As committee chair and co-chair, we are excited for this upcoming year and the equity and justice-focused work the Division A Equity, Inclusion, and Action Committee will engage in.
These times are crucial. There are critical justice issues facing humanity. The inequitable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are disproportionately affecting minoritized communities, particularly Indigenous, Black and Brown populations. Politically-driven governmental responses in the U.S. and across the globe have sparked protests against scientifically-based public health safety recommendations for basic protections such as masking in PK-12 schools and in higher education. The enforcement of punitive measures on districts not in compliance with state mandates on face mask policy is detrimental to work of educational leaders, youth, family and community members, educators, and scholars who work in these educational systems to support and protect our most vulnerable, namely children, youth, and immunocompromised people.
The continued racial violence and systemic racial injustices impacting Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Middle Eastern, Asian and Asian American, Pacific Islander, and other marginalized communities persists. Many witness or experience continual homophobia, transphobia, cissexism, heteronormativity, and intersectional oppression impacting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Gender Fluid people, particularly in areas where local state governments seek to undermine protections for Transgender students in schools. Further, the backlash via state legislation against antiracism, Critical Race Theory, and equity-focused teaching and scholarship across the U.S., including states where many Division A members (including EIA committee members), our students, colleagues, and educational partners live and work, is harmful to equity and social justice efforts in schools and districts.
As the incoming chair and co-chair, these continued injustices strengthen our unyielding stance and staunch commitment to equity, justice, and inclusion, particularly for communities facing oppression and marginalization due to racism, classism, sexism, ableism, cissexism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious oppression, and other forms of systemic injustice. It is our role as a collective Division A community to work together and support each other in our endeavors to promote justice and equity in the schools, communities, and in higher education institutions. We expressly stand in solidarity with our colleagues and educational leaders in states and regions where equity-focused work is under attack.
For this year, we seek to continue and expand the important work the EIA Committee engaged in last year under the leadership of Chair Dr. Daniel Liou. During 2020-2021, several issues emerged in discussions with the EIA Committee that we plan to proceed with in conversation, our advocacy, and programming this year. These included the need to:
Finally, we are excited to welcome four new members of our EIA Committee this year: Dr. Bryan Duarte, Dr. Kendra Lowery, Dr. Maritza Lozano, and Dr. Courtney Mauldin. Each of these new members brings critical insights, experience, and leadership to our committee. We look forward to working with them and the members of the EIA committee who will be entering their second year: Dr. Joshua Bornstein, Dr. Catherine O’Brien, Dr. James Martinez, and Doctoral Candidate Tanishia Williams.
Thank you for your commitment to Division A,
Katherine Rodela (chair) and Karen Ramlackhan (co-chair)
These times are crucial. There are critical justice issues facing humanity. The inequitable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are disproportionately affecting minoritized communities, particularly Indigenous, Black and Brown populations. Politically-driven governmental responses in the U.S. and across the globe have sparked protests against scientifically-based public health safety recommendations for basic protections such as masking in PK-12 schools and in higher education. The enforcement of punitive measures on districts not in compliance with state mandates on face mask policy is detrimental to work of educational leaders, youth, family and community members, educators, and scholars who work in these educational systems to support and protect our most vulnerable, namely children, youth, and immunocompromised people.
The continued racial violence and systemic racial injustices impacting Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Middle Eastern, Asian and Asian American, Pacific Islander, and other marginalized communities persists. Many witness or experience continual homophobia, transphobia, cissexism, heteronormativity, and intersectional oppression impacting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Gender Fluid people, particularly in areas where local state governments seek to undermine protections for Transgender students in schools. Further, the backlash via state legislation against antiracism, Critical Race Theory, and equity-focused teaching and scholarship across the U.S., including states where many Division A members (including EIA committee members), our students, colleagues, and educational partners live and work, is harmful to equity and social justice efforts in schools and districts.
As the incoming chair and co-chair, these continued injustices strengthen our unyielding stance and staunch commitment to equity, justice, and inclusion, particularly for communities facing oppression and marginalization due to racism, classism, sexism, ableism, cissexism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious oppression, and other forms of systemic injustice. It is our role as a collective Division A community to work together and support each other in our endeavors to promote justice and equity in the schools, communities, and in higher education institutions. We expressly stand in solidarity with our colleagues and educational leaders in states and regions where equity-focused work is under attack.
For this year, we seek to continue and expand the important work the EIA Committee engaged in last year under the leadership of Chair Dr. Daniel Liou. During 2020-2021, several issues emerged in discussions with the EIA Committee that we plan to proceed with in conversation, our advocacy, and programming this year. These included the need to:
- Increase visibility and support for research and continued Division A sessions related to intersectional LGBTQIA+ issues. The committee’s AERA 2021 Invited Speaker Session “Queering at the Crossroads: Researching, Teaching, and Liberation at the Intersections of LGBTQIA Identities in Education'' organized and facilitated by Dr. Hilary Lustick was an important start to this work. We are excited to continue to build on this momentum and the critical conversations that surfaced during this session.
- Advocate for greater inclusion and accessibility for persons with disabilities at the AERA conference and within AERA communication. We recognized--particularly through the leadership and advocacy of Dr. Catherine O’Brien--continued issues in AERA’s communication, online conference platform, and providing equitable access to members with disabilities. We are also deeply concerned about continued deficit-framing and ableist language that mark communication around inclusion and disability in the organization. We plan to work with the committee and Division A Leadership to address these issues this year.
- Examine our Division A conference program and the broader educational leadership field for topics and areas of study related to equity, diversity, and inclusion that remain missing or underrepresented in our Division A AERA Program. We know that several topics remain underrepresented in our program, including: disability and inclusion, LGBTQIA+ issues, immigration, religion, and studies centering Asian, Asian American, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern students and peoples, among others. We are committed to pursuing this conversation by working in partnership with the Program Committee to ensure equitable access and representation of the various topics Division A members’ research and the diverse communities we engage in.
- “The second session was extremely valuable. Putting together the timeline on Padlet showed a concrete, and extremely strong way that critical reflexivity can occur. It is something that I can readily do with faculty and staff at the middle school I work at and with undergrad students in the diversity course that I adjunct.”
- “In my dissertation research I will be working with principals and teacher leaders to support more critical approaches to elementary science education and we might get this book for them to support the critical self-reflection needed to better see white normativity, especially in fields seen as ‘traditionally objective’ like science and to think about how to expand the work beyond their leadership team.”
- “I love the authenticity. The reflections are great. I will use it in principal prep courses and the Ed.D. program. I will also write a glowing book review to be included in the school leadership review journal—hopefully other professors of Ed Ad will adopt.”
Finally, we are excited to welcome four new members of our EIA Committee this year: Dr. Bryan Duarte, Dr. Kendra Lowery, Dr. Maritza Lozano, and Dr. Courtney Mauldin. Each of these new members brings critical insights, experience, and leadership to our committee. We look forward to working with them and the members of the EIA committee who will be entering their second year: Dr. Joshua Bornstein, Dr. Catherine O’Brien, Dr. James Martinez, and Doctoral Candidate Tanishia Williams.
Thank you for your commitment to Division A,
Katherine Rodela (chair) and Karen Ramlackhan (co-chair)
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