AERA Conference

Type: Pre-Conference Mentoring Session

Panelist: Richard Benson

Time: 12:30 – 4 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 113A

Description: We welcome a conversation with assistant, associate, and full professor panelists from various institutions to reflect on their experiences as Scholars of Color and how they navigate various academic spaces. The panelists discuss how they maintain a critical research agenda in the age of social media and cancel culture and how they navigate white supremacy against the backdrop of a deeply divided society. Finally, panelists reflect on their mentor-mentee relationship and suggest best practices for professors and graduate students.

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Type: Invited Speaker Session

Presenters:  Lori Delale-O’Connor (University of Pittsburgh), April Warren-Grice (University of Pittsburgh), C’enna Crosby (Propel Schools), Valerie Kinloch (Johnson C. Smith University), Fatima Brunson (Spelman College), Micia Mosley (Black Teacher Project), Taliah Baldwin (University of Pittsburgh – Greensburg), Anyah Jackson, Maria Hassan, IAsia Thomas (Pittsburgh Public Schools), and Vaughn Bryant (Washington & Jefferson College)

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 9 – 10:30 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Room 201B

Description: The objectives of this session are two-fold: (1) affirm the role of the concepts “Genius,” “Joy,” and “Love” in teaching and learning; and (2) discuss how the three create teaching and learning environments in which students, teachers, and those interested in teaching can thrive and flourish. Panelists will immerse the audience in a traditional presentation as well as performing arts representative of how their lived experiences, identities, and development were influenced by time spent in the Genius Joy and Love Summer Academy for students and Institute for educators.

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Type: Roundtable session on Addressing Equity and Diversity in School-University Partnerships (Table 16)

Authors: Esohe Osai, Jaclyn Spezia, and Shanyce Campbell

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 9 – 10:30 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: Black students face educational disparities that result in gross inequities in college access and completion. To address this concern, researchers from an urban university collaborated with local educators to build a collective that elevates the need for equity in our public schools. The Justice Scholars Institute is a research-practice partnership (RPP) that creates equitable forms of engagement. Using qualitative data from two different time points, this study highlights the development of partnership work designed to address the disparities in college access. Findings indicate the importance of centering equity and building trust in relationships committed to transforming education for youth in underserved schools.

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Type: Symposium on A Profession in Crisis? New Data on the Challenges of Recruitment and Retention of the Educator Workforce

Authors: Joshua Bleiberg (University of Pittsburgh), Patricia Saenz-Armstrong (National Council on Teacher Quality), and Tuan D. Nguyen (Kansas State University)

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 10:50 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 113A

Description:  Concerns about teacher shortages have been commonplace for years but have recently surged due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, there are no national data sources that policymakers and school leaders can access to understand the size and scope of teacher shortages with enough granularity and timeliness to allow for appropriately targeted teacher shortage policy. It is unclear the degree to which teacher shortages are worse in high-demand grades or subjects and in schools that serve marginalized communities. Understanding the differences in the concentration of shortages is integral to districts developing teacher recruitment strategies. There is a particular lack of understanding about the size of pandemic era teaching shortages in schools that serve marginalized communities. The goal of this project is to leverage publicly available data to estimate the size of teacher shortages and forecast shortages for the whole country. We aim to investigate the characteristics of school systems that face the more acute teacher recruitment challenges.

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Type: Paper session on Every Move We Make: Philanthropy Across the Educational Ecology

Authors: Heather McCambly (University of Pittsburgh) and Pooja Patel (University of Pennsylvania)

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 10:50 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 308

Description: This paper examines how grantmakers at a federal agency modeled after private philanthropy understand the purpose of their work and their agency in relation to the broader purposes and ideals of postsecondary education. Using a cultural codes framework, we use interview and archival data to denote policy designs as artifacts, identifying them as the real-time manifestations of these codes.

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Type: Engineering and Computer Science Education Posters (Poster 7)

Authors:  Gianina Morales and Emily Rainey

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 12:40 – 2:10 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall A

Description: Design has been largely recognized as a fundamental attribute of engineering. This paper focuses on the engineering literacies of human-centered design. Applications of this approach in engineering education highlight its potential for supporting students’ engagement in disciplinary practice while pushing the discipline toward social justice goals. We present partial findings from an exploratory qualitative case study of disciplinary literacies in an undergraduate project-based engineering course grounded on human-centered design. We explore a preliminary classification of the literacies of human-centered engineering design from the perspective of the focal instructor, who also practices this approach in his professional work. Findings represent a first step for extending the literacy tools of human-centered engineering design in secondary and undergraduate engineering education

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Type: Engineering and Computer Science Education Posters (Poster 9)

Authors: Linda DeAngelo, Nelson O. O. Zounlome, Ketura Elie, Kevin R. Binning, and Charlie Diaz

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 12:40 – 2:10 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall A

Description: Women and women of color in undergraduate engineering programs experience a white patriarchal culture exhibited by racism, sexism, and other factors that decrease their persistence. Directly disrupting this process, our past work has demonstrated that a social belonging intervention that helps normalize students’ struggles as temporary and surmountable led to improvements in course grades, class attendance, and persistence for women in engineering. The current mixed-methods study a) examines a social belonging intervention among first-year Black and Latina women students into their second year, (b) gains a deeper understanding of how participants engage with and are qualitatively impacted by the intervention, and (c) creates a working model for how women persist through their engineering programs over the first two years.

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Type: Paper Session on Fostering Students’ Computational Thinking and Computational Literacy

Authors: Hillary Chelednik, Cassie Quigley, Holly Plank, Amanda Godley, and Tinukwa Boulder

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 10:50 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 5, Salon J

Description: The purpose of this qualitative research study is to understand how justice-oriented computer science (CS) instruction can be integrated into middle-school English Language Arts (ELA). This research explores data that was collected as part of a research-practice partnership in order to deepen understanding of how this can be accomplished. Through the co-design and implementation of ELA units that integrate justice-oriented CS instruction, we uncovered important conditions and factors that influence and bridge learning and change in order to make CS accessible to all students (Avalos, 2011). Due to the progressive nature of technology and its role as a mediator in most of our information and literacy practices, it is a natural progression for CS to blend with ELA (Vee, 2013).

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Type: Paper Session

Discussant:  Linda DeAngelo

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 103A

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Type: Roundtable Session to Examine a Synthesis of Micro-to Macro-Level Coaching Research (Table 5)

Authors:  Rita Bean (University of Pittsburgh) and Jacy Ippolito (Salem State University)

Time: Thursday, April 11 from 4:20 – 5:50 p.m.

Location:  Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: In looking across the growing body of research on instructional coaching, we find that the vast majority of studies focus on micro-level descriptions of individual or small groups of coaches working with teachers. These descriptions have been essential to understanding what coaching looks like in schools, as instructional coaching has become one of the major approaches in the United States and abroad to provide job-embedded professional learning for PreK-12 educators (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009; Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). However, we argue that the field of coaching would be well-served now by turning more attention to the ways in which coaching is developed, enacted, and evaluated as part of systematic professional learning programs. Such a program-oriented research agenda would help school and district leaders to better choose, implement, and assess coaching in ways that move beyond the focus on individual coaches.

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Type: Paper session on Leadership Influences

Authors: Eleanor Anderson, Marialexia Zaragoza, Ashlyn Salvage, and Audrey Buzard

Time: Friday, April 12 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location:  Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 103A

Description:  Attempts to integrate faculty- and student-led social justice-oriented programming into university structures that could make them more sustainable often run into challenges. Drawing on institutional theory, we locate the source of this challenge in the need to integrate such practices into existing, self-sustaining organizational structures. We present a case study of an innovative and promising model for multi-disciplinary community-engaged learning with social impact. We identify promising strategies employed for institutionalizing this model, as well as obstacles to institutionalization. In doing so, we offer contributions to the literature on social justice-focused initiatives in higher education, as well as broader processes of durable organizational change.

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Type: Paper session on Representing Black Student and Family Voices in Family, School, Community Partnerships

Authors: Lori Delale-O’Connor, James P. Huguley, and Ming Te-Wang

Time: Friday, April 12 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Franklin 13

Description:  While a growing body of literature focuses the practices and value associated with the myriad different ways of educational engagement practices by Black and other Families of Color, most of the literature comes from the perspective of teachers, administrators, or parents and other caregivers. The perspectives of youth are typically overlooked, and there remains limited understanding of the ways that youth view, experience, and interpret their caregivers’ engagement with their education. In this paper, we focus on the ways Black middle school youth experience and understand their own parents’ engagement in and commitment to their education. The overarching question that animates this research is, How do Black youth experience and understand their parents’ engagement in their education?

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Type: Symposium on Constructing New Possibilities for Racialized Organizations Theory in Educational Research

Authors: Heather McCambly and Stephanie Aguilar-Smith (University of North Texas)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 5, Salon I

Description: Recent scholarship has demonstrated the role of competitive federal grantmaking (e.g., National Science Foundation or National Institutes of Health grants) in maintaining racialized organizational hierarchies (Bol et al., 2018; Aguilar-Smith, 2022; Aguilar-Smith & Doran, 2023; McCambly & Colyvas, 2022; Taffe & Gilpin, 2021). In particular, racialized organizational identities, routines, and criteria disadvantage minoritized scholars and institutions’ access to resources–a hallmark of racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). Competitive grantmaking routinely advantages well-resourced, historically white-serving institutions (WSIs) within the grantscape, whereas minority-serving institutions (MSIs) perpetually receive the least grant funding over time. Importantly, when MSIs do secure funding, the resources are typically less generous, more restrictive in scope, and hold greater administrative burdens (McCambly & Colyvas, 2023; McCambly et al., 2022; Ray et al., 2022). Troubled by the inequities in competitive grantmaking and committed to uncovering possibilities for meaningful and enduring racialized change, we explore one mechanism by which policymakers could weaken competitive grantmaking as a mode of racialized reproduction in higher education: capacity-building investments via federal earmark grants to colleges and universities (i.e., academic earmarks).

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Type: Paper session on Research-Practice Partnership Development (Table 35)

Authors: Hannah Goldstein and Hayley Weddle

Time: Friday, April 12 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: State Education Agencies (SEAs) have increasing influence over educational policy and practice. While SEA leaders may be well positioned to advance equitable change, capacity building has traditionally been limited. Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) represent a venue to support state leaders’ with facilitating change. This qualitative study draws on interviews with SEA leaders and RPP meeting observations to examine: 1) What SEA structures challenge leaders’ efforts to make change? 2) How does participating in an RPP support leaders with advancing change within these structures? Findings reveal how RPP engagement supported state leaders with navigating organizational silos and bureaucracies through relationship building and developing evidence-based resources. These insights may inform future capacity building efforts at the state level of the education system.

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Type: Paper session on Teacher Leadership and Faculty Learning Communities (Table 13)

Authors: Meghan Orman and numerous authors from University of Iceland

Time: Friday, April 12 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: The purpose of this polyvocal self-study is to investigate how academic and personal experiences of nine doctoral students’ online writing community enhance our writing practices. We articulate our findings through narratives with metaphors of participants’ choice. Within a small community, we support each other and co-create a new learning space with creativity. Data includes nine short narratives. We created matrix sheets for color-coding words. Two themes appeared: Supporting and inclusive community to enhance our sense of security, and Sharing emotions and inspirations for (creative) writing. Results revealed that respect for diversity and mutual support within the community are key to achieve our goal of completing doctoral dissertations. Our polyvocality adds rich meanings for our writing community.

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Type: Symposium

Presenters: Shannon Wanless (Chair), Anna Arlotta-Guerrero, Rhonda Hall, Tracy Larson and Karl Jancart, Shallegra Moye, and Caitlin Spear and Jennifer Briggs

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 304

Description:  This session will provide a comprehensive case-study of a county-wide approach to Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Children learn in their experiences throughout their entire community. Although most SEL practice has occurred in schools, we use this session to model working across many adult roles in the same county: higher education, families & family center staff, early childhood educators, K-12 leaders, and K-3 teachers. In this symposium, five papers will be presented and will represent five parts of one unified ecosystem. Together, they represent a practice of building an SEL network across all these adults, with a unified definition of SEL, unified adult learning sequence, and a movement-building effort to unite as one county to mark SEL Day.

Papers:

Strengthening the Pipeline in SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) Workforce Development With Higher Education Faculty and Staff (Anna Arlotta-Guerrero)

Working with Families and Center Staff to Build Social and Emotional Learning and Racial Equity Skills (Rhonda Hall)

Developing a Network of Early Childhood Educators Practicing Social and Emotional Learning and Racial Equity (Tracy Larson and Karl Jancart)

Bringing an SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) and Racial Equity Lens to K-12 School Leadership (Shallegra Moye)

Weaving Together Social and Emotional Learning, Racial Equity, and Academic Learning with K-3 Educators (Caitlin Spear and Jennifer Briggs)

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Type: Symposium

Author: Anna Arlotta-Guerrero

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 304

Description: Many studies in the AERA SEL SIG in the last five years have called for more focus on the SEL development of preservice teachers. We have not, however, seen many attempts to develop SEL skills in the faculty and staff who work with these higher education students. Just like K-12 teachers need SEL skill development to be better prepared to teach their students, so do higher education faculty and staff. This paper aims to examine a common teacher professional development approach (Communities of Practice) applied to Higher Education Faculty and Staff.

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Type: Symposium

Author: Rhonda Hall

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 304

Description: Our team has developed a model of elevating family voices in their children’s SEL & Racial Equity learning. In this session we will describe our community of practice model that has been adapted to fit family schedules and encourage engagement. We meet once per week for 4 weeks, and engage in a session together that starts with families and children having separate learning opportunities (about the same SEL practice) and then coming together for an applied opportunity to practice. We begin each week with a trusted community leader reading a racially-affirming picture book and facilitating a conversation about what comes up for families in this book. The discussion is rich, unstructured, and helps families connect to one another. They also have the power in the room as the experts in their children’s learning.

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Type: Symposium

Authors: Tracy Larson and Karl L. Jancart

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 304

Description:Over the past twenty years, our team has partnered with local early childhood educators to bring mental health supports to their classrooms, children, and families. Now, the work is evolving to include a specific focus on building early childhood educator SEL skills, using a community of practice. In the past two years, we have begun iteratively building this model and weaving in racially-responsive practices to formally integrate SEL and Racial Equity (Larson, 2022). Now, we are expanding our model (the SELs Cohort) to ten communities of early childhood educators. Our aim in this paper is to share our model with the AERA SEL SIG and lessons learned regarding the implementation of the model and the discussion prompts that were most effective for leading to SEL and Racial Equity learning.

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Type: Symposium

Author: Shallegra Moye

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 304

Description: School leaders are important for the implementation of schoolwide SEL, but less is understood about their own SEL and Racial Equity development (Gimbert, 2023). This development is particularly complex when it occurs in a community of practice with other leaders in their school. Power dynamics are salient in how they perceive their ability to be vulnerable, have humility, and be open to perspectives of those with less formal power than themselves (Kennedy, 2019). The purpose of this session is to highlight key issues in school leader SEL development, and particularly in the form of a community of practice.

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Type: Symposium

Authors: Caitlin Spear and Jennifer Briggs

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 304

Description: We will provide an overview of the 3Rs in the Classroom (Reading, Racial Equity, Relationships), which is a community of practice with K-3rd grade educators from across seven schools that’s currently in its fourth year. This will include an overview of the ways we integrate all 3Rs into practice, with a particular focus on racial literacy, and how these are linked to teachers’ SEL and their relationships, within our communities of practice, and in their classrooms and larger school and community contexts (see Spear et al., 2023 and Wanless et al., 2022 for more details).

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Type: Paper session on Promise and Precarity: A Discussion of Tenure and Promotion Pathways

Authors: Linda DeAngelo, Charlie Diaz, Nelson O. O. Zounlome, and Jacqueline Rohde (George Institute of Technology)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 113B

Description:  This study analyzed institutional documents in engineering at research-intensive institutions to uncover the hidden curriculum for achieving tenure. Our analysis uses Critical Discourse Analysis to contextualize the continued underrepresentation of FOC in engineering through exploring the implicit social, academic, and cultural messages within institutional documents. The main findings were the lack of recognition of service and inclusion work as a tenure criterion, variable “norms” of tenure of achievement, and identity evasiveness. This demonstrates implications for hiring, onboarding, and the tenure process to improve FOC’s experiences and outcomes.

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Type: Roundtable session on Supporting Doctoral Student Development: Critical Issues Within Ed.D. Programs (Table 19)

Authors: Jill Perry (University of Pittsburgh) and Reginald Wilkerson (College of William & Mary)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: Though many students in EdD programs are enthusiastic about the potential of incorporating Critical Race Theory (CRT) into their Dissertations, we wondered if doing so was resulting in transformational leadership practices. The researchers set out to determine how EdD students used CRT to framed problems of practice (POP) and utilize applied research methods to change their practice. This work seeks to expand the knowledge base on CRT and inform scholarly practitioners on how to operationalize CRT to create sustainable change in the American education system.

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Type: Invited Speaker Session

Chair: Shanyce Campbell

Time: Friday, April 12 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Franklin 9

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Type: Roundtable on School-University Partnership Research (Table 15)

Authors: Holly Plank, Tinukwa Boulder, Hillary Chelednik, Cassie Quigley, and Amanda Godley

Time: Friday, April 12 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: This paper explores the integration of computer science, English language arts, and justice-oriented curricula within a research-practice partnership (RPP). This study aligns with the growing emphasis on justice-centered and interdisciplinary curricula and the need for transformative approaches in educational research. The qualitative study investigated how the design features of the RPP aligned with Wentworth et al.’s (2023) RPP Broker framework. Results reveal three essential themes: leveraging assets and relationships in the RPP to weather challenges, prioritizing shared understanding, and starting with and centering diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. The findings offer valuable insights for educational research and partnership-building efforts to foster equitable and inclusive learning opportunities using interdisciplinary, justice-oriented curricula to build K-12 computer science pathways.

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Type: Roundtable on School-University Partnership Research (Table 15)

Authors: Amy Srsic, Elisabeth Rice (George Washington University), and Brian W. Ernest (Salem State University)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: Researchers frequently cite school-based teacher educators (SBTEs) as key influencers in a preservice teacher’s education. This focus group study explores the perceptions of thirteen SBTEs in a special education professional development school. Participants share their experiences, challenges, and supports in their role at the intersection of preservice teacher preparation and K-12 teaching. Their words offer a perspective on the complexity of the SBTE role.

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Type: Invited Speaker Session on The Role of HBCUs in Constructing Knowledge: Race, Relevance, and Research

Authors: T. Elon Dancy II

Time: Friday, April 12 from 3:05 – 4:35 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Room 201C

Description: Drawing upon Black critical theory, Black feminist theory, and a multi- institutional content analysis of 20 HBCU public statements on the state murder of George Floyd, this article studies the politics of HBCU presidential narrations of “racial justice” around antiblackness and gender. Specifically, we are guided by the research question: How, if at all, do HBCU presidents construct antiblackness or antiblack racism in the wake of global uprising? How, and in what ways, do statements implicate “Black gender”; and how do statements compare by presidential gender? More broadly, this article complicates narrow and dichotomous framings of HBCUs through a BlackCrit, or Black-specific, investigation of institution politics, ultimately posing the question, “What is this ‘Black’ in “HBCU”, and what purposes should Black education serve?”.

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Type: Paper session on Growth Mindset in Education: Measuring, Mediating, and Cultivating Beliefs for Student Success

Authors: Tetsuya Yamada (University of Pittsburgh), Xu Qin (University of Pittsburgh), Christina Scanlon (University of Chicago), and Ming-Te Wang (University of Chicago)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 3:05 – 4:35 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 115A

Description: Our study investigated how mastery goals (ambitions to enhance competence) mediate the growth mindset’s impact on math engagement among adolescents in 16 public schools in the northeastern U.S. metropolitan area and how the mediation effect varies by instructional quality. We found through a causal moderated mediation analysis that a growth mindset positively influenced math engagement through mastery goal-setting. Moreover, such a mediation mechanism was amplified by students’ perceived instructional quality. The result has implications for theoretical models of a growth mindset by revealing how and where the growth mindset’s impact on math engagement would occur. The study emphasizes the significance of creating high-quality classroom environments where the growth mindset influences students’ motivation.

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Type: Roundtable session on Reimagining Participatory Qualitative Methodologies Across Time, Space, and Context (Table 24)

Authors: Hayley Weddle (University of Pittsburgh) and Gabrielle Oliveira (Harvard University)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 3:05 – 4:35 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description:  A growing body of scholarship has outlined the value of research-practice partnerships as venues for addressing urgent problems of practice in education. While such partnerships represent a promising strategy for advancing equity, effective collaboration across research and practice is complex to realize. In this paper, we examine data from two partnership projects to identify strategies for actualizing participatory qualitative methods across levels of the education system. Findings highlight the complexities and possibilities of three aspects of qualitative partnership research: gaining and sustaining access to politically complex spaces, maintaining authentic reciprocity, and making meaning across data. These insights can inform future efforts to foster reciprocal partnerships that support the co-construction of educational possibilities.

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Type: Roundtable session on Examining STEM Students’ Higher Education Trajectories (Table 31)

Authors: Linda DeAngelo (University of Pittsburgh School of Education), Charlie Dias (University of Pittsburgh School of Education), Gerard Dorve-Lewis (University of Pittsburgh School of Education), Eric Trevor McChesney (University of Pittsburgh), Bev Conrique (University of Pittsburgh), Brianna Julia Gonzalez (University of Texas – El Paso), Carlie Laton Cooper (University of Georgia), and Kevin J. Kaufman-Ortiz (Purdue University)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 3:05 – 4:35 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: Latino/a/x/é students, a growing demographic that diversifies the STEM talent pipeline, face unique challenges in engineering. As a result, scholars have struggled to develop theories of belonging for this population. In this work-in-progress, we present the beginnings of an empirically-derived theory sensitive to these considerations. International Latino/x/é men students are often reductively combined and racialized with U.S. domestic Latino/x/é men students, resulting in essentialization and erasure. Current frameworks ignore Latino/a/x/é international students’ transnational connections and lack of institutionalized support. We apply abductive analysis techniques, EYES theorization, and transnational migration theory to five international Latino/x/é men engineering student interviews. We suggest that sociohistorical context and migration intentions are important for this under-theorized population.

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Type: Roundtable session on Fostering Inclusive Engagement: Insights from Student Experience (Table 36)

Authors: Marialexia Zaragoza and Esteban Alcala

Time: Friday, April 12 from 4:55 – 6:25 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description:  Studies have shown that High-Impact Practices (HIPs) are beneficial to students’ academic success, increasing GPAs, helping with retention, and increasing student engagement (Kuh, 2008). However, most studies focusing on HIPs are quantitative and do not capture the experiences of first-generation and racially minoritized students (Kilgo, 2022). Using a qualitative approach, this paper describes the experiences that first-generation and racially minoritized students have with HIPs at various HSIs in the Western United States. Three themes emerge from our preliminary results; (a) student understanding of HIPs, (b) HIPs participation, and (c) outside influences. This paper aims to demonstrate how students experience HIPs at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) as a call for institutions to rethink HIPs on campus.

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Type: Paper Session on Pushing the Boundaries of Gender Equity Research

Authors: Katrina Bartow Jacobs (University of Pittsburgh) and Thomas Hill (Lewis Clark State College)

Time: Friday, April 12 from 4:55 – 6:25 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 103B

Description: In the discussion of diverse books (Dávila, 2015), a growing area of interest is in the representation of gender and sexuality within children’s literature. Much of this work, however, has focused on the texts’ representations, with less attention paid to how child readers engage in making sense of depictions of gender. The research presented here aims to address this gap by working to mine the potential that picture books have to help support comprehension of gender equity at a young age. The work focuses on both understanding children’s notions of gender and how read aloud can disrupt normative assumptions.

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Type: Business Meeting and Reception for the Critical Educators for Social Justice Special Interest Group of AERA

Chair: Shanyce Campbell

Time: Friday, April 12 from 6:45 – 8:15 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 113C

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Type: Poster session on Considering Culture, Race, and Social Justice In and Out of the Classroom (Table 27)

Authors: Linda DeAngelo (University of Pittsburgh), Gerard Dorve-Lewis (University of Pittsburgh), and Danielle Vegas Lewis (SUNY – College at Fredonia)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: Hegemonic disciplinary cultures pose threats to students who possess minoritized identities. As the dominant majority within engineering, white men students have the ability to contribute to necessary cultural shifts, transforming disciplinary environments so that they are inclusive as opposed to one that privileges and reifies masculinity and white supremacy. However, literature on white men in engineering is limited. This study utilizes critical whiteness and hegemonic masculinity to analyze longitudinal, qualitative data from eight white men in engineering at a large PWI in the Midwest. Findings from this study demonstrate that white men experience cognitive dissonance, simultaneously acknowledging that minoritized peers experience challenges that they do not as members of the majority, while also demonstrating racial and gender evasiveness.

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Type: Roundtable session

Chair: Heather McCambly

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

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Type: Poster session (Poster 25)

Authors: Heather McCambly (University of Pittsburgh), Quinn Weber Mulroy (Northwestern University), and Andrew Stein (Northwestern University)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall A

Description: This project traces the coordinated efforts (1900-1955) of the American Medical Association, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the Rockefeller Foundation to develop and enforce quality standards in medical education. We uncover how these white, elite institutions structured racialized benefits and burdens with catastrophic consequences for equitable access to medical education.

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Type: Poster session on Exploring the Influence of Organizational and Leadership Contexts on the Work of Coaching (Poster 8)

Authors: Rita Bean (University of Pittsburgh), Jacy Ippolito (Salem State University), and Allison Dagen (West Virginia University)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 115B

Description:  Instructional coaching has traditionally been framed narrowly as an individual-level support for teachers, with coaches working primarily one-on-one with teachers, classroom by classroom. Recently, though, researchers have begun to question this one-on-one framing of coaching and instead have insisted that we consider how larger school, district, and community contextual factors impact coaching work (Authors, 2023a; 2023d; Hannan & Russell, 2020; Kraft et al., 2018). While context certainly influenced coaching prior to the rise of the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic, our research team was curious to understand the specific ways in which school- and community-level contextual factors may have supported or subverted coaches’ work during the height of the pandemic (from the spring of 2020 to the winter of 2021). We assumed that it might be easier to see the influences of context on coaching work during a time of great upheaval in schools, when coaches, teachers, and leaders might be more aware of the ways in which fundamental shifts in community and school routines influence coaching programs and processes.

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Type: Symposium on Arts Learning Across the Lifespan: Social-Emotional, Cognitive, and Physiological Benefits

Authors: Bridget Lee (University of Pittsburgh), Christine Gonzales-DeJohn (Austin Theatre Alliance), and Katie Moore (Austin Theatre Alliance)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location:  Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Room 404

Description:  This study focuses on evaluating the impact that an eight-week, arts-based creative writing residency for third graders has on student social-emotional development and school culture. Each week, teaching artists visit the classroom for 90 minutes engaging students in kinesthetic activities and both group and individual writing exercises. Over the course of the residency, their stories consistently gain increased depth as they learn how to organize their ideas and elaborate on them in writing. The program culminates in an original theatrical show based on the student’s stories and is performed by a professional troupe of actors. The program aims to improve academic success, social-emotional learning (SEL), students’ perceived creative self-efficacy, and school campus culture with regard to writing and creativity in general. Our arts organization prioritizes delivering these services to Title 1 schools in a major city in Texas, in an effort to reduce the achievement gap between these campuses and non-Title 1 schools.

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Type: Symposium

Discussant: Darris Means

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 310

Description: Despite more students attending college today than ever before, research shows that rural students remain significantly less likely to complete college as compared with their urban counterparts—and this gap in college completion is only growing. These disparities are further compounded when examined through a racial lens. While Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous students face some of the largest disparities in terms of educational attainment, those Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous students from rural areas are significantly less likely to have completed high school when compared to those from urban areas. This session seeks to address these spatial and racial differences, bringing light to populations that are seldom discussed in higher education research, policy, or practice: rural Students and Communities of Color.

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Type: Poster session on Research in Reading and Literacy (Poster 42)

Authors: Rita Bean (University of Pittsburgh), Virginia Goatley (University at Albany – SUNY), Diane Kern (University of Rhode Island), Adam Brieske-Ulenski (Bridgewater State University), Jacy Ippolito (Salem State University), and Kevin Smith (Florida State University)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall A

Description: The roles of specialized literacy professionals (SLPs), including reading/literacy specialists, literacy coaches, and coordinators/supervisors have been influenced by many factors, including shifts in funding, research evidence about the best ways to improve literacy learning, and changes in federal legislation with specific requirements about how to provide instruction for students. From a team of twelve researchers across the United States, this presentation shares results of a national survey of specialized literacy professionals, with a focus on providing information about their current roles and responsibilities, comparing results with those of the national study data collected in 2012, and identifies implications of the results for various stakeholders interested in studying their effectiveness in improving teaching and learning.

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Type: Symposium on Broadening Our Understanding of Early Math Support at Home and at School

Authors: Heather Bachman, Alex Silver, Portia Miller, Melissa Libertus, and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 112B

Description: Home math engagement predicts math performance in childhood [17]. Previous work has investigated parental predictors of home math broadly, yet it remains understudied whether similar factors predict toddlers’ home environment, and if home math experiences predict toddlers’ math skills. We asked how parents’ math beliefs, attitudes, and experiences predict their home math engagement and toddlers’ number and spatial skills.

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Type: Symposium on How Critical Literacies Are Changing in a Post-Pandemic World

Authors: Veena Vasudevan (University of Pittsburgh), Tinukwa Boulder (University of Pittsburgh), Mila Re (University of California – Santa Cruz), and Anna Smith (Illinois State University)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location:  Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 302

Description: Drawing on the metaphor of a “hard reset” of a smartphone, Ladson-Billings (2021) rejected the “post”-pandemic rush back to traditional schooling, noting: “I want to suggest that ‘going back’ is the wrong thing for children and youth who were unsuccessful and oppressed in our schools before the pandemic. Normal is where the problems reside” (p. 68). Among her recommendations for post-pandemic pedagogy was addressing disparities of technology access and engagement across US schools as part of a fundamental rethinking of education with a more racially and culturally attuned approach. In this paper, we join Ladson-Billings in seeking a radical shift in approaches to technology and digital media in teacher education to be critical, culturally relevant, and humanizing.

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Type: Symposium on Linkages Between Education and the Criminal Legal System

Authors: Martez Files (University of Pittsburgh), Christy McGuire (University of Pittsburgh), and J. Z. Bennett (University of Cincinnati)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 110A

Description: In this work, we examine how schooling experiences impact the life-course development of individuals given mandatory life sentences without parole as children. These are individuals who the state frames as “juvenile lifers”; however we intentionally use language that centers their humanity, as children who were sentenced to die in prison. Although there are a number of factors that could possibly account for their life without parole sentence, we focus on the effects of educational experiences, considering them a significant contributor to the school-incarceration nexus (Bennett & McGuire, in press). It is important to understand the educational experiences of these youth, as life-course perspectives have not thoroughly investigated the influence of schools and education (Payne & Welsh, 2014).This in mind, understanding incarcerated youths’ schooling experiences might reveal how they cope with the challenges of prison and prepare to enter the outside world after multiple decades incarcerated, especially following the 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision which deemed sentencing children to life sentences unconstitutional.

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Type: Paper session on Using Organizational Theory to Examine the Pursuit of Equity and Improvement in Educational Systems

Authors: Ashlyn Salvage and Eleanor Anderson

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 5, Salon I

Description: Creative learning organizations (CLOs) play an increasingly important role in the education system–and the pursuit of racial inequity. Despite recent DEIA efforts many such organizations serve disproportionately White and affluent visitors This is particularly true among museums, while less so in community-based organizations, even those that provide similar experiences. Utilizing public-facing website text, we analyzed CLOs statements about their organizational identity and commitments to racial equity. Preliminary findings identified five overlapping organizational fields in which CLOs hold membership. However, despite small differences across fields, most CLOs make use of predominantly race- and equity- evasive frames. Future analyses will investigate qualitative differences in racial equity frames across organizational fields, highlighting areas of learning for the sector as a whole.

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Type: Invited Poster Session of AERA Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Authors: Heather McCambly

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall A

Description: This project takes up grantmaking as a hidden yet pervasive mechanism of racialization at two agencies that play critical roles in educational research and reform: the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and the NSF’s Education and Human Resources Directorate (NSF-EHDR). Using a longitudinal (2010-2024), mixed-methods study, I ask: 1) How have equity commitments and policy designs at IES and NSF-EHRD changed over time?, 2) How do IES and NSF-EHDR grantee characteristics differ from the universe of eligible institutions and researchers, and have these differences varied across policy conditions?, 3) What epistemological and axiological values are reflected by funded projects, and how has this varied over time, by organizational and individual characteristics, and funding programs? In doing so, this project seeks to offer critiques of education-focused grantmaking generative to catalyzing shifts toward racial equity and epistemic expansion in the academy and educational policy more broadly.

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Type: Paper session on Postsecondary Access, Aspiration, and Experience for Rural Youth

Authors: Darris Means (University of Pittsburgh), Collette Chapman-Hilliard (University of Georgia), and Ciara Page (University of Georgia)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 1:15 – 2:45 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 310

Description: While rural education researchers have used quantitative data to examine postsecondary education access for rural youth, including rural Black youth, there is a need for a more critical, culturally relevant, and asset-based instruments that can be used to quantitatively examine and understand postsecondary education access and opportunity for rural Black youth. Thus, our research team is developing a scale to assess rural Black students’ postsecondary education access and opportunity using a critical, assets-based approach. The primary purpose of this paper is to highlight lessons learned in developing culturally-relevant, critical, asset-based items and a scale. The lessons learned can be informative for rural education researchers seeking to develop culturally-relevant, critical, asset-based measures and instruments.

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Type: Paper session

Chair: Veena Vasudevan

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 1:15 – 2:45 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 118A

Description: (How) should qualitative researchers embrace the AI revolution? The papers in this session explore the uses, ethics, and other dilemmas of AI technologies in qualitative inquiry. *Abstract (not?) written by ChatGPT.

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Type: Paper session on Interdisciplinary Decolonial Theories, Pedagogies, and Praxes (Table 21)

Authors: Briana Rodriguez

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 1:15 – 2:45 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: This paper provides a space for reflection about mathematics as a tool for reifying fractals of social hierarchies. This exploration includes some history about the ways in which mathematics has been used as a tool for colonization, as well as teachings about Maya Mathematics.

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Type: Roundtable session on Multiple Approaches to Play Research (Table 5)

Authors: Katrina Bartow Jacobs and Hillary Chelednik

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 3:05 – 4:35 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: This presentation will present on the impact of a play-based curriculum on young children’s social, emotional, and academic development. We will describe the impact of engaging in the curriculum across kindergartens and first grades in both a public urban school and a university-affiliated laboratory school. Data from the study shows that engaging in this curriculum supported students’ transitions both within and beyond the school day, children’s development in literacy, and children’s collaborative communication through play. This study is particularly critical in the current sociopolitical climate, where narrow views of academic development are prominent in public schools and where students of color are often not given opportunities for creative choice-based learning.

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Type: Invited Roundtable for The 27th Conversations With Senior Scholars on Advancing Research and Professional Development Related to Black Education

Authors: Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher (University of Pittsburgh) and Vivian L. Gadsden (University of Pennsylvania)

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 3:05 – 4:35 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Room 204ABC (Table 17)

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Type: Invited Speaker Session

Participant: Shanyce Campbell

Time: Saturday, April 13 from 3:05 – 4:35 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Franklin 9

Description: Fireside chat of the Critical Educators for Social Justice Special Interest Group of AERA

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Type: Invited speaker session on Conducting Race-Focused Survey Research in the P–20 System During the Anti-Woke Political Revolt

Authors: J. Kalonji Rand (University of Pittsburgh), Christopher Darby (University of South Florida), Ira Murray (Vanderbilt University), Lisa Bass (North Carolina State University), Dana Thompson Dorsey (University of South Florida), and Rich Milner (Vanderbilt University)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Room 201A

Description: In response to the growing concerns related to racial equity in education, namely P-12 school leadership, the We LEED research team is developing and validating a survey instrument that will help to (1) identify potential principal candidates of color and those with what we will delineate as high-, mid-, and low-levels of Knowledge, Beliefs, and Mindsets (KBMs) about equity, and (2) determine equity gaps in KBMs among pre- and in-service educators that might be addressed in educator professional learning and development. Our target audience includes pre-service and in-service teachers, pre service school leaders, and practicing school administrators. As part of the validation process, we are first piloting the survey with a sample of our target audience located in the Northeast and Southeast regions of the country (see Figure 1) before we administer the survey nationally.

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Type: Invited speaker session on Conducting Race-Focused Survey Research in the P–20 System During the Anti-Woke Political Revolt

Authors: J. Kalonji Rand (University of Pittsburgh), Dena Lane-Bonds (Vanderbilt University), Lonnie Manns (North Carolina State University), and Rich Milner (Vanderbilt University)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Room 201A

Description: In this paper, we discuss complexities and challenges we as researchers encounter in the recruitment phase given the anti-work movement. The questions framing our discussion include: What are lessons and implications of conducting racial justice research in states and districts with anti-justice policies and practices? What are challenges and complexities of recruitment in anti-DEI/Woke states? We consider how we needed to think about recruitment differently in our recruitment practices because we understand and acknowledge that educators could be harmed through their participation. What racialized additional layers of complexity must we consider when working with districts, school leaders, and educators?

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Type: Poster session on Adolescence and Youth Development Special Interest Group (Poster 41)

Authors: Esohe Osai

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 7:45 – 9:15 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall A

Description: Part of the identity-formation process in adolescence includes acquiring a purpose. Purpose is developmentally adaptive, especially for Black adolescents navigating the complexities of development within oppressive systems. This study of 151 Black adolescents uses statistical analysis to understand motivational and contextual predictors of purpose. Students who reported high motivation, in both school and non-school domains, were more likely to indicate having a purpose. Also, students who felt that they mattered to an adult in school reported higher purpose. Students who felt that their neighborhoods had less social capital reported a greater sense of purpose. Study aligns with a phenomenological understanding of identity development for Black youth and supports greater understanding of connections between school and youth development.

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Type: Roundtable session on (Re)conceptualizing Inclusive Higher Education Through Student Experiences and Perspectives (Table 21)

Authors: Phillandra Smith (University of Pittsburgh) and Beth Myers (Syracuse University)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description:  Growing numbers of students with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) have gained access to universities through inclusive post-secondary education (IPSE) programs. Despite having physical access to university campuses and classrooms, navigating access to actual course content remains a challenge for many. This qualitative study was conducted to examine students’ experiences accessing university courses. We highlight the factors that students identified as contributors to their ability to access course content and experience success. Students attribute a positive or negative course experience to course instructors’ relatability and ability to make course content accessible. Further, the students discussed the challenge of managing the desire to be viewed as full college students while recognizing their need for support. Implications for practice are provided.

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Type: Paper Session on Toward Increased Cultural Connectedness, Race-Consciousness, and Critical Care: School Administrator and Student Perspectives

Authors: Sierra Stern (University of Pittsburgh), Michael Gunzenhauser (University of Pittsburgh), and Osly Flores (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location:  Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 117

Description:  The authors work from an emergent theory of equity leadership ethics based on race-conscious caring to study how school leaders grow in their ability to work for racial justice. Using a conceptual framework built on three components of ethical praxis – race-consciousness, critical caring, and justice orientation — we show how school leaders build capacity for serving students of color and negotiate tensions and backlash around racial justice work. We find that school leaders are making explicit use of their racialized identities to acknowledge their positionality, question their privilege, and learn from the experiences of others. These findings lead us to conclude that equity leadership is a project of engaged relationality, contributing to the ways equity leaders both learn and lead.

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Type: Paper Session

Chair: Sean Kelly

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Franklin 7

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Type: Symposium on Advances in Automated Feedback: Equity, Algorithms, Implementation, and Validation

Authors: Rip Correnti, Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Diane Litman, Zhexiong Liu, Tianwen Li, and Elaine Lin Wang (RAND Corporation)

Time: Sunday, April 14, 9:35 to 11:05 a.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 119B

Description: eRevise supports students’ argument writing in the upper elementary and middle school grades by providing automated formative feedback on drafts of students’ essays targeted toward improving their use of text evidence. This paper describes theory underlying key design decisions in our system as well as evidence we have generated for our validity investigation. Finally, we discuss the design of the next generation of our system, eRevise+rf.

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Type: Paper session on The Role of Caregivers in Fostering Student Learning and Development

Authors: Heather Bachman, Chelsea Leverett-Ptak, Linsah Coulanges, Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, and Melissa Libertus

Time: Sunday, April 14, 9:35 to 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Room 411

Description: Previous work has demonstrated differences in parents’ beliefs and behaviors about the home math environment (HME) based on SES and other background characteristics1. Theoretically, the basis for these differences may be attributed to fewer resources and less time parents in low-income households have to invest in their children2-4. Although there is robust evidence of the link between SES and child math skills4,6-7, there is less consistent evidence that the HME is a strong predictor of math skills7-9. In the current work, we aim to understand these inconsistencies by exploring qualitative data from parents who reported high and low HME with their young children.

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Type: Symposium on Conceptualizing Black Consciousness Within Motivation Research

Authors: Esohe Osai (University of Pittsburgh), Christopher Coleman (University of California-Davis), Asia Ivey, Faheemah N. Mustafaa (University of California-Davis), and Natalie Davis (University of Michigan)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 9:35 – 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Franklin 1

Description: Black educators have a significant history of educating Black students. Since the inception of the public education system, Black educators have been integral to its development and have demonstrated a deep commitment to providing Black students with a quality education (Anderson 1988). However, the social and economic landscape of the public education system was dramatically changed after the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (Tillman, 2004). The ruling that catalyzed school integration also decimated the Black teaching force, devaluing the professional identity of those that remained and significantly changing the prospects for the Black middle class (Madkins, 2011). The effects of the 1954 ruling are still experienced today, as only 7% of the public education system is composed of Black educators, according to the National Teacher Preparation Survey (NTPS). Of that 7%, an overwhelming number are concentrated in urban schools with higher populations of Black students (Royston et al., 2021). As debates continue regarding the best mode of intervention for ensuring Black students’ success, increasing the Black teacher population remains a top priority (Driessen, 2015; Moore et al., 2017; Joshi et al., 2018). In contradiction to these efforts, Black educators are rarely consulted when discussing what Black students need most to be successful (Johnson et al., 2013).

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Type: Paper session on Design Research Methods

Authors:  Holly Plank, Hillary Chelednik, and Cassie Quigley

Time: Sunday, April 14, 9:35 to 11:05 a.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Room 406

Description:  This mixed methods explanatory sequential design study was part of a long-term research-practice partnership (RPP) between a university, a computer science education organization, and school districts in Appalachia. The RPP iteratively solves problems of practice related to the creation of STEAM and Computer Science pathways in partner school districts. Partners explored the impact of teacher-designed curricula integrating Environmental Justice and data science on youth’s occupational identity development (OID). This study examined how such curricula affected youth’s self-efficacy in related occupations. The findings offer valuable insights for teacher educators and research-practice partners to support youth’s self-efficacy and OID. Additionally, the study critically examined equity, justice, and opportunity implications, emphasizing the dual focus on theory and practice.

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Type: Symposium on Supporting the Higher Education Access and Success of Rural Students With Additional Marginalized Identities

Authors: Darris Means

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 304

Description: Rural Black students experience inequitable pathways to and through postsecondary education (Chambers, 2021; Crumb et al., 2021; Gafford, 2021; Means et al., 2016; Strayhorn, 2009; United States Department of Agriculture, 2017). For example, only 17% of Black adults in rural areas have attained a postsecondary education degree compared to 29% of white adults in rural areas (United States Department of Agriculture, 2017). Researchers have attributed the disparity to limited access to postsecondary education information, resources, and opportunities (Boettcher et al., 2022; Crumb et al., 2021; Farmer et al., 2006; Flowers, 2021; Gafford, 2021; Griffin et al., 2011; Means et al., 2016; Means et al., 2022). Despite these challenges, rural Black students employ assets, resources, and networks to support their pathways to and through postsecondary education (Boettcher et al., 2022; Crumb et al., 2021; Flowers, 2021; Means et al., 2016; Means, 2019). However, researchers, policymakers, and educators still have a limited understanding of how perceptions of conditions (e.g., relationships, structures, knowledge) change through time to shape postsecondary education access and success for rural Black students.

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Type: Poster session on Motivation and Learning Across Learning Environments (Poster 42)

Authors:  Xu Qin (University of Pittsburgh), Ming-Te Wang (University of Chicago), Christina Scanlon (University of Chicago), and Juan Del Toro (University of Minnesota)

Time: Sunday, April 14, 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall A

Description:  In spring 2020, schools shifted to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use daily-diary approaches to examine the influence of remote (vs. in-person) learning and social supports on US adolescents’ psychological well-being. During remote (vs. in-person) learning, youth reported reduced positive emotions, increased stress, and higher parent support. The impact of remote learning on affect and stress did not differ significantly by race or economic status. Increased parent support corresponded to lower stress and negative emotions. Both parent and peer support correlated with higher positive emotions. This study underscores the effects of remote learning on adolescents’ well-being during a multi-systemic disaster and emphasizes the need for future research on crisis planning in schools.

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Type: Sunday Roundtable on Abolition, Agency, and Action: Dismantling Racism and Carceral Logics for Educational Justice (Table 1)

Authors: Chetachukwu U. Agwoeme (Chair)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: Using narrative inquiry guided by theories of anti-blackness for analysis, I discuss the recalled experiences of Black youth (age 18-25) and their experiences with systems of law enforcement while they were in high school. Theoretically framed through an afropessimist interpretation of social death furthered through Blackcrit, my analysis revealed how: 1.) my participants’ maneuvering through the school to avoid SBLE is indicative of student safety as an impossibility for Black students, 2.) student safety measures are rooted in anti-blackness, and 3.) how Blackness is constructed as unsafe to the school environment. From these findings, it is evident that the school must be critically interrogated as an active participant in Black suffering.

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Type: Sunday Roundtable on Abolition, Agency, and Action: Dismantling Racism and Carceral Logics for Educational Justice (Table 1)

Authors: Riley Drake (University of Wisconsin – Stout), Alicia Oglesby (Winchester Thurston and University of Pittsburgh), Apple Amos (FoodCorps), and Jessica Engelking (Great Plains Action Society)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: Calls for “Counselors, Not Cops” conceal a more insidious form of carcerality: soft policing. In schools, school counselors frequently engage in soft policing through the operationalization of carceral logic embedded in the ASCA National Model, often weaponized against youth experiencing the most social precarity. This paper describes a year-long Critical Participatory Action Research project that brought together those in school counseling and community organizing to uproot carcerality and center students’ “heartwholeness,” or belonging and safety in even deeply oppressive spaces (hooks, 2019), within and beyond our professional practice. We offer five interrelated, contextualized processes of radical world-building for abolitionist counselor educators and counselors in schools to co-create real safety with students, and experiment and build with movements for abolition.

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Type: Symposium on Studies of Equity-Minded Organizational Learning in Educational Contexts

Authors: Heather McCambly (University of Pittsburgh) and Krystal R. Villanosa (The Spencer Foundation)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 3, Room 307

Description: In this paper we examined the attempts at organizational change at one postsecondary-focused private foundation that grew out of years of interorganizational professional development and engagement with racial equity questions. Specifically, we ask: What types of organizational learning motivated one education-focused foundation to revise its equity decision-making practices? What values, tools, and artifacts did that foundation adopt to mobilize and institutionalize these practices, and did these efforts materially change process? We not only looked at what changes the foundation intended to make under their equity initiative, but also how those changes transcended individual intentions to become embedded, via organizational learning, into norms, routines, and policies.

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Type: Sunday Roundtable on Justice and Criticality in Literacy Education: An In-Depth Examination (Table 19)

Authors: Emily C. Rainey (University of Pittsburgh), Gianina Morales (University of Pittsburgh), and Scott Storm (Bowdoin College)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

Description: What are prominent trends in literacy education scholarship over time, as revealed through patterns in language-in-use? Using a leading method of unsupervised machine learning called topic modeling, we examined the statistical co-occurrence of words in individual articles and across a corpus of more than 34,000 articles drawn from 11 literacy education journals from their dates of establishment through 2022. The resulting “topics” are a different way of characterizing trends in literacy education research—a way that enables us to calculate major and relatively more minor patterns in our collective discourse. We identify patterns of injustice and criticality in literacy education scholarship. Methodologically, we offer topic modeling as a promising approach for pursuing such purposes in literacy education research.

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Type: Sunday Roundtable on Care, Resistance, and Learning in Media (Table 35)

Presenter: Veena Vasudevan (Chair)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 200, Exhibit Hall B

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Type: Symposium

Chair: Martez Files

Discussant: T. Elon Dancy II

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 1:15 – 2:45 p.m.

Location: Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Franklin 3

Description: Papers in this session provide historical and contemporary perspectives on today’s Black home education movement. Currently, Black families represent the fastest increasing group in home education. Home education affords parents the greatest autonomy in their children’s learning. For Black parents, home education provides the freedom to create learning spaces/opportunities that align with their children’s interests/needs while also buffering the harm from racism experienced within and outside of schools. Authors in this session employ theoretical constructs of m/otherwork, womanist theory, self-determination, African American resistance, and QuantCrit. Combined, the papers in this session augment understanding of the ways Black families have and continue to resist the oppressive and destructive impact of racism in the education of Black children.

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Type: Poster session on Speculative Science Education Toward Socioecological Care

Authors: Mahati Kopparla (University of Pittsburgh), Shima Dadkhahfard (University of Calgary), Miwa Takeuchi (University of Calgary), and Sophia Thraya (University of Calgary)

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 1:15 – 2:45 p.m.

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 115B

Description: Socioecological care conceptualized from decolonial perspectives goes beyond anthropocentric view and instead re-center human kinships to more-than-humans (Bang & Marin, 2015; Kimmerer, 2013). In our multiple ongoing projects, we have been considering how we could mobilize transdisciplinary experiences (Author & Colleague, 2022) toward care-full relationship with the soil and the land (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2015). We have tried to see and illustrate “the pluriverse, a world where many worlds fit” (Escobar, 2018, p. xvi), by learning from the experiences of forced displacement for those who used to be intimately connected to the soil and the land. We use speculative design of collective illustration as a future-oriented approach to reimagine historical silencing and oppression in/of learning (Garcia & Mirra, 2023), grounding in stories of forced displaced peoples from the lands.

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Type: Symposium on Of Archives, Unstably Housed Families, Languages, and the Chicago Young Lords: Community Cultural Wealth Connections

Author: Lisa Ortiz

Time: Sunday, April 14 from 3:05 – 4:35

Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Floor: Level 100, Room 110B

Description:  How does removing a Puerto Rican migrant from a classroom for not daring to speak in English help a student believe a teacher and a school have his best interests? How does such action shape the student’s lack of desire to return to the school? How does a mother intervene and what are the possibilities of such intervention? The purpose of this talk is to explore these questions through the theoretical framework of Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) to illustrate how a Puerto Rican family employed varied forms of capital in the contexts of bilingualism and parent involvement in the rural Midwest. By focusing on multiple dimensions of Community Cultural Wealth, I show an example of Puerto Rican life in a small town in central Illinois, a region that despite continuously perceived as white and monolithic in the public imaginary, has witnessed shifting demographics and growing Latinx communities. Data for this talk draw from a larger research study that explored rural-to-rural migration between two towns in rural Puerto Rico and the rural Midwest.

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