Evidence for the Right to Learn: Research Responses to Bans on Teaching and Learning

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

The so-called “anti-CRT movement” has passed 20 state gag order laws that tie educators’ hands when teaching about the U.S.’s history of oppression. This movement seeks to limit curriculum and instruction related to race, identity, and difference; efforts to expand such policies are underway. This interactive session will present research syntheses designed to help educators, policymakers, parents, and advocates speak back to these efforts with evidence about how children learn and how best to prepare the next generation for a multiracial democracy. The authors will present research syntheses on teaching and learning, sociocultural aspects of education, law and policy, and movement building. Next, we will break out into roundtables to discuss implications and strategies, followed by comments from discussants.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Amy Stuart Wells, Bank Street College of Education

Participants

• Talia S. Leibovitz, University of California - Berkeley

• Jose L. Vilson, Bank Street College of Education

• Jessica Blum-DeStefano, Bank Street College of Education

• Jennifer Jellison Holme, University of Texas at Austin

• Derek Black, University of South Carolina School of Law

• Taifha Natalee Alexander, University of California - Los Angeles

• Gloria J. Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Adrienne D. Dixson, Pennsylvania State University

Discussants

• Adam Gamoran, William T. Grant Foundation

• Leah Watson, American Civil Liberties Union