are classified as English Learners, even though many are multi-generational US citizens with origins in Mexico and Puerto Rico, and an increasing number with dual citizenship from the US and the Dominican Republic. Their unique circumstances may explain why they are subjected to a pedagogy that underestimates their intellectual and communicative abilities. However, at a time when Texas and New York have reported shortages in ESL and bilingual teachers every year from 1990-2016, the great majority of those we prepare to teach locally are recruited through national searches guided by “quality” criteria that places value on grade point averages and scores on standardized tests, a consequence of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. More concerning is that educators such as these are on fast-track to becoming the teacher of record in schools and communities that are unfamiliar to all of them and intimidating to some. Addressing these concerns requires that we re-conceptualize the recruitment and preparation of teachers. Specifically, we need to broaden the scope of clinical practice, mindful that two national reports place clinical practice at the center of reforms for teacher education: the NCATE Blue Ribbon Report (2010) and the AACTE Clinical Practice report (A Pivot Toward Clinical Practice, 2018). Simply put, clinical practice matters. New York State, fourth in the nation in terms of the number of English Learners it educates, has convened a clinical practice group as the Commissioner of Education considers strengthening the clinical practice framework.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chairs:
Participants:
How do we prepare teachers to teach in high poverty communities in locally responsive ways at a time when the move to “teacher-proof” pedagogy gains momentum globally? In this interactive session we hone in on formal and informal clinical practice experiences through the lens of an intergenerational group of Latinx scholars affiliated with public and private institutions in large urban centers of the northeast. We take a regional approach because schools in urban centers in the northeast have a long history of experimenting with alternative instructional approaches, including the recruitment and preparation of Latinx teachers for high poverty schools, one consequence of the civil and educational rights movement of the 1960s. Participants have also been affiliated with a unique collaboration known as the National Latino Education Research and Policy Agenda Project (NLERAP), an educational reform effort that recognizes and builds curriculum around the developmental assets of children who live in high poverty communities, assets that include bilingual and biliteracy skills that are often viewed by the uninformed as impediments to learning English. The majority of children in these under-performing schools are classified as English Learners, even though many are multi-generational US citizens with origins in Mexico and Puerto Rico, and an increasing number with dual citizenship from the US and the Dominican Republic. Their unique circumstances may explain why they are subjected to a pedagogy that underestimates their intellectual and communicative abilities. However, at a time when Texas and New York have reported shortages in ESL and bilingual teachers every year from 1990-2016, the great majority of those we prepare to teach locally are recruited through national searches guided by “quality” criteria that places value on grade point averages and scores on standardized tests, a consequence of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. More concerning is that educators such as these are on fast-track to becoming the teacher of record in schools and communities that are unfamiliar to all of them and intimidating to some. Addressing these concerns requires that we re-conceptualize the recruitment and preparation of teachers. Specifically, we need to broaden the scope of clinical practice, mindful that two national reports place clinical practice at the center of reforms for teacher education: the NCATE Blue Ribbon Report (2010) and the AACTE Clinical Practice report (A Pivot Toward Clinical Practice, 2018). Simply put, clinical practice matters. New York State, fourth in the nation in terms of the number of English Learners it educates, has convened a clinical practice group as the Commissioner of Education considers strengthening the clinical practice framework.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chairs:
- Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Viv Ellis, Kings College
Participants:
- Gladys Aponte, City University of New York
- Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, City University of New York, Brooklyn College
- Edwin Mayorga, Swarthmore College
- Nancy Lemberger, Long Island University
- Carmen M. Martínez-Roldán, Teachers College, Columbia University
- Carmen I. Mercado, City University of New York, Hunter
- Cristian Solorza, Bank Street College of Education
- Elizabeth Taveras, Teachers College, Columbia University
3. Centering Us: The Role of Institutional Centers in Educational Sovereignty, Justice, and Liberation
The urgency of Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, and Idle No More has been deepened in the current political moment. Given the ways nation-state education is structured by the ongoing settler colonial legacies of land theft, genocide, and enslavement, it is imperative for researchers to create strategic alliances and coalitions between Black education and Indigenous education. Per the AERA theme, in an era of “post truth” we are dedicated to the resurgence, reclamation, and reimagining of the truths that have sustained our communities within and beyond formal educational settings. For this session, the directors, research bases, and ongoing projects of five institutional centers enacting community-engaged research and practice seek to sustain Indigenous and Black peoples, alongside other communities of color. We are interested in learning from one another toward a collective policy/practice impact nationally and internationally. As the directors and lead scholars of these institutional centers, our decades of research have contributed foundational knowledge to Indigenous social and political thought and education (Grande, 2015); the role of arts in disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline and in Black and Latinx youth development (Fisher, 2009; Winn, 2011); the intersecting fields of education, health, whānau wellbeing and Indigenous immersion education (Pihama, 2017; Pihama et al, 2017); increasing racial equity in the high school to college going and college experiences of students of color, with a focus on first-generation and youth from low-income families (Harper 2012; Quaye & Harper, 2014); and pedagogical innovations to sustain the lifeways of youth and communities of color (Paris & Alim, 2017). All these contributions have been intersectional, looking to understand and disrupt racism in education as it intersects with gender, sexuality, class, land, dis/ability, and citizenship status. As well, our contributions have been transdisciplinary, with a particular focus on the performing arts, history, law, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, health, environmental studies, and cultural studies as each relates foundationally to projects of educational sovereignty, justice, and liberation.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Participants:
The urgency of Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, and Idle No More has been deepened in the current political moment. Given the ways nation-state education is structured by the ongoing settler colonial legacies of land theft, genocide, and enslavement, it is imperative for researchers to create strategic alliances and coalitions between Black education and Indigenous education. Per the AERA theme, in an era of “post truth” we are dedicated to the resurgence, reclamation, and reimagining of the truths that have sustained our communities within and beyond formal educational settings. For this session, the directors, research bases, and ongoing projects of five institutional centers enacting community-engaged research and practice seek to sustain Indigenous and Black peoples, alongside other communities of color. We are interested in learning from one another toward a collective policy/practice impact nationally and internationally. As the directors and lead scholars of these institutional centers, our decades of research have contributed foundational knowledge to Indigenous social and political thought and education (Grande, 2015); the role of arts in disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline and in Black and Latinx youth development (Fisher, 2009; Winn, 2011); the intersecting fields of education, health, whānau wellbeing and Indigenous immersion education (Pihama, 2017; Pihama et al, 2017); increasing racial equity in the high school to college going and college experiences of students of color, with a focus on first-generation and youth from low-income families (Harper 2012; Quaye & Harper, 2014); and pedagogical innovations to sustain the lifeways of youth and communities of color (Paris & Alim, 2017). All these contributions have been intersectional, looking to understand and disrupt racism in education as it intersects with gender, sexuality, class, land, dis/ability, and citizenship status. As well, our contributions have been transdisciplinary, with a particular focus on the performing arts, history, law, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, health, environmental studies, and cultural studies as each relates foundationally to projects of educational sovereignty, justice, and liberation.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Participants:
- Maisha T. Winn, University of California, Davis
- Sandy Grande, Connecticut College
- Leonie Pihama, University of Waikato
- Shaun Harper, University of Southern California
- Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Southern California
- Django Paris, University of Washington
4. Have Your Heard: Podcasting as a Medium for Leveraging Education Research
In a “post-truth” era, it is critical to engage the public in dialogue about education policy. Yet basic questions — about school quality, accountability, curriculum, teacher evaluation, and more — are all too often answered through the lens of ideology and politics. This session examines podcasting as a mechanism for the dissemination of education research. Many popular genres, like op-eds, place severe constraints on scholars, effectively stripping the “research” out of their narratives in order to produce something that fits the form. Podcasting, however, is a medium that seems to encourage the kind of depth and nuance that scholarship so often results in. At the same time, it also fosters narratives that can resonate with a broad public audience. Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire host a biweekly podcast, Have You Heard, which reaches an audience of roughly 10,000 listeners per episode. For this session they will explore the medium, examining the tension between reaching an audience of researchers and reaching a public audience, and discussing the ways that scholars can navigate that tension to make their work more impactful.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Chair: Jack Schneider, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Participants:
In a “post-truth” era, it is critical to engage the public in dialogue about education policy. Yet basic questions — about school quality, accountability, curriculum, teacher evaluation, and more — are all too often answered through the lens of ideology and politics. This session examines podcasting as a mechanism for the dissemination of education research. Many popular genres, like op-eds, place severe constraints on scholars, effectively stripping the “research” out of their narratives in order to produce something that fits the form. Podcasting, however, is a medium that seems to encourage the kind of depth and nuance that scholarship so often results in. At the same time, it also fosters narratives that can resonate with a broad public audience. Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire host a biweekly podcast, Have You Heard, which reaches an audience of roughly 10,000 listeners per episode. For this session they will explore the medium, examining the tension between reaching an audience of researchers and reaching a public audience, and discussing the ways that scholars can navigate that tension to make their work more impactful.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Chair: Jack Schneider, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Participants:
- Jennifer Berkshire, Boston College
- Barry Goldenberg, Teachers College, Columbia University
- Elise Castillo, University of California, Berkeley
5. The Power and politics of Conducting Critical Research that Advances Educational Justice in the Age of Trump
In today’s political climate where xenophobic discourse and repressive policymaking are increasingly normalized, the vulnerability of marginalized youth, families, and communities is heightened. The work of researchers drawing upon critical methodologies to advance educational justice for such populations is attracting greater suspicion or plain dismissal. Such researchers in this post-truth, Trumpian age can easily be cast as left-wing “snowflakes,” rather than respected as learned experts who challenge the status quo, yet remain committed to doing work of high quality, rigor, and integrity. Critical qualitative methodologies, in particular, have long guided researchers in affirming the value of experiential knowledge and lived truths. Such truths are influenced by people’s subjectivities, yet unlike “post-truths”, they are reality-based. These truths have emerged from evidence-based counter-narratives, and they provide tremendous insight about how members of marginalized groups experience—and often resist—biased educational ideologies, practices, and policies. Researchers then pinpoint transformative possibilities for educational improvement. A growing number of mixed-method and quantitative researchers are employing critical methodological frameworks with justice-minded aims too.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chair: Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan
Participants:
Moderator: Ann M. Ishimaru, University of Washington
In today’s political climate where xenophobic discourse and repressive policymaking are increasingly normalized, the vulnerability of marginalized youth, families, and communities is heightened. The work of researchers drawing upon critical methodologies to advance educational justice for such populations is attracting greater suspicion or plain dismissal. Such researchers in this post-truth, Trumpian age can easily be cast as left-wing “snowflakes,” rather than respected as learned experts who challenge the status quo, yet remain committed to doing work of high quality, rigor, and integrity. Critical qualitative methodologies, in particular, have long guided researchers in affirming the value of experiential knowledge and lived truths. Such truths are influenced by people’s subjectivities, yet unlike “post-truths”, they are reality-based. These truths have emerged from evidence-based counter-narratives, and they provide tremendous insight about how members of marginalized groups experience—and often resist—biased educational ideologies, practices, and policies. Researchers then pinpoint transformative possibilities for educational improvement. A growing number of mixed-method and quantitative researchers are employing critical methodological frameworks with justice-minded aims too.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chair: Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan
Participants:
- James Earl Davis, Temple University
- Aurora Chang, Loyola University
- sj Miller, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Camille M. Wilson, University of Michigan
- Carolyn Hetrick, University of Michigan
- Shanyce L. Campbell, University of California, Irvine
Moderator: Ann M. Ishimaru, University of Washington
6. Innovation in Teacher Education: Towards a critical Re-Examination
Troubling the current status of innovation as a ‘buzzword,’ in this session teacher education researchers in a variety of international contexts critically re-examine the meaning of the word innovation in order to shift it away from the dominance of the economistic and technological. Distinguishing between innovations driven by arguments for social mobility and those driven by social justice and equity, two imperatives for innovation underpinned by arguments for justice and equity are identified and taken up by the papers which comprise this session: the concept of a ‘teacher education debt,’ built on Ladson-Billings’ concept of ‘education debt’; and the humanization of learning, teaching and becoming a teacher as person-centered, relational practices. In doing so, this session contributes to a critical re-examination and re-definition of innovation in teacher education and development in regressive times by examining the purpose and rationale for change, centering diverse practices, contexts, pedagogies, principles, and learners.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chair and Discussant: Viv Ellis, King's College
Participants:
Troubling the current status of innovation as a ‘buzzword,’ in this session teacher education researchers in a variety of international contexts critically re-examine the meaning of the word innovation in order to shift it away from the dominance of the economistic and technological. Distinguishing between innovations driven by arguments for social mobility and those driven by social justice and equity, two imperatives for innovation underpinned by arguments for justice and equity are identified and taken up by the papers which comprise this session: the concept of a ‘teacher education debt,’ built on Ladson-Billings’ concept of ‘education debt’; and the humanization of learning, teaching and becoming a teacher as person-centered, relational practices. In doing so, this session contributes to a critical re-examination and re-definition of innovation in teacher education and development in regressive times by examining the purpose and rationale for change, centering diverse practices, contexts, pedagogies, principles, and learners.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chair and Discussant: Viv Ellis, King's College
Participants:
- Keith Turvey, University of Brighton
- Bruce Burnett, Australian Catholic University
- Jo Lampert, LaTrobe University
- Michael Dominguez, San Diego State University
- A. Lin Goodwin, University of Hong Kong
- Kelsey Darity, Teachers College, Columbia University
- Susan Jurow, University of Colorado-Boulder
- Illana S. Horn, Vanderbilt University
- Thomas M. Phillip, University of California, Berkeley
- Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University
7. Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data
This symposium will assemble a diverse group of scholars to confront post-truth myths that permeate public opinion on how race works in higher education. Panelists will address misconceptions such as the accusation that students of color pervasively self-segregate, that students of color are mismatched at elite institutions, and that Asian Americans are hurt by affirmative action. Panelists will draw on their own research to address myths and will also engage with a common scholarly text addressing the symposium’s theme around challenging race-related misconceptions, the book “Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data.” We aim to engage the audience in lively discussion concerning why racialized myths are so pervasive within higher education and the role of research in combatting false assumptions.This symposium will assemble a diverse group of scholars to confront post-truth myths that permeate public opinion on how race works in higher education. Panelists will address misconceptions such as the accusation that students of color pervasively self-segregate, that students of color are mismatched at elite institutions, and that Asian Americans are hurt by affirmative action. Panelists will draw on their own research to address myths and will also engage with a common scholarly text addressing the symposium’s theme around challenging race-related misconceptions, the book “Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data.” We aim to engage the audience in lively discussion concerning why racialized myths are so pervasive within higher education and the role of research in combatting false assumptions.
Session Format: Symposium
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chair: Julie J. Park, University of Maryland
Participants:
Discussant: Lorelle Espinosa, American Council on Education
This symposium will assemble a diverse group of scholars to confront post-truth myths that permeate public opinion on how race works in higher education. Panelists will address misconceptions such as the accusation that students of color pervasively self-segregate, that students of color are mismatched at elite institutions, and that Asian Americans are hurt by affirmative action. Panelists will draw on their own research to address myths and will also engage with a common scholarly text addressing the symposium’s theme around challenging race-related misconceptions, the book “Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data.” We aim to engage the audience in lively discussion concerning why racialized myths are so pervasive within higher education and the role of research in combatting false assumptions.This symposium will assemble a diverse group of scholars to confront post-truth myths that permeate public opinion on how race works in higher education. Panelists will address misconceptions such as the accusation that students of color pervasively self-segregate, that students of color are mismatched at elite institutions, and that Asian Americans are hurt by affirmative action. Panelists will draw on their own research to address myths and will also engage with a common scholarly text addressing the symposium’s theme around challenging race-related misconceptions, the book “Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data.” We aim to engage the audience in lively discussion concerning why racialized myths are so pervasive within higher education and the role of research in combatting false assumptions.
Session Format: Symposium
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chair: Julie J. Park, University of Maryland
Participants:
- Liliana Garces, University of Texas at Austin
- Megan Segoshi, Loyola University, Chicago
- Nolan Cabrera, University of Arizona
- Kimberly Griffin, University of Maryland, College Park
Discussant: Lorelle Espinosa, American Council on Education
8. Gentrification, Neighborhoods, and School (Re)segregation
Gentrification and the displacement of low-income residents of color from neighborhoods where they have long-resided has accelerated over the last decade. The effects on schools is varied: in some contexts, schools have lost enrollment as their students and families are displaced, while in others, schools have ‘gentrified’ along with their surrounding neighborhoods. This session will examine the relationship between schools and gentrification. It will consider the underlying causes of gentrification, and the role that educational policy, such as privatization and accountability, has played. It will explore how schools and communities are affected by these dynamics, particularly the cultural and political tensions involved, and examine how school responses to these dynamics may influence and/or accelerate gentrification processes. This panel will also consider the regional impacts of displacement upon neighboring school schools and communities, and will explore the benefits and drawbacks of proposed policy remedies in housing and education policy.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chairs:
Gentrification and the displacement of low-income residents of color from neighborhoods where they have long-resided has accelerated over the last decade. The effects on schools is varied: in some contexts, schools have lost enrollment as their students and families are displaced, while in others, schools have ‘gentrified’ along with their surrounding neighborhoods. This session will examine the relationship between schools and gentrification. It will consider the underlying causes of gentrification, and the role that educational policy, such as privatization and accountability, has played. It will explore how schools and communities are affected by these dynamics, particularly the cultural and political tensions involved, and examine how school responses to these dynamics may influence and/or accelerate gentrification processes. This panel will also consider the regional impacts of displacement upon neighboring school schools and communities, and will explore the benefits and drawbacks of proposed policy remedies in housing and education policy.
Session Format: Invited Speaker Session
Length of Session: 2-hours
Chairs:
- Janelle Scott, University of California, Berkeley
- Jennifer Jellison Holme, University of Texas at Austin
- Terrance Green, University of Texas at Austin
- Linn Posey-Maddox, University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Maia Bloomfield Cucchiara, Temple University
- Kara Finnigan, University of Rochester
- Diana Cordova-Cobo, Teachers College, Columbia University