In this theoretical paper, I examine the role and potential alterations to uses of social categories in qualitative research. Categories are socially constructed, imbued with power, and include race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. These categories, although constructs and subject to change, hold durability and are leveraged in much of…

In this three-part article, we present two studies of Black political education and resistance to archive and document examples of the ongoing struggle for educational equity. In the first portion of the article, Goss's study uses an analysis of race, power, and policy to map the evolution of school discipline reform legislation, and advocacy…

In this article, I connect the ways that learning is fundamental to life, for human and nonhuman beings. I write this article at a time of crystalline xenophobic backlash, the rise of several totalitarian regimes across the planet, as well as the formation and action from many social movements. I argue that in this moment, it is even more…

In the summer months of 2018, the world watched as thousands of young children were separated from their families and detained by immigration officials at the border between the United States and Mexico. On television screens and smartphone updates, it seemed the world collectively gasped at this cruel familial trauma and asked, "what can we…

Nations actively write themselves onto human bodies. They etch and scratch their borders onto human flesh with figurative, often contradictory, ink that delivers stark material impact. The impacts hold their greatest force in metering the hinged consequences of contingent citizenship for some and unfettered citizenship for a few others. In this…

Educational policy analyses have tended toward either the impact of policies on student achievement or the furthering of progressive ideals, regularly theorized through concepts of democracy. In this theoretical essay, I suggest that democracy has become a vehicle for cauterized projects of individualized and contingent state status rather than…

Rhetoric, policy, and debate about immigration and immigrants are saturated with the trope of deservingness. In nation/states built on stratification, deservingness acts as a discourse of racialization, narrating across racially minoritized groups to re-instantiate the benefits for the racially majoritized. In this theoretical essay, I draw from…

In this theoretical essay, I argue that the current incidences of backlash to diversity are best understood as a dynamic of complicated, historic and intertwined desires for racial diversity and white entitlement to property. I frame this argument in the theories of critical race theory and settler colonialism, each of which provide necessary but…

Since No Child Left Behind was passed nearly 20 years ago, test-based accountability policies have grown more comprehensive in scope than ever before. Tests have always mattered, but they have become substantively empowered, now dominating classroom conversation and activity. To ascertain the impact they have on people's lives one must involve…

Operating within the Black radical tradition, through this kitchen-table talk, we seek to edify and sustain abolitionist ontologies. We begin with poetic and musical offerings that highlight our personal connections to abolition, before exploring the complexities and necessities of relationship building as foundational for this work. We encounter…

This essay reflects on the promise and challenges of community-engaged, critical participatory action research (CPAR) hinged to social policy in times of racialized state violence and massive community resistance. With cautious optimism, we argue for the potential of CPAR to facilitate more just social policy, by enhancing research validity,…

This commentary is an edited transcription of a historic and dynamic discussion on "Reckoning with Anti-Asian Violence" among a distinguished panel of elected legislators, community leaders, and academic researchers. This discussion took place virtually as a presidential session during the annual meeting of the American Educational…