2026 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture: (Re)memory, Community-based Education, and ‘Youth Work’ as the Process of Futuring

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

In the 2026 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture, Bianca J. Baldridge reflects on her community-engaged scholarship, her theoretical contributions to community-based education and critical youth work practice, and her empirical research with youth workers across the United States. Dr. Baldridge will demonstrate how youth workers teach to transgress—pushing beyond the boundaries of systems and paradoxes within the field as they co-envision possibilities in their work alongside youth. In this talk, she will urge the audience to rethink ‘schooling’ and education outside traditional school walls and to support and invest in youth workers who make significant sacrifices to support our children. Using her current research with Black youth workers across the US, she connects contemporary youth work to a long tradition of resistance, emphasizing the knowledge carried from the past to confront present realities.

Her talk will raise important questions, such as: in today’s social and political climate, what can we remember, recollect, and reassemble about the constellation of educational and learning environments that can transform young people's lives? How can we, as education researchers, learn from history to guide our approach in honoring the wisdom and agency within communities, including all educators and youth? How can we envision community-based education and youth work as a process of futuring and world-building toward educational justice? A joyful reflection on how communities have fought to educate, inspire, and protect youth from societal harm, Dr. Baldridge’s talk will emphasize the crucial connection between the past, present, and future of community-based youth work.

Sub Unit

• AERA Sessions

Chair

• Maisha T. Winn, Stanford University

Presenter

• Bianca Jontae Baldridge, Harvard University