Step by Step, Day by Day: Strategies for Building a National, Racial Justice Research Collaboration

• In Event: Elevating Black epiSTEMologies: Theories, Methodologies, and Praxis for Dismantling Racial Injustice in Postsecondary STEM Education

Abstract

This presentation discusses how a group of Black scholars from various institutions came together to employ a national study on Blackness in postsecondary STEM. More specifically, this presentation discusses the formation of Black epiSTEMologies as a

national research collaborative comprised of individuals with varied positionalities and conceptual approaches to Blackness, but all committed to advancing the liberation of Black people in and beyond STEM education. In outlining the mechanisms for collaboration and team building, this presentation provides the logics for building a national model for a racial-justice oriented research collaboration specific to exploring race-focused research in STEM education. Implications for how to design and enact a large-scale research project that spans different ideological positions, institutions, and geographic locations are provided. This includes insights on how to conduct this research amid a sociopolitical context that continues to target and reject equity and justice-focused endeavors.
Perspective. This presentation is situated within scholarship specific to research collaborations and researcher positionality for race-focused research. Among the scholarship found within the learning sciences includes research focused on team building, community- partnerships, and cross-disciplinary collaboration in design-research. Scholars discuss concepts such as research-practice partnerships (e.g., Farrell et al., 2019) outlining strategies for collaboration when power dynamics are inequitable given professional responsibilities and access to resources. Scholars also discuss community partnerships (e.g., Bang & Vossoughi, 2016), articulating strategies for engaging research with communities from marginalized groups in ways that do not reinforce oppression but rather equitably distribute resources and decision- making power. Across this body of research, scholars note the need for researchers to be intentional with how they make decisions, who is involved in the decision-making process, how they allocate resources, and how they ensure that their research intentions, actions, and outcomes do not recreate or perpetuate oppression.
Methodology focused scholarship note the need for researching race in equitable and just ways (Milner, 2007; Parsons, 2008; Tillman 2002). Among the methods discussed that is core to fostering equitable and just race-focused research praxis is attention to researcher positionality. Black scholars engaging race-focused research on Black communities must consider how systemic racism attempts to discredit this type of scholarship (Parsons, 2008). Additionally, Black scholars must acknowledge the heterogeneity of Blackness given variations of Black onto- epistemologies and therefore engage in practices that account for their insider-outsider positions (Beoku-Betts, 1994). These cautions suggest that Black scholars exploring race-focused research on Black people must therefore recognize their positions as legitimate for knowledge generation while also probing to ensure that within their research process, their positions do not perpetuate oppression for Black people given assumptions of homogeneity.
Significance. This presentation offers conceptual and pragmatic processes and strategies for engaging large-scale research projects that sit at the intersections of cross-disciplinary collaboration and race-focused research where the racial identity of the research participants aligns with the racial identity of the researchers. Maintaining insight into these outcomes offers information and resources for educational scholars who are interested in developing large-scale research projects or scaling their existing endeavors to a national level. Additionally, insight from this presentation offers methodological considerations for equitable approaches to fostering racial-justice research collaborations when accounting nuances and distinctions in onto- epistemologies of same-raced research teams.
Theme Alignment. This presentation aligns with the 2024 AERA Presidential theme of dismantling racial injustice as it offers tangible strategies for scholars looking to establish cross- disciplinary, national collaborations that engage research projects specific to advancing racial justice. As educational scholars and practitioners engage in freedom dreaming—envisioning a future in which racism no longer exists nor has implications for lived experiences and outcomes—there must be contemporary roadmaps and models for how to convert freedom dreams into freedom dreamed actions and strategies. This presentation serves as one model in which people purse large scale, collaborative transformative research.

Authors

• Terrell R Morton, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Martinique Ann Sealy, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Osasohan Agbonlahor, North Carolina A&T State University

• Paula Groves Price, North Carolina A&T State University