Interrogating the Responsibility Discourse Within Education

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 7
  In Poster Session: Division L Section 7 Poster Session (San Diego)

Abstract

This paper examines recent AERA and UCEA "call for proposals" to reveal a problematic trend that positions responsibility and ownership over perennial educational issues. It argues that a key limitation of the responsibility narrative is that it erases power dynamics in the larger social and political order while ignoring or downplaying economic, political, legal, juridical, and other apparatuses that actively (re)produce social outcomes. It examines why the responsibility discourse is so seductive, and why it remains a strong fixture in progressive educational circles.

Authors

• Gerardo R. López, Michigan State University

• Liliana E. Castrellon, Duquesne University

• Érica Fernández, Miami University

• Alonso Reyna, University of Utah