Race and Power Dynamics in “Equity-centered RPPs”: Replicating or disrupting power differentials

• In Event: Disrupting Hierarchies, Co-Designing Futures: Community-Centered Visions for Education Research and Praxis

Abstract

This paper interrogates the ways in which race and power surface in the partnership dynamics of an equity-centered RPP, particularly when co-design is embedded within an existing RPP. Situated within an RPP focused on school discipline disparities, we draw on interview and observation data, along with partnership artifacts, to analyze the ways in which RPP participants make sense of their own positioning within the RPP and how race and power appear in participants’ interactions with one another. Informed by racialized organizations theory and social design experiments, we ask: What is the role of race and power in the partnership dynamics of an equity-centered RPP?

Authors

• Tia R. Williams, Vanderbilt University

• Richard O. Welsh, Vanderbilt University

• Zoe Lehmann, Washington University in St. Louis