The Division A Equity, Inclusion & Action (EIA) Committee has been busy planning for AERA 2022 and engaging in two critical initiatives focused on equity, inclusion, and social justice: (1) Literature in Action professional learning series, and (2) the revision of the Equity Audit of the Division A Program.
Our EIA Committee will be featuring our 2nd Literature in Action (LIA), in the Spring of 2022. Specifically, this upcoming event will be focused on mentorship for early career scholars of color who are current faculty members in academia. We will be sharing the Call for Proposals in January for authors of recent books that center race and racism within research, practice, and policy on leadership for social justice. Author(s) of the book chosen for LIA will be asked to consider how learning sessions will include mentoring of early career scholars of color to build capacity for critical racial justice-oriented work. Special thank you to Division A VP Dr. Mariela Rodriguez for her full support in continuing this important professional development opportunity for our division members!
Our second major initiative this year is work on revising the Equity Audit Process that Division A uses to examine equity-focused topics in our AERA program sessions. Historically, the process required that Section Chairs from the Program Planning Committee examine and code each paper and symposia for specific equity topics. These topics include: Race, Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Religion, Disability, Language, Geographic Diversity, Immigrant/refugee, Diversity/equity methods or other, Diversity/equity framework, and General equity/equality. After this process, the EIA Chair would examine the codings, summarize these results and provide a report at the Division A Business meeting at AERA. Over time and particularly between 2016-2021, several patterns have emerged from these analyses:
Our EIA Committee will be featuring our 2nd Literature in Action (LIA), in the Spring of 2022. Specifically, this upcoming event will be focused on mentorship for early career scholars of color who are current faculty members in academia. We will be sharing the Call for Proposals in January for authors of recent books that center race and racism within research, practice, and policy on leadership for social justice. Author(s) of the book chosen for LIA will be asked to consider how learning sessions will include mentoring of early career scholars of color to build capacity for critical racial justice-oriented work. Special thank you to Division A VP Dr. Mariela Rodriguez for her full support in continuing this important professional development opportunity for our division members!
Our second major initiative this year is work on revising the Equity Audit Process that Division A uses to examine equity-focused topics in our AERA program sessions. Historically, the process required that Section Chairs from the Program Planning Committee examine and code each paper and symposia for specific equity topics. These topics include: Race, Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Religion, Disability, Language, Geographic Diversity, Immigrant/refugee, Diversity/equity methods or other, Diversity/equity framework, and General equity/equality. After this process, the EIA Chair would examine the codings, summarize these results and provide a report at the Division A Business meeting at AERA. Over time and particularly between 2016-2021, several patterns have emerged from these analyses:
- Between 40-60% of accepted Division A papers and symposia have some connection to “equity” between 2016 and 2021.
- The EIA topic areas from 2016-2021 with the most representation in accepted Division A papers are: race, general equity/equality, geographic diversity, and diversity/equity in theoretical frameworks.
- The EIA topic areas with the least representation in accepted Division A papers include: religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, and immigrant/refugee issues.
- Race and representation: Several patterns have emerged in terms of representation of diverse racial groups and experiences of racism. A majority of papers and symposia discuss “People of Color” broadly. When particular racial or ethnic groups are mentioned, we see most scholarship focused on Black, African American, and Latinx/o/a (Hispanic) students and communities. There are fewer papers and in some years none that center the experiences of Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous communities.
- Counting geographic diversity as an “equity topic”: Currently, geographic diversity can be coded if a paper mentions a specific geographic context, including rural, suburban, urban, and international contexts. How is this category understood and defined?
- Growth of “general equity/equality” papers: A growing trend is the number of accepted papers that adopt a “general equity/equality” focus. This means that the paper could get counted as an “equity paper” by having mentioned the term “equity” or discussing reform or improvement for equity. What does “general equity/equality” mean within the process? Are we seeing this trend as a result of the specific AERA conference theme for a given year? Does this trend reflect the growing cachet of equity work? Does it reflect commitment to addressing educational inequities related to systemic racism, classism, heteronormativity, ableism and other forms of oppression?
RSS Feed