Students’ Catalyzation of Districtwide Anti-Oppression Remedies: An Equity Assistance Partnership in a Midwestern Town

• In Event: Theory and Practice of Government-Funded Technical Assistance Centers to Research, Remedy, and Repair Education Injustices

Abstract

Objectives
This study features a partnership between an Equity Assistance Center (EAC)-legislated under the Civil Rights Act and funded by the US Department of Education to provide technical assistance (TA) toward school integration-and a Midwestern school district. Informed by students’ board meeting testimony about district experiences with racism, the study details a multi-year partnership to research, remedy, and repair policy and practice.

Theoretical framework
The study is informed by a theory of equity expansive technical assistance (ETAA; Thorius, 2023), which extends cultural historical activity theory’s constructs of expansive learning and formative intervention (Engeström & Sannino, 2010). ETAA is characterized by:
Shifts from top-down/expert novice knowledge transfer to partnership in which the TA provider supports partners in inquiry cycles to examine and disrupt status quo inequities.
Shifts from primarily technical improvements to isolated policies and practices, to systemic transformation of policy, practices, and belief systems.
Process-based theorization of systemic transformation, informed by expansive learning cycles.
Encounters with contextual factors related to manifestations of (in)equities in the system(s) of concern.

Methods
This 18-month qualitative case study applied a process of formative intervention. The researchers' overarching goal was to support partners’ development of individual and collective agency (Engeström et. al, 2014) toward systemic change. Building on this methodology and its cycles of expansive learning (Augustsson, 2021), which are complementary to other forms of action research (Postholm, 2020), EAC scholar-practitioners facilitated ETAA inquiry cycles to first, stimulate attention to the existence of, and then build personal and collective agency to remedy inequities that had caused student harm. The central research focus was on how this process expanded initial concerns with discrete professional development and technical improvements to systemic redesign and remedy of identified areas in need of improvement.

Data sources
Data include notes from 11 consultation calls with 6 district administrators and 2 building principals; materials/notes from 30 hours of professional learning sessions wherein 11 district participants engaged the EAC’s critical collaborative inquiry process and focused on anti-racism policy planning and development through the EAC’s equity oriented strategic planning process. Additional data include materials and field notes from a 3-day session with EAC staff, 30 students, and 10 educators focused on engaging Youth Participatory Action Research within district-wide improvements.

Results
District goals expanded through a process by which Black students, other students of color, and LGBTQ+ students carried out YPAR cycles that resulted in the board’s adoption of an anti-racism policy, which then led to development of a gender inclusivity policy. The partnership also resulted in a districtwide professional development plan to address inequities across policy and practice, 3 additional student YPAR projects, a student-developed public service announcement on racial microaggressions and a student-led equity training session for all staff.

Significance
The cycles of inquiry and the data collection, analysis, and processes and changes they stimulated built on partners’ strengths. The study contributes to how theoretically-grounded, research-based TA inquiry cycles impact examination, remedy, and repair of district inequities. The study also has significance for informing student-led policy development activities generally, and remedying and repairing student group marginalization, specifically.

Author

• Kathleen A. King Thorius, Arizona State University