Community-Based Research as Consequential Research

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Most education research conducted by scholars is intended to inform policy and practice that can impact student learning. Examples include evaluating existing national or state policies and programs on student assessments, access to educational opportunities, and economic indicators. Education research has also helped identify new targets for national and state policy interventions, such as educational disparities among minoritized communities, and variation of teacher quality based on school district location. However, more research is needed at the local level; research that can inform how policies and practices take shape inside districts and schools. Thus, community-based research offers opportunities for researchers and community members, those who have direct knowledge of local circumstances that impact education, to partner together to identify educational issues that affect the community and address such issues through research and action. By involving community members throughout the research process, whether qualitative or quantitative, community-based research can generate evidence that is relatable and actionable. Community-based research is consequential research, as its impact is direct, enabling change that can reshape the future of generations to come.

Papers proposed for this symposium represent a range of community-based research, both quantitative and qualitative. Moreover, papers proposed for this symposium focus on how community-based research can lead to consequential research in majority Black communities, where the fight for equity and justice is longstanding.

Sub Unit

• Division L - Educational Policies and Politics

Chairs

• Joshua Childs, University of Texas at Austin

• Ain A. Grooms, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Papers

• Public Input, Private Decisions: How Community Stakeholders Resist Privatized Governance in New Orleans's All-Charter School District - Amanda Lu, Stanford University

• "Leveraging Relationships and [School] Culture" for College Readiness and Success: An Asset-Based Approach to College-Going Culture in an Urban, Black High School - Danica Brown, Wayne State University

• How to Implement Causal Impact Evaluations Using Strategies to Interrogate, Illuminate, and Reduce Racial Inequalities - Wendy Castillo, Princeton University; Rebecca A. Maynard, University of Pennsylvania

• How Can We Think About the Conditions Through Which Truth Emerges? - Brian Lozenski, Macalester College

• Renderings of Audacity: Black Youth's Perseverance Under the Canopy of Education's Structural Violence - Dawn M. Demps, University of Arizona

Discussant

• Bianca Jontae Baldridge, Harvard University