Intersectional Organizing and Transformative Solidarity in Educational Justice Movements

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Research in Precarious Times

Abstract

We have a pressing need to understand how groups typically siloed by issue or identity come together, support each other, and create more unified movement-building efforts. Scholarship on solidarity-building has typically focused on instrumental solidarity – constructing coalitions around a common (single) issue. While important, this form of solidarity may be short-lived and insufficient. In this paper we identify how a deeper form of transformative solidarity is being built in the educational justice movement through intersectional organizing. Data come from a participatory action research study by a team of scholars and organizers from a grassroots think tank, involving in-depth interviews with 30 organizers, 5 case studies of solidarity building processes, and a self-study of the think tank’s own efforts at solidarity.

Authors

• Mark R. Warren, University of Massachusetts - Boston

• Vajra M. Watson, University of Redlands

• Shaun de Vera, California State University - Sacramento

• Bianca Ortiz-Wythe, University of Massachusetts - Boston