67.012 - The Power and Politics of Conducting Critical Research That Advances Educational Justice in the Age of Trump

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

In today’s political climate where xenophobic discourse and repressive policymaking are increasingly normalized, the vulnerability of marginalized youth, families, and communities is heightened. The work of researchers drawing upon critical methodologies to advance educational justice for such populations is attracting greater suspicion or plain dismissal. Such researchers in this post-truth, Trumpian age can easily be cast as left-wing “snowflakes,” rather than respected as learned experts who challenge the status quo, yet remain committed to doing work of high quality, rigor, and integrity. Critical qualitative methodologies, in particular, have long guided researchers in affirming the value of experiential knowledge and lived truths. Such truths are influenced by people’s subjectivities, yet unlike “post-truths”, they are reality-based. These truths have emerged from evidence-based counter-narratives, and they provide tremendous insight about how members of marginalized groups experience—and often resist—biased educational ideologies, practices, and policies. Researchers then pinpoint transformative possibilities for educational improvement. A growing number of mixed-method and quantitative researchers are employing critical methodological frameworks with justice-minded aims too.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan

Participants

• James Earl Davis, Temple University

• Aurora Chang, Loyola University Chicago

• sj Miller, Monte Del Sol Charter School

• Camille M. Wilson, University of Michigan

• Carolyn Hetrick, University of Michigan

• Shanyce L. Campbell, University of California - Irvine

Moderator

• Ann M. Ishimaru, University of Washington