2024 Annual Meeting Theme Released

An announcement concerning next year’s annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

The 2024 AERA Annual Meeting theme—“Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action”—“asks researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to imagine boldly what education spaces free of racial injustice can look like.” The call for submissions will be released May 23. Read AERA President Tyrone Howard’s theme for the 2024 Annual Meeting below.   Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action   2024 Annual Meeting Theme   Tyrone Howard President   president@aera.net   As education researchers, scholars, and practitioners, it is our responsibility to examine the most complex issues and challenges facing the spectrum of educational contexts and to report our findings, discoveries, and insights. We perform this craft in manners that require us not to avoid but to embrace the most vexing problems that individuals and communities face in the pursuit of education. Our work investigates and studies topics that have been unabating, harmful, and disruptive to people’s quest to be self-actualized. These aspirations and commitments reflect the highest ideals set forth in the mission of the American Educational Research Association—to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good.   Perhaps no topic has been as chronically obstinate in the pursuit of educational equality as racism and its impact in the United States and beyond. In his transformative work The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) raised the significance of race when he stated, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races . . . in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” Du Bois theorized race globally but talked about its local manifestations. His focus on the processes of exploitation, globalization, and oppression in the United States, Africa, Asia, and Latin America formed the basis for his call for decolonization. In his examination of race and racism, Du Bois used a four-pronged framework in his theorization of race and racism. He theorized that (a) race is a category of exclusion and oppression; (b) the color line is global, with far-reaching implications for people of color; (c) a global understanding of the color line connects local forms of racial oppression to a global understanding of racial colonial capitalism; and (d) the color line is the direct product of economic exploitation, war, and white supremacy.   The theme for the 2024 conference asks the education research community to engage in a massive undertaking of attending to the simultaneous act of dismantling racial injustice and constructing educational possibilities across P–20 systems. The call for a global conversation on race, racism, and its redress is long overdue for the world’s largest education research organization. This year’s theme asks researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to imagine boldly what education spaces free of racial injustice can look like. How do we think about our work, develop theories of action, engage in modes of inquiry, and implement ideas for professional practice when racial injustice no longer exists? This year’s theme asks us to look back, but to imagine forward. In our current moment, when the disruption of truth, attacks on race theories, banning of books, and erasure of histories have become commonplace, how can our work take an intersectional approach of eradicating racism, and all other forms of oppression? Many of the current constructs of racial categories, gendered classifications, and social class designations are created by pseudoscientific frameworks that foster denigrating and harmful depictions of various peoples and groups. Research, in many ways, has been complicit in concretizing racial injustice and oppression. Now is the time for research to be a solution in dismantling racial injustice and constructing educational possibilities.   Ruha Benjamin (2022) reminds us that “for those who want to construct a different social reality that is grounded in justice and joy, we can’t only critique the world as it is. We have to build the world as it should be to make justice irresistible” (p. 11). How can our work simultaneously disrupt punitive policies, oppressive procedures, and brutal practices and cultivate movements of justice, paradigms of hope, interventions of possibilities, and radical transformation? I ask our community to dream and imagine, not in an illusory manner that is uncritical, ahistorical, and atheoretical, but in a manner that is rooted in justice seeking, that is evidence based, as we seek a different education reality. Robin D. G. Kelley (2002) borrows from the Black radical imagination and calls for the expansion of revolutionary thinking, dreaming, and envisioning, and asks a fundamental question: “What type of society do you want to live in?” It is this driving question, among others, that should inform our work. Other interrelated questions might ask: Why do race and racism continue to plague educational opportunity? What does our science tell us about the role of race and racism in educational opportunity? In what ways can our historical understandings of race create new narratives? How do so many aspects of education research, policy, and practice omit examinations of race and racism? What is required to imagine educational spaces free of racial injustice? Studying, learning, and dismantling racial injustice cannot be limited to the halls of academia. Our work also needs to be present in other learning communities, such as spaces of communal gathering, homes, schools, green spaces, neighborhoods, and informal places, where the effects of racial injustice are felt every day. How does our work speak to those who are so often rendered silent and deemed invisible and conversely empowered to be heard and seen? Octavia Butler (1993) states: “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.” I ask us all to be touched and changed by the charge of eliminating racial injustice and other forms of oppression and exclusion. How can we engage in illuminating frameworks, humanizing pedagogies, and liberatory theorizing that changes the conditions for everyday people? The call for this year’s theme is to unapologetically center race, racial injustice, and other forms of oppression in our work, while building spaces of emancipation, justice, and dignity.   This year’s theme also asks us to think deeply about our own lived experiences and how they connect us with the work that we do. The examination of race and racism is not easy, comfortable, or convenient work. Many will choose to disengage because of this very topic, which only underscores our organizations focus on it. Talking, studying, and researching race and racism requires listening, learning, reflecting, empathizing, caring, and acting. Our research, our evidence, and our work as educators must anchor the multiplicity of ways that race intersects across multiple identities to create realities that are all too familiar for some, yet foreign to others.   Racism as a function of inequitable distribution of resources, wealth inequality, and class divides has suppressed educational opportunity for centuries. This is our time—all of us—and this theme is a Call to Action. As the nation faces unprecedented racial, ethnic, gender, and other demographic changes, we can no longer ignore our new normal. For education research to remain relevant in the third decade of the 21st century, our discomfort must be replaced with responsible action to know, care, and act. The aim of the 2024 theme is for the AERA Annual Meeting to confront the challenge of racism through research-informed action and to imagine, instigate, and be a catalyst of change. We invite the submission of papers and sessions that take up this call to action as the Presidential Program is planned.   References   Benjamin, R. (2022). Viral justice: How we grow the world we want. Princeton University Press.   Butler, O. (1993). Parable of the sower. Grand Central.   Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of Black folk. Dover.   Kelley, R. D. G. (2002). Freedom dreams. The Black radical imagination. Beacon Press.   Click here to view an online version of the theme.   American Educational Research Association1430 K Street, NW Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 238-3200 www.aera.net

AERA 2023 – Online but Not Alone: Teacher Perceptions of Effective Online School Leadership

The thirty-first and final of the sessions from the 2023 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association that I identified as relevant to this space that I have the opportunity to blog is:

• Online but Not Alone: Teacher Perceptions of Effective Online School Leadership – Joanne Robertson, University of the Fraser Valley; Awneet Sivia, University of the Fraser Valley

  Abstract

  As school districts develop online learning programs, the need to examine leadership in these programs is paramount. The literature suggests that while many studies focus on effective leadership in brick-and-mortar schools, research on leadership in online programs is limited. We aimed to explore teachers’ perceptions of what makes for effective leadership in online secondary schools in two districts. Using phenomenology, we interviewed six teachers, and qualitatively analyzed the transcripts to name teachers’ perceptions of effective OSL as sense of community, organizational learning, and empowerment. This research has implications for educational leadership broadly, but specifically for leadership in online and virtual schools.

  Authors

  • Joanne Robertson, University of the Fraser Valley
    Presenting Author
  • Awneet Sivia, University of the Fraser Valley
    Presenting Author

Which was in this session:

Not Alone: Educational Leaders Uniting to Address Pressing and Emerging Challenges

Fri, May 5, 2:30 to 4:00pm CDT (12:30 to 2:00pm PDT), SIG Virtual Rooms, Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership SIG Virtual Paper RoomSession Type: Virtual Paper Session

Sub Unit

• SIG-Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership

Chair

• Julie A. Gray, University of West Florida

Due to meetings, I joined this session about 5 minutes into this presentation.  When I did join, the presenter was going over the lack of literature related to virtual school leadership – citing Richardson at el. (2015) and Alotebi at el. (2018).

The study occurred in two British Columbia secondary school sites – one of which was a distributed location and one was a physical location.  There were six participants in total.  The questions that they asked included.

The themes that came out were discussed around this chart.

Many of the ones folks in the field might expect – particularly the contextualized leadership practices (as the foundational ones could apply to any school setting regardless of medium).  The presenter than provided a framework to help explain the themes, which was captured in the article below.

Some interesting stuff that if it builds upon the existing literature in the field (which may be broader than the presenters represented in the beginning).  Apparently the study was published by the International Journal of E-Learning and Distance Education – see https://www.ijede.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/1230 – and I haven’t had the chance to really read through it yet.

#AERA23 Insider – May 5

Today’s update from the American Educational Research Association annual meeting.

#AERA23 Insider | May 5, 2023 Welcome to the last day of the virtual component of the 2023 AERA Annual Meeting! #AERA23 Insider will provide tips on key sessions and events, as well as other Annual Meeting resources and highlights you won’t want to miss.   Join the conversation: Follow AERA on Twitter @AERA_EdResearch and use #AERA23.   Questions? Contact the AERA Meetings team at annualmtg@aera.net or check out the FAQ on the Annual Meeting platform.   Today’s Highlights AERA Distinguished Lecture—Arnetha Ball 1:15 – 2:15 pm CT   Arnetha F. Ball (Stanford University) will deliver the lecture “Conducting Consequential Research in Challenging Times: Generative Change for Educational Equity.” In her talk, she will highlight some of the most pressing challenges facing education today, many of which have been exacerbated by inequitable access to and applications of technology which leads to inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. Closing Plenary—AERA President Tyrone C. Howard’s Vision for the 2024 Annual Meeting Theme 6:00 – 6:45 pm CT   AERA President Tyrone Howard (University of California – Los Angeles) will discuss his vision for the 2024 Annual Meeting, “Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action.” Hip-Hop at 50 Years! 1:15 – 2:15 pm CT   Moderator: Lauren Leigh Kelly (Rutgers University); Presenters: Jason D. Rawls (Ohio University), Toby S. Jenkins (University of South Carolina), Christopher Emdin (University of Southern California), Emery Marc Petchauer (Michigan State University), Joquetta Johnson (Baltimore County Public Schools), Tony Keith (Ed Emcee Academy), Jonathan Tunstall (University of Wisconsin – Madison)   2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop culture. From the very beginning, hip-hop has been tied to the field of education. It is said that hip-hop was born at the Back-to-School Jam held on August 11, 1973, by DJ Kool Herc and his sister, Cindy Campbell, in the basement of their apartment building in the Bronx, N.Y. to raise money for their school clothes and supplies. These parties made popular the DJing, emceeing, and dancing techniques that frame hip-hop culture. Now, for over five decades, hip-hop culture has permeated all corners of the globe and all aspects of our society touching business, entertainment, media, advertising, sports, and education. This session will be a cross generational conversation between the founding scholars of the Hip Hop Theories, Praxis, & Pedagogies Special Interest Group and leading hip-hop education scholars to reflect on the culture’s impact on the field of education and the future of hip-hop educational research. Building Upon a Culturally Responsive Science of Learning and Development to Promote Robust Equity 2:30 – 4:00 pm CT   Chair: Vivian L. Gadsden (University of Pennsylvania); Moderator: David M. Osher (American Institutes for Research); Panelists: Carol D. Lee (Northwestern University), Hirokazu Yoshikawa (New York University), Barbara Rogoff (University of California – Santa Cruz), Kris D. Gutiérrez (University of California – Berkeley), Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman (Teachers College, Columbia University), Liesel Ebersohn (University of Pretoria) Announcements and Resources Visit the Virtual Exhibit Hall   Don’t forget to visit the Virtual Exhibit Hall on the online platform and mobile app. Click on “Sponsors and Exhibitors” to browse virtual booths and learn about the expertise, services, and products of our featured exhibitors. Ombuds Access Ongoing Through the Virtual Meeting and Beyond   During the virtual component, AERA’s two-person ombuds team—Shannon Lynn Burton, Ph.D., university ombudsperson at Michigan State University, and Carol Mershon, Ph.D., professor of politics at University of Virginia—will be available for video or phone appointments, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT, May 4–May 5. The AERA Ombuds is available to Annual Meeting participants from April 13 through June 2. To schedule an appointment with the ombuds, email aeraombuds@gmail.com or call (202) 505-3356. Visit the i-Presentation Gallery   Posters accepted for poster presentation will be available throughout the virtual meeting in the AERA i-Presentation Gallery. Virtual meeting participants will be able to contact virtual poster authors and set up times to audio or video chat through the Gallery to discuss their papers or their mutual interests in a research arena. Virtual attendees can also reach out through the Gallery to authors of papers presented in poster sessions in Chicago. Tips for Searching the Online Platform   To enhance your experience when searching the AERA program agenda on the virtual platform and mobile app, please use these tips. Training Session Recordings Available for Virtual Platform   Those who would like a refresher can watch the May 2 trainings for participants and attendees, as well as a short instructional video about the virtual platform. Check Out On-Demand Videos from Chicago   Recordings from major and featured sessions are available on the virtual platform under “On-Demand Sessions.” Video recordings of live virtual sessions will also be available on demand within 24 hours after the conclusion of the virtual component and viewable afterward. Thanks for Attending! 2023 Annual Meeting Sponsors Thank you to our 2023 sponsors! American Educational Research Association 1430 K Street, NW Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 238-3200 www.aera.net

AERA 2023 – Lessons to Keep: Learning in the Time of COVID

The thirtieth of the sessions from the 2023 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association that I identified as relevant to this space that I have the opportunity to blog is:

• Lessons to Keep: Learning in the Time of COVID – Grace Tamara Handy, Stanford University; Elizabeth B. Kozleski, Stanford University; Karoline Trepper, New York University; Emma Bene, Stanford University

  Abstract

  In Fall, 2020, in response to family distress reported widely, we conducted five online convenings between families hosting their children’s educations in their homes and technologists who had created the tools and learning systems used for remote learning. We wanted to (a) uncover the issues families were facing and (b) engage the technologists who created the platforms being used.

  Theoretical Framework. Three constructs afforded a nuanced analysis of our data (a) Eisner’s notion of educational connoisseurs; (b) black feminists’ conceptualizations of criticism; and (c) transgressive carework to peel the layers of critique and care being balanced by families. As they stepped back from their direct misgivings about technology as users and user/critics, families offered a larger critique of systems and structures.

  Methods. Each three-hour convening afforded the opportunity for families and technologists to talk and listen. Of the participating 75 urban families in the study, 77% were from Spanish speaking households, 19% from English speaking homes and 4% spoke Khmer/Cambodian. During the convenings, families shared observations of student learning and interaction with their teachers. Fourteen technologists representing seven tech companies listened to the ways in which their products facilitated and hindered learning and communication. They asked questions and, in one convening, had a chance to talk about their work and products. Technologists then created prototypes of improved processes, designs, and new products that could reduce barriers to learning and communication. They test drove those prototypes with the families in their last convening. All zoom sessions were conducted with English/Spanish translators and trained facilitators.

  Data sources and Findings. Transcripts were coded by at least two coders, a codebook created, and a set of themes co-constructed. Families in this study were exquisitely attuned to the ways in which technology mediated teaching and learning. As they stepped back from their direct misgivings about technology as users and user/critics, a larger critique of systems and structures emerged: Families as (a) First Educators; (b) Transgressive Caregivers; and (c) Learners.

  The shifts in everyday routines and rising uncertainty as the pandemic evolved in 2020 were compounded by the new roles that families assumed in virtual schooling. Whether parents lost paid work, began working from home, or continued working outside their homes, their new roles as educators became full-time jobs. One parent said that her new insights about her son’s learning compelled her to work with her son’s teachers, and she was “surprised at how much we’ve been able to improve his focus (CFam290).” Decoding instructional language was a critical pivot point that enabled families to design supports and decode the grammar of instruction.

  Scholarly Insight. The findings underscore how historically persistent systemic failures were exacerbated during the pandemic. Families built critiques from an evaluative stance and situated them in their social locations in ways that indexed power disparities. These findings underscore the key role that family insight and partnership play in improving learning designs and outcomes. The policy implications extend from local contexts to federal policy.

  Authors

  • Grace Tamara Handy, Stanford University
    Presenting Author
  • Elizabeth B. Kozleski, Stanford University
    Presenting Author
  • Karoline Trepper, New York University
    Presenting Author
  • Emma Bene, Stanford University
    Non-Presenting Author

Which was in this session:

Families, COVID, and Unequal Schooling: Stories and Lessons From the Field

Thu, May 4, 11:30am to 1:00pm CDT (9:30 to 11:00am PDT), Division G Virtual Sessions, Division G – Social Context of Education Virtual Session RoomSession Type: Virtual Symposium

Abstract

This session focuses on research conducted with and about families during COVID school disruptions. The works focus on new and unexpected roles parents and caregivers played as education partners during the pandemic. Despite glaring inequalities and discrepancies in experience, COVID schooling changed boundaries between schools and families as families translated, decoded, and reshaped learning in their homes alongside their children. The papers document and give voice to family experiences and suggest lessons learned. The analyses can help reframe and impact how educators, school leaders, and policy makers partner with parents going forward.

Sub Unit

• Division G – Social Context of Education

Chair

• Shelley V. Goldman, Stanford University

Discussant

• Ann M. Ishimaru, University of Washington

Again, I’m at a face-to-face conference in Ottawa, Ontario – so I’m unable to sit in and blog this session.  If someone else who was in the room has some notes, please add them to the comments section below.

AERA 2023 – Digital Screens as Teachers

The twenty-ninth of the sessions from the 2023 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association that I identified as relevant to this space that I have the opportunity to blog is:

• Digital Screens as Teachers – Carmen Clayton, Leeds Trinity University; Rafe Clayton, University of Leeds; Marie Potter
  

  Abstract

  Objectives. We present parental perspectives on screen-based learning for children during the first and most restrictive lockdown in the UK. In doing so, we examine the lived experience of parents as home educators and highlight the opportunities and challenges of screen-based learning, whilst identifying policy implications.

  Perspective(s) or theoretical framework. Early in the pandemic, quantitative studies in the UK identified that the government enforced lockdowns may risk increasing inequalities based on gender, wealth and social background (Andrew et al., 2020). It was argued that the absence of formal education could have a significant negative impact upon educational attainment for marginalized groups (Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, 2021); in turn affecting opportunities for social mobility among the young (Major and Machin, 2020). With schools closed nationally and children having to learn from home, new family dynamics emerged as caregivers spent more time with their children and there was an expectation for parents to act as educators (Clayton et al., 2020). As schools sent more work to be completed via screens, education within the home also became increasingly digitalised (World Economic Forum, 2020). We discuss the phenomena associated with screen-based learning in the home during the pandemic.

  Methods. We interviewed sixty parents from diverse backgrounds using qualitative semi-structured online interviews via Voice over Internet Protocol/VoIP mediated technologies (Microsoft Teams) or telephone interviews.

  Methodologically, qualitative semi-structured online interviews are considered advantageous for their flexible and participant-friendly approaches, that help interviewees tell their stories, in their own words and their own time (Eder and Fingerson, 2003). This viewpoint aligns with the interpretivist stance of the study. VoIP mediated technologies allow for real-time interactions between the research team and the participants (Lo Iacono et al., 2016). Telephone interviews, like face-to-face interviews, have the ability to collect meaningful data and are advantageous in terms of their efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility (Azad et al., 2021).

  Data sources. We developed a semi-structured interview guide, which included questions on the following:

  1) To what extent, and in what ways, did schools facilitate children’s learning during lockdown
  2) If screen-based approaches were used, how effective were they from a parental perspective
  3) Did parents have any concerns about the use of screens for children’s home-learning

  Interviews were recorded with participants’ permission, professionally transcribed (verbatim), coded and analyzed.
  Results. Findings establish how teaching and learning behaviors changed during the pandemic; and how through the analysis of changes, we see the emergence of new attitudes towards screen based digital education amongst parents.

  We identify positive and negative impacts from the increased use of screens for education, which provides educationalists and policymakers a more thorough understanding of the learning landscape, as the UK government pushes forwards with national digital strategies.

  Scholarly Significance. As much literature is framed around the negative portrayal of the short–term and long-term impacts of the pandemic on young people’s education (Ofqual Report, 2021) including the learning loss and widening inequalities narratives (Child Poverty Action Group, 2020), this paper offers alternative viewpoints to be considered.

  Authors

  • Carmen Clayton, Leeds Trinity University
    Presenting Author
  • Rafe Clayton, University of Leeds
    Presenting Author
  • Marie Potter
    Non-Presenting Author

Which was in this session:

Families, COVID, and Unequal Schooling: Stories and Lessons From the Field

Thu, May 4, 11:30am to 1:00pm CDT (9:30 to 11:00am PDT), Division G Virtual Sessions, Division G – Social Context of Education Virtual Session RoomSession Type: Virtual Symposium

Abstract

This session focuses on research conducted with and about families during COVID school disruptions. The works focus on new and unexpected roles parents and caregivers played as education partners during the pandemic. Despite glaring inequalities and discrepancies in experience, COVID schooling changed boundaries between schools and families as families translated, decoded, and reshaped learning in their homes alongside their children. The papers document and give voice to family experiences and suggest lessons learned. The analyses can help reframe and impact how educators, school leaders, and policy makers partner with parents going forward.

Sub Unit

• Division G – Social Context of Education

Chair

• Shelley V. Goldman, Stanford University

Discussant

• Ann M. Ishimaru, University of Washington

Again, I’m at a face-to-face conference in Ottawa, Ontario – so I’m unable to sit in and blog this session.  If someone else who was in the room has some notes, please add them to the comments section below.