Promoting Transformative Agency: Learning Lab as a Social Change Intervention for Racial Equity in School Discipline

• In Event: Race, Equity, and Disparities in Special and Inclusive Education

Abstract

Students from racially minoritized communities are more likely to receive disciplinary exclusion compared to their White peers. As a multilayered socially, historically, and geographically situated inequity issue, addressing racial disparities in school discipline requires a transformative experiment in which local stakeholders can engage in situated problem-solving efforts in response to their diverse needs, goals, and local dynamics. Grounded in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, Learning Lab, an inclusive, collaborative knowledge production activity, was designed to develop locally meaningful solutions to address outcome disparities. This study examines how the Learning Lab intervention promoted the expansion of local stakeholders’ collective, transformative agency to bring about transformation in the discipline system at an urban middle school experiencing racial disproportionality in school discipline.

Authors

• Dosun Ko, Wichita State University

• Aydin Bal, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Halil Ibrahim Cakir, Giresun University

• Hyejung Kim, Binghamton University - SUNY