2026 Fall Retreat and Annual Meeting

Clarifying Pathways between Ethnic Studies and Student Outcomes: The Mediating Roles of Critical Consciousness and Ethnic-Racial Identity
Andres Pinedo, Vanderbilt University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Students enrolled in ethnic studies earn higher grades, graduate from high school at higher rates, and are more likely to attend college compared to their non-enrolled peers. However, less is known about the changes in the beliefs or competencies of ethnic studies students that lead to these beneficial outcomes. A core competency that ethnic studies aims to equip students with is critical consciousness (CC), a critical analysis of social inequality as well as motivation and action to challenge inequality. In addition to CC, ethnic studies promotes healthy ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development by counteracting deficit views about people of color. However, while ethnic studies is theorized to contribute to CC and ERI, little research has empirically examined its association with these competencies. Opportunely, leaders in California Ethnic Studies are interested in assessing how ethnic studies promotes beneficial outcomes (i.e., mediating processes) and, importantly, how community-level factors strengthen or undermine these relationships. Consequently, this multi-site longitudinal survey study in geographically diverse California school districts aims to elucidate whether youth develop CC and ERI within ethnic studies and whether these factors mediate the link between ethnic studies and student outcomes, while attending to contextual moderators. Overall, this study seeks to clarify the interplay between ethnic studies curricula and community opportunity structures (e.g., youth activist organizations) in shaping the developmental trajectories of youth, thereby providing key stakeholders with insights on how to best support students' healthy development through ethnic studies and its connections to the community.

Trajectories of Black and Latinx Adolescents' Ethnic-Racial Identity and Critical Consciousness Development within STEM Contexts: A Mixed Methods Study
Channing Mathews, University of Virginia (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

The current study proposes a mixed methods longitudinal data collection (annual surveys and in-depth interviews) to investigate the school-based experiences of Black and Latinx youth. Specifically, this work examines how these youth draw upon ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness development to persist in STEM contexts. Leveraging secondary, cross-sectional data (Promoting Equitable and Inclusive STEM Contexts in High School, NSF 2020), alongside longitudinal data collection, this project will extend developmental literature by empirically validating an integrative model of ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness development (Mathews et al., 2020). This work elucidates how these cultural assets work together to support Black and Latinx youth to pursue STEM pathways prior to college matriculation. Further, this work investigates the role of racialized context (i.e., experiences of discrimination and school racial climate) at the start and overall change in ethnic-racial identity and critical consciousness development over time. This work also underscores the role of both institutional and individual factors in the positive development of Black and Latinx youth who have been historically marginalized in STEM spaces. These findings will support my research goals to inform secondary school interventions aimed to foster Black and Latinx youth's interest and overall persistence across STEM pathways.

Investigating Latinx Youths’ Anti-Racist Identity and Anti-Racism Action Using a Mixed-Method, Youth-Engaged Research Approach
Josefina Bañales, University of Illinois Chicago (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Youths' critical consciousness development, or the ability to critique and challenge oppression, is a developmental capacity that supports the wellbeing of youth, communities, and society (Watts et al., 2011). An anti-racist identity is a culturally-specific form of critical consciousness that involves Latinx youths' ability to reflect on how they see themselves as racialized beings and to situate these experiences within a context of structural racism (Bañales & Rivas-Drake, 2023). Despite the benefits of critical consciousness (Heberle et al., 2020), there are attacks to abolish youths' access to opportunities that increase awareness of and action against oppression, particularly in schools (Sawchuk, 2021). There is promise in developing educational interventions that promote youth critical consciousness in out-of-school-time spaces (Palmer et al., 2024), particularly contexts rooted in theoretical and empirical research on Latinx youths' unique racialized and sociopolitical experiences in the U.S. Thus, the current applied work engages in mixed-method, youth-engaged research to investigate how an anti-racist identity manifests and how an anti-racist identity promotes involvement in actions that challenge racism among Latinx youth (14-17 years-old) across the U.S. Findings from this research will inform the development of materials that undergird an out-of-school-time intervention that promotes Latinx youths' anti-racist identity and anti-racism action.

DISCUSSANT

Tabbye Chavous, American Educational Research Association

A Litany for Survival: Un-hushing Oral Histories and Lessons from Black Educators
Marlee Bunch, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

This project centers the histories of Black educators whose work shaped classrooms and communities during one of the most pivotal eras in American history. Inspired by my grandmother—one of the first Black women asked to desegregate schools in Hattiesburg, Mississippi—I seek to honor and document the often-overlooked contributions of educators like her. Through oral histories with past and contemporary teachers, this study examines how Black educators cultivated culturally responsive, liberatory classrooms while navigating systemic inequity and preparing students for both citizenship and survival. Building on my doctoral research and 18 years in education, this work expands the historical record and makes these narratives accessible to teachers, scholars, and communities. At a moment when history and culture are increasingly at risk in schools, this project advocates for preserving marginalized histories and offers a timely corrective, reminding us how education can be a vehicle for justice and healing. By connecting the past to contemporary educational challenges, this book, A Litany for Survival, intervenes in ongoing debates over curriculum, equity, and whose stories are deemed worthy of remembrance. It urges educators to reclaim oral history and storytelling as radical, culturally sustaining practices. A unique feature of this project includes QR codes that allow readers to scan and hear participants' voices alongside their stories. In doing so, this work not only contributes to the historiography of Black education but also equips educators committed to teaching history honestly and honoring the full humanity of their students. Artwork by Kevin Demery, audio recordings by Kennedy Vincent.

Education for the Revolution: The Legacy of the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School
Robert Robinson, Graduate Center, City University of New York (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

This Spencer project chronicles the Black Panthers' Oakland Community School and its extension of the Black radical tradition in education. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) has occupied much of the broad discourse on Black Power activism in the United States. Many of the lay conversations about the BPP evoke images of men with guns and berets. However, the growing scholarship on Black Power and BPP texts situate the Party within the gender, economic, educational, and political struggles in the Black Bay Area, the nation, and Third World movement discourse. In the area of education, a number of works have discussed the Party's programs for children, and a smaller number focus on its flagship school: The Oakland Community School (OCS). As the final iteration of the Panthers' full-time day school that operated from 1970-1982, the OCS has allowed researchers to view the relationship between ideology, political practice, and educational praxis. Drawing from widely-cited archives, rarely-cited archives, author-conducted oral history interviews, recorded panel discussions, periodicals, and secondary source material, the study extends the OCS narrative by tracing its curricular trajectory and highlighting the voices of students, parents, and staff. As the first full-length book of the school, Stealin' the Meetin' traces the roots of the OCS to the history of Black self-determination and Black education in the U.S., positioning the school in the long tradition of education for liberation that critical educators still draw from today.

Punishing Promise: School Discipline and Carceral Expansion during the Era of Desegregation
Matthew Kautz, Eastern Michigan University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

In 1985, reformers declared the nation's major cities were confronting a "dropout crisis." They expressed concern that this crisis drove the nation's rising incarceration rates. "In some states," wrote one reporter, "fully 70 percent of the prison inmate population consists of former dropouts." The reporter's twinning of dropout and incarceration rates turned on the common but unfounded presumption that students dropped out of school due to their own academic failings and a related predisposition to crime. This manipulation of correlation into causation became a political hammer that policymakers used to affix criminal identities to young people, in particular low income and youth of color, through school-based criminalization. Their focus on individual failure as an explanation for what was instead the product of political, social, and economic changes over the previous three decades obscured the increasingly intimate connection that bound together schools, police, and prisons. Punishing Promise uses Boston as a case study to examine how white resistance to school desegregation led to the mobilization of schools' carceral capacities in newly intense ways and how those changes shaped and were shaped by similar changes in law enforcement. Using a variety of state archives and activist collections, it contextualizes these policies and practices within the city's transition to a service-based economy to illuminate how schools moved to the forefront in the nation's carceral landscape as powerful institutions of criminalization and punishment that forged the material and ideological conditions out of which mass incarceration grew.

DISCUSSANT

Russell Rickford, Cornell University

Enacting Critical Conversations on Racial, Linguistic, and Anti-Immigrant Injustice: Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Discourse in Education
Chris Chang-Bacon, University of Virginia (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

In times of sustained racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-oppressive pedagogies remain an educational imperative. Yet waves of recent legislation, including bans on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, create a fraught environment for teachers to engage in this necessary work. Research shows that critical conversations with coworkers are a powerful means for teachers to engage in anti-oppressive work, particularly in politically charged policy environments. However, little is known about how teachers actually engage in these conversations, which are difficult to observe systematically in spontaneous, real-world settings. Therefore, this study will document the discursive mechanisms of critical conversations while also investigating the affordances and limitations of virtual simulation for anti-oppressive work. Participants will engage in virtual scenarios wherein colleagues articulate biases toward students. Employing discourse analysis, this study will identify specific strategies participants use to engage in (or avoid) these conversations, ultimately leading to a framework of justice-avoidance/engagement to better facilitate anti-oppressive work in education. As simulation becomes increasingly common in teacher education, this study will document the potential of these platforms for anti-oppressive work, offering new theories and avenues for engaging teachers in disrupting systemic inequities, while also maintaining teachers' professional safety in an increasingly fraught policy context.

Attending to Mathematical Ingenuity to Nourish, Empower, and Sustain Elementary Mathematics Teachers
Mallika Scott, California State University, Fullerton (EMERG Scholar)

The current sociopolitical climate presents ongoing tensions and contradictions for teachers who are committed to fostering robust mathematical learning that builds on the resources each child brings to mathematics. Teachers may encounter a variety of emotionally taxing situations, from the continued prevalence of deficit discourse toward children from minoritized communities to recent incursions into public education from school boards seeking to constrain teacher autonomy. This project focuses on the design and study of collaborative forms of support that can nourish, empower, and sustain elementary teachers in their commitments to ambitious and equitable mathematics teaching as they navigate fraught political contexts. In the proposed study, I will work with a group of practicing elementary teachers to co-design supports that help teachers stay connected to the brilliance of children and the joys of mathematics teaching through a focus on human ingenuity. Collaborative supports will be co-constructed with teachers and may include facilitating community math nights that celebrate expansive displays of mathematical ingenuity, working on math tasks together to connect with children in the human experience of mathematical learning, and leading workshops for pre-service and practicing teachers about ambitious and equitable mathematics teaching. This project aims to strengthen the local TK-8 justice-oriented math education community and to contribute to our understandings of how to support teachers in their mathematics teaching practice while also attending to their spirits.

DISCUSSANT

Megan Franke, University of California, Los Angeles

“We're not represented well": Visibilizing invisibility through data science
Richard Velasco, University of Florida (EMERG Scholar)

There has been a concerted effort to enhance K-12 students' comprehension of data concepts, and with data now integral to society, it is imperative to equip secondary school students with the knowledge and skills to navigate this data-driven era effectively. Despite the goal of "data science for all," underrepresentation in data science is a pressing concern, with no specific data for Pacific Islanders (PIs). This stark underrepresentation extends to PI communities in Micronesia, depriving the field of valuable insights into island sustainability and Indigenous knowledge systems. The mismatch between curricula in Micronesia's public schools, rooted in Eurocentric ideologies, and the cultural identities of Micronesian students further hampers their engagement with data science. Using Indigenous methodologies grounded in the CHamoru values of Inafa'maolek, the Indigenous MINDS project aims to address these issues by collaborating with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Micronesian educators and scholars in Guåhan and Saipan. Its primary objectives are to co-develop culturally relevant data science curriculum and pilot secondary-level modules tailored to the unique cultural context of these U.S. territories. By integrating culturally relevant data, the project seeks to enhance student engagement in data science, foster cultural competence in participants, and address social injustices prevalent to the Pacific region. The Indigenous MINDS project further contributes to bridging the gap in data science education, promoting diversity, and offering a culturally sensitive approach to data science for Indigenous Micronesian communities. Through collaboration and culturally relevant data integration, this project endeavors to make data science accessible and meaningful to a broader student population.

Exploring the Intersections of Culture, Collaboration, and Mathematical Arguments
Salvador Huitzilopochtli, San Jose State University (EMERG Scholar)

This study uses the Learning by Observing and Pitching In to Family and Community Endeavors (LOPI) framework to shape teacher professional development (PD) and classroom activities so that middle-grades students hone their mathematical justifying practice while engaging mathematical arguments. Historically, students from underrepresented and minoritized (URM) communities have had less access to robust mathematics education. In particular, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students have been plagued by racial animus, segregation, deficit framings, and mathematics courses that serve as ?gatekeepers.? This comparative case study uses LOPI to frame the organization and resulting products of a teacher professional development series in which teachers plan and enact classroom activities. LOPI describes how learning activities are organized in heritage Indigenous communities from North America and presumes students have autonomy and agency as they participate in community endeavors by intent observation and pitching in. I will analyze the activities generated by the teachers to examine their alignment with the LOPI facets and interview teachers to understand their beliefs about student participation and agency. I will examine the classroom activities to characterize the participation and arguments students generated in class and then examine how they revise those arguments when given the opportunity using Harel & Sowder?s (1998) proof schemes framework. This study contributes to mathematics education research in two ways. First, by expanding possibilities for participation in mathematical activity and discussions through classroom reorganization. Secondly, by inviting teachers and students into a world organized with decolonial approaches to shape mathematical activity.

Thriving in Fogaraté: Engineering Ingenuity in Haitian-Dominican Communities
Greses Pérez, Tufts University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Engineers, as agents of change, are responsible for safeguarding communities by designing, building and maintaining both natural and built environments –balancing technical expertise with social responsibility. Yet, mainstream understandings of engineering practice often overlook the experiences and contributions of multilingual and multidialectal communities. This project draws on theories from applied linguistics and learning sciences to expand Thriving in Fogaraté, a conceptual model that illustrates how Haitian-Dominicans, despite histories of marginalization and erasure, have cultivated a culture of engineering ingenuity by integrating technical knowledge with community practices across generations. Using a mixed-methods convergent parallel design, this project combines grounded theory and within-group analyses of fieldnotes, participant observations, surveys, and semi-structured interviews with community members. The project examines (a) the engineering-related practices through which Haitian-Dominican communities enact social transformation using their multilingual and multidialectal repertoires; (b) community perceptions linking language practices and cultural understandings to engineering learning; and (c) the features in the bateyes –under-resourced plantation towns– as learning environments, that afford learning opportunities in engineering. This work has implications for research in engineering education, the design of multilingual/multidialectal learning environments and the advancement of educational opportunities for multilingual and multidialectal communities.

DISCUSSANT

Angela Calabrese Barton, University of Michigan

Speaking Mathematically? Towards Conceptualization of A Black Language-Informed Mathematics Discourse
Nickolaus Ortiz, Georgia State University (EMERG Scholar)

This project will devote major energies to planning and producing a documentary focused on the way some Black people (high-school aged youth and beyond) explain their mathematical thinking, processing, and solution strategies, giving an explicit focus to a sociolinguistic analysis guided by Baker-Bell?s description of the features of Black Language (2021). Findings will highlight relevant examples of the syntax, semantics, phonology, and rhetorical features evidenced in participant responses. Analyses will examine participants? explanations for evidence of procedural or conceptual knowledge of the topics. Ultimately, it is not my intention to show that BL is a mutually unintelligible language, but to show that there is a style, a cadence, a joy and a resistance that is embodied in the familiarity of our linguistic practices, all of which have room in the mathematics space. I intend to show that some of these signifying, proverbial uses, and narrative styles (Lee, 1995) might be captured in the ways the participants explain mathematics concepts. Tangentially, I hope to construct findings that share mathematics educators and practitioners? positions towards these Black people?s understandings of the topics. Findings will convey whether the dispositions that they have towards BL speakers? mathematical prowess, as evident in their discussions of the topics, are generally favorable. My findings will help to prepare other teachers to listen to the substance that is in students? responses, and will help to support them in rethinking the ways that they might dismiss or try to supplant Black youth?s linguistic practices, and towards what end.

Centering “Los de Español”: Professional Learning, Identity, and Mathematics in Dual Language Education
Mariana Alvidrez, New Mexico State University (EMERG Scholar)

This project addresses the prevalent deficit discourses surrounding Latino/a/e students in mathematics education, particularly on the U.S.-Mexico border. These discourses wrongly assert that Latino/a/e students who do not speak English or engage in code-switching and translanguaging practices are mathematically incompetent. This project is centered on designing professional development (PD) that partners with Latino/a/e teachers as co-designers and co-researchers. This PD aims to support in-service teachers in developing critical consciousness, enabling them to recognize and resist deficit discourses and acknowledge the rich cultural and linguistic backgrounds of their Latino/a/e students, and more specifically of their English language learners (ELLs). The project emphasizes the need for reframing the role of errors in mathematical learning, which is essential in fostering students' sense of agency, positive identities, and understanding of complex mathematical concepts. It argues against unproductive perceptions of mistakes as signs of incompetence, advocating instead for productive framing of errors as valuable learning resources. This approach is crucial for supporting ELLs?who are often viewed from a deficit perspective because of their difficulties in producing answers correctly and quickly?to develop their sense of belonging and competence in the mathematics classroom. Alvidrez's research methodology combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, focusing on the lived experiences of Latino/a/e teachers and the systemic barriers they face in mathematics education. This project seeks to promote inclusive and equitable learning environments that value and leverage the cultural and linguistic assets of Latino/a/e students in the U.S.-Mexico border region.

DISCUSSANT

Judit Moschkovich, University of California, Santa Cruz

Making History: Origins and Gender of Uganda's Contested Discipline
Caitlin Monroe, University of Northern Colorado (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Conversations about history education often provoke controversy, whether in American debates about the 1619 project or in Indian conflicts about teaching about an Islamic Mughal past. At the heart of these debates lay fundamental issues relevant to educators and citizens alike: who should get to tell history – and which history should they tell? This project investigates these questions in western Uganda, examining how changing notions of historical expertise shaped history education both in and outside formal classrooms. In the 19th and 20th centuries, state-building and colonial education efforts narrowed a previously expansive practice of history education, marginalizing women's historical knowledge. The consequences of this process are evident today: history education in Uganda overwhelmingly focuses on male political authority and foreign researchers are often told by interlocutors that women "don't know history." Extant Africanist intellectual history scholarship has thus shown male intellectuals using history to articulate ethnic identity or partisan zeal, while women's knowledge that contributed to community identity or navigating crisis is largely absent from this scholarship. Drawing on musical performances, oral histories, and archival documents, this book project reintegrates African women's knowledge into accounts of imperial and educational encounters and explores the creation (and risks) of a narrow disciplinary understanding of the past.

Contestations for Nigerian History Education in Primary and Secondary Schools: from Colonialism to Neocolonialism
R. Nanre Nafziger, McGill University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

History education is a primary tool for the politicization and engendering of civic values and identity among young people. The negation of Black and African history has been used as a tool to undermine Black struggles in Africa and her diasporas. As such, struggles against globalized anti-Black racism, colonialism, neocolonialism and empire and towards emancipation and liberation have also been struggles for the teaching and learning of Black history. This study will examine the social, political, economic and cultural contestations for history education in Nigeria over 100 years from colonialism through independence (1888 — 2018). Through the Spencer Fellowship, I will develop the manuscript of my first monograph: "In Service of Empire: Contestations for Nigerian History Education in Primary and Secondary Schools from Colonialism to Neocolonialism". In Service of Empire will be the first full length monograph that analyzes history and social studies curriculum development in Nigeria. It provides important insights into the politics of the policies and practices of postcolonial education policies in Africa and makes significant contributions to the expansion of global critical race theory and decolonial theory into current education debates and the future of pan-African curriculum globally.

Educating Palestine: UNRWA and the Politics of International Education, 1948-2000
Jo Kelcey, Lebanese American University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Since 1950 multiple generations of stateless Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank have depended on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for their education. As a UN agency UNRWA follows international norms and positions its education program as apolitical. Yet as recent attacks on the agency have made clear, the context it operates in is anything but. This book project examines the factors that shaped UNRWA's education assistance between 1964 and 2004, a tumultuous period of Palestinians' struggle for self-determination. I use archival research to examine the interests and power dynamics that informed UNRWA's educational decision making and oral histories with retired Palestinian teachers to understand how these decisions were transformed and enacted in classrooms. By foregrounding the complexities and contradictions inherent in UNRWA's education assistance this project sheds much needed light on UNRWA's expansive and longstanding education program at a time of unprecedented threat to the agency and the Palestinians it serves. The scale, scope and longevity of UNRWA's program in a region beset by conflict also makes this history extremely valuable for understanding the possibilities and limitations of international education assistance in conflict-affected societies more broadly. In particular this case reveals how international education assistance is often entwined with political interests that may advance the very injustices it purports to address.

DISCUSSANT

James Banks, University of Washington

"I Do This": Toward a Theory of Black Multimodal Language and Production
Autumn Griffin, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Schools across the U.S. face several pressing crises, including academic disengagement and inequitable disciplinary practices that disproportionately impact Black youth. While research shows that student-led initiatives can improve school climate and engagement, the voices of Black girls remain significantly underrepresented. This is particularly troubling given their disproportionate rates of school exclusion, restricted access to advanced coursework, and differential treatment in areas such as dress code enforcement. Too often, Black girls are rendered invisible in curricula and adultified by teachers. Their perspectives are urgently needed to inform inclusive policies and practices that foster more supportive and equitable school environments. To understand how Black girls can contribute to school change, we must attend to the diverse ways they express their visions, especially through non-traditional and digital modes. Standard engagement strategies often overlook the lived experiences and meaning-making practices, missing how Black girls leverage technology to challenge marginalization and (re)imagine alternative educational futures. Thus, this qualitative study explores how Black girls use digital meaning-making practices to advocate for more just schooling. It is guided by two research questions: (1) How do Black girls envision and digitally represent desired changes in their schools? and (2) In what ways can their digital meaning-making processes contribute to more equitable educational environments? By illuminating the voices and visions of Black girls, I aim to provide insights for educators, policymakers, and researchers committed to cultivating school spaces where Black girls are fully seen, heard, and able to thrive.

Geographies of Student Motherhood: Departures, Dis/locations and Priority shifts in/from Education among School-aged Mothers at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi
Pempho Chinkondenji, University of North Dakota (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Forced displacement often disrupts access to essential resources, and for girls living in refugee camps, limited reproductive health services and heightened exposure to gendered vulnerabilities can increase the risk of adolescent pregnancy. Unfortunately, adolescent refugee girls who are pregnant or parenting during their school years often navigate layered forms of exclusion, including social stigma within camps and unwelcoming school environments. This study critically examines how African refugee girls at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi navigate the intersecting experiences of schooling, adolescent pregnancy, and motherhood within conditions of encampment. By employing a visual critical ethnography that draws from Afrocentric perspectives, the study centers on the voices and perspectives of these young women, highlighting their resilience, agency, and the complexities of their educational journeys. In this study, I blend participatory-social justice methods and ethnographic modes of inquiry by bringing together photovoice and critical ethnography. This approach enables pregnant and mothering refugee girls to actively document and share their experiences in ways that disrupt the status quo and facilitate social change. The findings contribute to the global discourse on inclusive education by challenging dominant practices that perpetuate the pushout of pregnant and mothering refugee girls from school. Methodologically, the study offers educational researchers a framework for centering refugee girls' voices and agency to understand the complexities of girls' education in international contexts.

Drawing Out Fungal Feminisms: An Arts Pedagogy for Mycorrhizal Care
Xalli Zúñiga, Independent Scholar (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

This project proposes a transdisciplinary, arts-based inquiry into the planetary care crisis, grounded in ecofeminist, ecosocialist, and decolonial frameworks from the Global South. Central to this investigation is the concept of biosocial metabolism — the interdependent regulation of life processes across human and more-than-human systems. Fungi, particularly mycorrhizal fungi, are exemplary metabolic agents: they enable multispecies cooperation, sustain ecological cycles, and regenerate degraded environments. Drawing from these life-sustaining capacities, the project develops the concept of fungal feminisms — a framework for understanding how collaborative engagements between fungi and human communities can support more caring, peaceful, and ecologically attuned forms of existence, while advancing feminist critiques of domination. Through drawing-based encounters with Indigenous mushroom foragers from several communities in central Mexico, the study develops a method called drawing out, in which dialogic visual practices trace the affective, ecological, and epistemic labor of women whose knowledge is systematically marginalized under extractivist regimes. This practice reimagines self-care not as individualistic, but as relational, interdependent, and ecologically embedded. By linking participants' lived experiences to theories of metabolic rift and social reproduction, the research proposes mycorrhizal care as a critical and generative response to capitalist and colonial modes of social organization. Ultimately, the project contributes to the emerging field of feminist visual ethnomycology by mobilizing the overlooked intelligence of fungi and feminized labor to challenge extractive logics and foster pedagogical tools that promote biosocial awareness, multispecies solidarity, and ecosocial transformation.

DISCUSSANT

Dolores Delgado Bernal, Loyola Marymount University

Estimating Distributions and Ranks of Cluster-Specific Effect Parameters: New Bayesian Tools for Value-Added Modeling
JoonHo Lee, University of Alabama (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Education policymakers and researchers often rely on standard random-effects models and empirical Bayes shrinkage to measure the effectiveness of schools or teachers. However, these methods can be misaligned with specific inferential goals — such as estimating the shape of effect distributions, identifying outliers, or establishing reliable ranks — particularly when effect sizes and their standard errors are correlated, or when latent parameter distributions deviate from normality. This project develops new Bayesian tools to overcome these challenges, motivated by the evaluation of value-added effects for 1,524 Alabama pre-K classrooms. First, it proposes flexible deconvolution methods that capture non-normal, precision-dependent (i.e., correlated effect sizes and standard errors) effect distributions, offering robust tail-area estimates in large-scale, noisy data. Second, it tailors posterior predictions to ranking goals, creating context-sensitive "report card" measures aligned with policymakers' loss functions (e.g., tolerance for misclassification). Third, it extends these techniques to a multivariate framework, enabling joint modeling of multiple academic and nonacademic outcomes — thereby improving precision in smaller clusters and unveiling cross-domain relationships. While grounded in the Alabama pre-K context, these methods can be widely applied to any education setting aiming to identify high- or low-performing schools, detect within-site disparities, or explore the interplay of multiple outcomes. By bridging advanced Bayesian theory with practical policy demands, this project aims to equip researchers and decision-makers with more precise, transparent, and goal-oriented tools for value-added modeling.

Early Care and Education Teacher Job Satisfaction: Patterns, Predictors, and Impacts Across Three Large-Scale Longitudinal Datasets
Qingqing Yang, Southwest University in China (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Early care and education (ECE) provides individual and societal benefits. ECE teachers are the key to realizing these benefits. This project investigates the patterns, determinants, and developmental consequences of ECE teacher job satisfaction (TJS). The project investigates three primary research questions through analyses of three complementary, large-scale longitudinal datasets using rigorous quantitative methods including extensive covariate controls and fixed-effects modeling. First, how does TJS vary across classrooms and programs, and how has TJS changed before and after the COVID-19 pandemic? Second, what personal and environmental factors uniquely and interactively account for variations in TJS? Third, does TJS predict children's academic achievement, sociobehavioral skills, and executive functioning? The project will provide generalizable and holistic knowledge of TJS patterns across the ECE workforce. The project will also identify specific predictors at the teacher, classroom, and school levels including demographic congruence among teachers, classroom composition, and leadership dynamics. Doing so should result in actionable findings that improve working conditions and retention, particularly through a better understanding of the high turnover among teachers of color. The project will clarify which child groups are most affected by TJS, thereby promoting evidence-based policies and practices that deliver targeted supports fostering school readiness among vulnerable populations.

DISCUSSANT

David Kaplan, University of Wisconsin–Madison

The assigned room is where we encourage you to meet; however, you are also welcome to conduct your mentoring session off-site.

Grantees who presented in a Forum today will meet their discussant in East Court.

The Spencer Foundation invites attendees/awardees to a facilitated listening session on the current state of the education environment. As funding becomes harder to secure and federal and state policies continue to shift, we want to hear directly from you: how these changes are affecting your work, your institutions, and the communities you serve, and what kinds of support would be most valuable going forward. Your perspectives will help inform how the Foundation understands and responds to the needs of the field. All attendees are encouraged to share openly and engage in conversation with one another.

Not participating in one of the other sessions? You are welcome to take a break during this time.

Unlocking Student Engagement: Harnessing New Technologies to Enhance Relationships and Learning
Carly Robinson, Stanford University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Engagement drives learning. Yet, a troubling cycle of waning student engagement and widening achievement gaps is taking hold in the U.S. education system—each amplifying the other in a downward spiral. As schools seek solutions, technological innovations like generative AI (genAI) hold immense potential to revolutionize the learning experience by promoting creative, real-world learning opportunities. However, genuine engagement is built on meaningful relationships, and AI is inherently not social. In my research, I explore how we can harness the potential of AI to enhance—rather than replace—the human connections essential to student success. Using virtual tutoring as a test case, I examine how genAI can support educators in building deeper, more personal relationships with students who are at risk of falling behind. Many novice educators—like tutors—lack the experience or tools to cultivate these connections effectively. This project introduces and rigorously tests an AI-powered tool, embedded within a virtual tutoring platform, to investigate how personalized strategies can empower tutors to better engage students and support learning. Through a randomized controlled trial, I explore four key questions: Does the AI-tool (1) boost student engagement, (2) enhance tutor-student relationships, (3) improve tutoring quality as measured by tutor language, and (4) positively affect student learning? By leveraging large-scale tutoring session data, this work seeks actionable, scalable strategies to foster engagement and equity—demonstrating how AI can play a supporting role in creating meaningful, student-centered learning experiences.

Beyond Correctness: Theory-Guided AI Feedback Grounded in Learning Progressions
Leonora Kaldaras, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Blended Mathematical Sensemaking in Science (MSS) involves a deep understanding of quantitative relationships and scientific meaning of equations describing phenomena. MSS is a prerequisite for science mastery. While MSS have been described for specific disciplines, my recent work has formulated and tested a cognitive theory of MSS that applies across multiple scientific fields. I showed that the theoretical framework can guide the development of instructional sequences on MSS that helped most students in introductory Chemistry and Physics classrooms transition to higher proficiency levels. This scaffolding, paired with interactive PhET simulations that support this instructional approach, afforded essentially autonomous learning without the need for student-instructor interaction. This provides an attractive way to help learners develop MSS skills. Further, the framework has proven effective with a population of community college students from backgrounds historically marginalized in STEM across US because it provides for autonomous learning activities that meet the differing needs of individual learners. In the current study I am proposing to enhance the self-guided MSS learning activities I have shown to be effective for fostering MSS with generative AI (GAI) chatbot capable of providing immediate, tailored, and interactive MSS feedback to individual learners. I believe that this will further improve the effectiveness of self-guided learning activities in supporting MSS among students. This, in turn, has the potential to help improve learner success in introductory undergraduate STEM courses and improve the chances of STEM-related career outcomes among learners, ensuring success in STEM for all students.

Designing An LLM-Based Multi-Agent System for Customized Science Assessments Through Multidisciplinary Human-AI Collaboration
Tingting Li, Washington State University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Despite growing interest in generative AI, science education continues to confront two enduring challenges: the persistent difficulty teachers face in designing assessments that reflect the three-dimensional vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and the lack of tools that meaningfully respond to the linguistic and instructional realities of today's classrooms. This project examines how human — AI collaboration can be reimagined not as automation, but as a co-constructive process that honors teacher judgment, centers classroom knowledge, and supports students' scientific reasoning. Grounded in hybrid intelligence and collective sensemaking theory, the project will develop a large language models (LLMs)-based multi-agent system to support elementary teachers in designing NGSS-aligned formative assessments. The system will integrate dimensions often treated separately — disciplinary rigor, classroom context, student engagement, and language accessibility — into an interactive, teacher-guided design process. Using a design-based research approach, the study will investigate how teachers and students engage with the system, how they shape its outputs, and how this co-design process informs both instruction and learning. Rather than positioning AI as a static tool, the project conceptualizes it as a responsive partner in pedagogical dialogue — adaptable, imperfect, and shaped through iterative human input. This research will explore how such human — AI partnerships can generate usable knowledge for teachers while attending to the practical and epistemic tensions of real-world implementation. Findings will contribute to theories of "assessment as learning" and offer a novel framework for designing instructional tools that support teacher agency, student participation, and the situated integration of AI in science education.

DISCUSSANT

Roy Pea, Stanford University

Understanding the Daily Mathematical Experiences of Preschool Families
Daniela Alvarez-Vargas, Colorado State University (EMERG Scholar)

There is power in the explicit representation of cultures that have been historically erased from mathematical spaces to honor the knowledge and practices of marginalized communities. In this study I use a strengths-based approach to conduct a two-year mosaic ethnography to understand how culturally and linguistically diverse families engage in repertoires of mathematical practices. In addition, I seek to understand how these repertoires of practices shape children’s math development across the home and the classroom. The aims of this project are to (1) understand how families routinely engage in mathematical practices, (2) understand how teachers build home-to-school connections between mathematical practices in the home and in school, and (3) understand how home-to-school connections and mathematical practices are shaped across the transition from preschool to kindergarten. The broader aims of this work are to inform research focused on child development, math education, and teacher education. Across the two-years I seek to develop a mutually supportive and trusting relationship with families and teachers to collaboratively develop mathematical activities that validate families’ mathematical practices and strengthen learning by building on children’s prior knowledge. Together we will develop a collection of culturally relevant mathematics activities and practices.

Role of Oral Language in Mathematics Learning: A Study of Bilingual Latine Families and Children
Susana Beltrán-Grimm, Portland State University (EMERG Scholar)

This study will explore the intersection of mathematical language and cultural practices among U.S. Latine families with children in kindergarten. It addresses the gap in mathematics development research, which has primarily focused on the Minority World (westernized countries), neglecting the Majority World (countries with most of the world's population). The overrepresentation of World Minority participants biases knowledge, hindering generalizability to non-Western contexts (Henrich et al., 2010). Adopting a mixed-method approach within a qualitative framework, the project includes an ethnographic study complemented by the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. This approach aims to intricately map and analyze the language environments of Latine parent-child pairs. Central to this research is exploring how culturally specific language practices in bilingual Latine households shape their children's mathematics learning. It investigates the dynamics of bilingual language use and interaction patterns during math-related activities at home. To achieve a holistic understanding, the study employs ethnographic semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and LENA software, offering a rich, multi-dimensional view of these families' mathematical language and cultural practices. The expected outcomes include valuable insights into bilingual Latine families' distinctive language practices and pedagogical strategies. This will enhance our understanding of math learning in diverse cultural contexts and suggest ways to bridge the gap between mainstream and marginalized mathematical knowledge systems.

Reframing Family-School Relations: From Parents’ Involvement in Schools to Schools’ Involvement in Parenting
Kelley Fong, University of California, Irvine (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

As families and schools are primary institutions in children's lives, understanding how these domains intersect is central to promoting child development and well-being. Although considerable research has examined parental involvement in education, this provides only a partial picture. This project shifts the focus to study schools' interventions in parenting and home conditions, from offering childrearing workshops to calling child protection authorities. Educators' parenting suggestions, corrections, threats, and referrals constitute a critical yet understudied component of family-school relations, with implications for families' engagement with schools. Drawing on interviews with educators in diverse school contexts, I will develop a typology of activities schools undertake to influence parenting and examine how educators understand parenting interventions, with particular attention to inequality in the form, content, and goals of these interventions. Analyzing this "other side" of family-school relations is poised to open up new directions for scholars regarding how, why, and for whom schools reach beyond the curricular. The study also aims to inform policy and practice efforts to cultivate positive, equitable family-school relations.

DISCUSSANT

Vivian Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania

Searching for Educational Equity Through Critical Socio-Spatial Analysis
Cathery Yeh, University of Texas at Austin (EMERG Scholar)

Despite a growing focus in mathematics education to critique power, critical mathematics approaches in both elementary education and teacher education settings have rarely attended to the intersections of racism and ableism in mathematics education. Racism and ableism are often thought of as parallel systems of oppression that work separately to perpetuate social hierarchies. This perspective ignores the experiences of disabled students of color, but it also fails to examine racialized ableism - how race is pathologized through ableism to perpetuate systemic racism in mathematics education. Using Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) as a theoretical and methodological framework, the project goal is to examine and disrupt racialized ableism in mathematics education using counterstories of students and their families to develop a set of video cases that de-settle whiteness to center on children at the intersections of race and disability and their families and how they negotiate and resist notions of ?normalcy? within and beyond mathematics classrooms. The following research question shapes the project design: How do the mathematics counter-stories developed by students and families identify and disrupt ways in which racism and ableism shape learning spaces within and connected to schools? To address the project goal, the project captures the mathematics counter-stories of students of color identified with disabilities and their families through multimedia Education Journey Mapping, using mobile documentary media production with Geographic Information System (GIS), to explore the role of space, race, and ability inside and outside of classrooms and schools.

Language, Space, and Demographic Change: Examining the White Space of Dual Language Education in the U.S. Midwest
Giselle Martinez Negrette, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Demographic shifts in the United States have exposed persistent racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in education; these have spurred the creation of learning spaces, such as dual language (DL) programs, to support diverse students while also providing opportunities for integration. However, research has highlighted significant inequities in these programs. Furthermore, many DL programs have been created in locales with homogenous populations (mostly White), where people of color are usually absent or not expected (Anderson, 2015). This study is guided by three interrelated questions: How do teachers and students in a midwestern DL program perceive the space where they interact? How do their sociolinguistic perceptions, and the space where the program operates, impact their interactions? How do their interactions reflect socially constructed ideas of race, ethnicity, social class, and language? Drawing on concepts of "The White Space," spaces of multilingualism, and raciolinguistics, this qualitative study will examine how individuals perceive and co-construct DL spaces, and how spatial considerations may be implicated in the (re)production of inequities in multilingual, multiracial, multicultural learning contexts. This study will illuminate the processes that may enable or foreclose opportunities for integration and educational change, thus contributing to the elucidation of possibilities for the (re)shaping of relationships and outcomes in U.S. schools.

Models and Milieus: Race, Norms of Professionalism, and the Campus and Community Cultures that Shape Them
Alma Nidia Garza, University of Texas at Arlington (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Studies underscore that shared cultural skills between applicants and employers influence college graduates' likelihood of employment. Though university selectivity influences the type of resources available to students, how opportunities for professional development shape students' cultural skills across differentially selective universities is not clearly understood. In this study, I employ a quasi-experimental qualitative research design to examine how professional development opportunities across differentially selective universities equip Latine students of working-class backgrounds with class-based cultural skills—knowledge, behaviors and perceptions that predominate in distinct social classes. I interview 60 Mexican-origin college students who all grew up in the same burgeoning Mexican American, working-class community. I also observe a subset of students in their day-to-day campus lives. Half of the study sample attended a moderately selective university, and the remaining half attended a broad-access university. Findings position us to implement university initiatives that can best prepare students for the job market by broadening access to professional development opportunities while addressing their underlying social class and racial biases.

DISCUSSANT

Amy Stuart Wells, Bank Street Graduate School of Education

Not-so-free markets? The impact of educational privatization and marketization through school choice on attitudes towards government taxation and spending and on public finance
Mark Chin, Vanderbilt University (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Over 30 percent of families attend a K-12 school that is not their neighborhood public option, and this number continues to grow as policymakers expand "school choice" with private school vouchers and charter school authorization. Proponents argue that schools of choice can improve outcomes through competitive effects and because they have the operational flexibility to provide tailored educational experiences. But theoretically the "privatization" or "marketization" of education through school choice reforms can have negative impacts on educational outcomes and equality — by decreasing community enthusiasm for public services and the tax policies that fund them and, subsequently, by weakening the fiscal health of school districts and other municipal governments. In this proposed project, I provide the first causal evidence on how expanded school choice through vouchers and charter schools impacts individuals' attitudes towards government taxation and spending, the revenues and expenditures of districts and other governing bodies, and the downstream school operations (e.g., school closures) tied to district finance that matter for student outcomes. For analyses I create a unique dataset collating these myriad outcomes in Indiana, where in 2011, state elected officials greatly expanded school choice by implementing a new voucher program and by creating additional charter school authorizers.

The Nurseries of Democracy: Education for Citizenship and the First Amendment Rights of Young Students
Christopher Thomas, University of Florida (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Are public schools the "nurseries of democracy," or do they teach "lessons in censorship" (Ross, 2015)? This project examines the First Amendment rights of young students in public elementary schools, an overlooked and underexplored topic in education and legal scholarship. Despite the Supreme Court's affirmation that students retain constitutional rights within schools, courts often uncritically presume that these rights do not extend to young children. This interdisciplinary project seeks to clarify how age and the educational context impact young students' First Amendment rights, putting judicial opinions into dialogue with legal theory, developmental psychology, and educational philosophy. Employing a "holistic analysis" (Warnick & Thomas, 2023), this study engages in a dialogic examination of judicial opinions on young students' speech rights and places those opinions within broader educational and developmental theories and research. By bridging these perspectives, the project provides a comprehensive understanding of young students' First Amendment rights, fostering a school environment that aligns with the democratic values foundational to U.S. public education. By deepening our understanding of the free speech rights of young students, this project seeks to inform both courts and educational practice, ensuring that elementary schools are truly "nurseries of democracy."

Targeting Foundational Skills at Scale: Skill Specificity and Transfer
Andreas de Barros, University of California, Irvine (NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow)

Differentiated instruction is a promising approach to tackle the low learning levels that plague many developing countries. However, little is known about how to promote this strategy at scale and maintain its effectiveness in government-run schools that serve students in high-poverty, low-resource settings. This cluster-randomized trial measures the impact of the "Teaching at the Right Level" program on foundational literacy and mathematics skills in Zambia's public primary schools. In the program, teachers group children based on their learning needs and pace and provide tailored remedial instruction during additional classes. The study also investigates the effectiveness of combining the program with a continuous professional development initiative for teachers, building on an earlier mixed-methods study co-developed within the same research-practice partnership. This study directly informs a national program run by the Zambian government and guides other policymakers and educators who have adopted the program in other developing countries. More broadly, the study offers causal evidence on the importance of teachers in sustaining the effectiveness of highly promising education interventions at scale.

DISCUSSANT

Katharine Strunk, University of Pennsylvania

This plenary will bring together leaders whose experiences demonstrate effective uses of research as well as provide important lessons for how NAEd members and fellows can better consider how to move from knowledge analysis and synthesis to knowledge mobilization. They will share their personal experiences working with researchers to achieve results in their respective arenas and provide advice to the NAEd community on strategies for successful knowledge mobilization. Members and fellows will leave with a greater understanding of how to effectively work with partners to ensure their research is relevant and useful for intended audiences.

Moderator: Elizabeth Rich, Assistant Managing Editor, Opinion, Education Week

Panelists:

• Kara Finnigan, Associate Dean for Faculty and Student Development, University of Michigan
• Ray Hart, Executive Director, Council of the Great City Schools
• Kimberly Jenkins Robinson, Director, Education Rights Institute, University of Virginia
• Ruth López Turley, Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University

The assigned room is where we encourage you to meet; however, you are also welcome to conduct your mentoring session off-site.

Grantees who presented in a Forum today will meet their discussant in East Court.

The Spencer Foundation invites attendees/awardees to a facilitated listening session on the current state of the education environment. As funding becomes harder to secure and federal and state policies continue to shift, we want to hear directly from you: how these changes are affecting your work, your institutions, and the communities you serve, and what kinds of support would be most valuable going forward. Your perspectives will help inform how the Foundation understands and responds to the needs of the field. All attendees are encouraged to share openly and engage in conversation with one another.

Not participating in one of the other sessions? You are welcome to take a break during this time.

The "Navigating the Job Market" workshop will focus on practical strategies for securing academic positions in the field of education and non-academic opportunities. Panelists will provide invaluable guidance to attendees as they develop competitive job application materials, understand market dynamics, and position themselves for success.

The workshop will explore:

• Job application letter(s)
• Curriculum vitae(s)
• Recommendation letter(s)
• Job talk examples
• Questions to ask of interviewers and during a campus visit
• Resources and suggestions for non-academic positions

This format will allow participants to engage actionably with the materials and strategies shared to assist in their career development.

Panelists:

• Avery Davis, Chief of Staff, University Development and Alumni Relations, New York University
• Kristine Jan Cruz Espinoza, Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the School of Education, University of California, Davis

The "Navigating Tenure and Promotion" workshop will focus on understanding and successfully managing the tenure-track process and promotion pathways in higher education. Panelists will provide essential guidance to attendees on institutional expectations, building strategic portfolios, and developing sustainable research and service trajectories.

The workshop will explore:

• Tenure portfolio organization templates and examples
• Research productivity planning tools and timelines
• Service opportunity evaluation frameworks
• Teaching documentation strategies
• External review processes and networking guides
• Identifying and connecting with mentors
• Developing and managing effective collaborations
• Securing and using internal and external funding
• Work-life balance and time management systems
• Institutional culture assessment tools
• Promotion timeline checklists and milestone trackers

This format will allow participants to engage actionably with the materials and strategies shared to assist in their career development.

Panelists:

• Monisha Bajaj, Professor and Chair of International and Multicultural Education, University of San Francisco
• Charles H.F. Davis III, Assistant Professor, Marsal Family School of Education, University of Michigan

The "Finding Joy (and Balance)" workshop addresses the crucial challenge of maintaining personal well-being and professional satisfaction in demanding academic environments. The workshop will explore:

• Strategies for work-life balance in academia Identifying and prioritizing sources of joy in your work
• Techniques for managing stress and preventing burnout
• Creating boundaries and learning to say 'no'
• Cultivating meaningful personal and professional relationships
• How to transform academia’s culture to value joy

This format will allow participants to engage actionably with the materials and strategies shared to assist in their career development.

Panelists:

• Kirsten Edwards, Professor and Chair, Educational Policy Studies, Florida International University
• Keon McGuire, Associate Professor of Higher Education Opportunity, Equity, and Justice, North Carolina State University