Resurgence of Backlash to Redressing Pernicious and Persistent Inequities: Navigating Race, Class, and Systemic Equity-Driven Improvement

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

This session details a theoretical framework and the practical underpinnings of educational inquiry cycles engaged by a US Department of Education-funded equity assistance center and PK-12 education agency partners. The approach, developed over decades of equity-driven technical assistance, has shown impact in redressing inquiry approaches that pathologize marginalized communities and absolve systems of responsibilities to address pernicious, persistent inequities. Rather, the Center’s data collection, analysis, and reporting cycles evoke tensions in partners’ comfort with status quo inequities and stimulate innovation and improvement, toward liberatory, inclusive education for all leaners. The approach is especially applicable in today’s socio-political climate; collaborative, critical inquiry illuminates and counters minimization, erasure, and misrepresentation of equity-driven systemic improvement.

Sub Unit

• Division H - Research, Evaluation and Assessment in Schools

Cosponsors

• NCME

• Division G - Social Context of Education

• Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education

Chair

• Antionette D. Stroter, Liberty University

Papers

• The Theory and Practice of Equity-Expansive Technical Assistance: Critical Collaborative Inquiry to Drive Systemic Change - Kathleen A. King Thorius, Arizona State University

• Troubling Dominant Approaches to Educational Inquiry: Expanding and Enhancing Contextual Illumination of Systemic Inequities - Seena M. Skelton, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Equity Expansive Critical Collaborative Inquiry: Artifacts, Processes, Participants, and Innovations - Tiffany S. Kyser, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• School Board Partnership and Momentum for Sustained Attention to Equity - Crystal Morton, Indiana University - Indianapolis

Discussant

• Tyrone C. Howard, University of California - Los Angeles

Panelist

• Michael Walker, Educational Testing Service