A day-by-day summary of this year’s Annual Meeting, showcasing scholarship and expertise with presentations by UCLA Ed&IS students, faculty, and researchers.
Jump to summary for Wednesday, April 23 | Thursday, April 24 | Friday, April 25 | Saturday, April 26 | Sunday, April 27
Wednesday, April 23
During a session titled, “The Dynamics of Philanthropy: Racialization, Representation, and Research Equity,” doctoral student Abbie Cohen presented her paper, “A Spectacle by Design: A Racialized Performance for Donor Dollars,” providing an exploration of philanthropy in education through a lens of racialized power, knowledge infrastructure, representation theory, and educational innovation. Using critical ethnography, Cohen showed how community-based nonprofits navigate relationships with private donors, revealing the performative nature of securing funding in the current sociopolitical context.
Professor of Education Sylvia Hurtado and doctoral students Marcelo Alonso and Gabriel Gutierrez Aragon presented their study, “Racial Climate Assessments: Ends or Means for Institutional Action,” during a roundtable session on, “Race and Racism in Higher Education.” Their findings show how campuses use racial climate data, tracking progress, identifying in-action, or changing educational environments for marginalized racial identity groups, using a sequential mixed-methods approach.
The team’s data was collected from a national sample of institutions featuring DEIJ administrators and institutional researchers’ perspectives, emphasizing the importance of intentional data use for organizational learning and change in areas such as planning, faculty development, and student services. Their discussion shared the goal to understand how climate assessments can foster institutional change and identify best practices, as well as areas for further development. In addition, the researchers discussed the future of DEI and racial climate assessment.
Janene Ward, co-director of the LAUSD CGI Action Research Project, part of the UCLA Mathematics Project at Center X, and doctoral student Adejah Taylor presented “Designing Classroom Observation Measures to Support Teacher Learning and Instructional Practice in Mathematics” in a roundtable session on “Studies of Instructional Practices in Mathematics.” Their study addressed the challenges of producing observation data that will better support teachers in the learning about their students and their own instruction, and promote teacher thinking about potential changes, and is significantly linked to student learning outcomes.
Taylor and Ward’s paper describes the design of a real-time mathematics classroom observation measure that provides detailed information about student participation to support teacher learning and improvement of practice, and reports on the implementation of the measure in 26 classrooms in seven elementary schools.
Center X researchers Imelda Nava-Landeros, Jane Kim, Deborah M. LaTorre, and Maria Paz-Fernandez put a strong wrap on the day in a structured poster session titled, “Formative Research and Pedagogical Approaches to Integrate Computational Thinking and Computer Science in a Residency,” exploring their research on computational thinking and equity in computer science, with Jean Ryoo, director of research of the Computer Science Equity Project at Center X, serving as discussant.
“Computational thinking for equity allows us to create a pathway forward,” said Nava-Landeros, UCLA STEM+C3 director and STEM Teacher Education faculty member in the UCLA Teacher Education Program.“It explains and provides a road map, a way to engage in critical thinking. In our research, we wanted to assure that we engage the community, that we help our teachers think about how this work impacts the world around them, the community, and themselves. Because of that, we framed our computational thinking practices in equity issues, in dialogue and collaboration, and in real world data.”
Thursday, April 24
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Michelle Choi, associate director of the Computer Science Equity Project (CSEP) at Center X, presented “Critical Perspectives on AI: Young Women and Non-Binary Students’ Voices from Girls Who Code,” during a symposium titled, “Voices of Change: Black and Latine Students’ Perspectives on Equitable Computer Science Education.” The study, conducted with UCLA’s Jean Ryoo, CSEP director of research, and doctoral student Wei Wei, as well as researchers from the nonprofit, Girls Who Code, revealed the concerns of K-12 students across California around generative AI and its role in their education.
“We were able to interview 25 students from across California who had participated in a summer program that Girls Who Code hosted, and talk about all the different ways that students are thinking about AI; positively, negatively, and [neutrally] … what they’re thinking about the ethical implications of AI and how they think AI might be affecting their futures, their careers, and the world at large,” said Choi.
“Students really care about technology and … want to learn more about computer science and technology and the good and bad of it,” she said. “They want more of those types of experiences in their school experience and K-12 learning. If there are ways we can find to integrate more computer science education across the K-12 journey for children, I think they can really benefit from them, and they say that they want it.”
Tim Herd, a 4th-year PhD candidate and Wasserman Fellow in the Higher Education & Organizational Change (HEOC) division, shared his paper, “The Time Is Now: White Suburban School District Response to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Blackness,” during a roundtable session on “Culture, Diversity, and Climate.” His study examined a majority-white suburb and its school board to learn how they developed and implemented DEI policies that address anti-Blackness, while also identifying their responses to critical race theory, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“One of the things that was really big was this idea of culture, and they would talk … about how that school board in particular was the most cohesive school board that they had had, in the midst of all the chaos, which was surprising to me,” said Herd. “One of the biggest themes from the three school board members who I interviewed was this idea of putting the students first and providing quality education, because this school district in particular was one of the wealthier school districts in the state, and it’s also one of the more academically rigorous in terms of the percentage of students who go to flagship institutions within that state.”
“There was this kind of … disposition of optimism, of how … to use this model … of cohesion in this time of chaos, and potentially be a model for other suburban school districts, and in particular, other majority white suburban school districts across the country. They also talked about the opportunity that came from just being able to have conversations about this.”
Doctoral student Christine Abagat Liboon shared her paper, “A Review of STEM Community Praxis: Toward Social Justice–Based Program Evaluation in Education,” in a roundtable on “Exploring Research Studies on Experiential Education and Student Survey on Community-Based Courses.” Liboon’s paper, which she wrote with co-authors Jason Dorio, UCLA associate director of Undergraduate Programs for Community Engagement; and Bilgehan Ayik of George Mason University, revealed their findings on on STEM-based community-engaged programs that exist to center marginalized and minoritized youth using social justice transformative frameworks and social justice-oriented curriculum, and discussed frameworks that could act as restorative towards practices in university STEM-based community engaged programs.
Natalie Fensterstock, a doctoral student of social welfare in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and UCLA Ed&IS alumna, presented her work on, “Violence and Safety in Schools: Social workers report on the biggest threats and needs,” during the symposium titled, “The Perils of Educating: A National Sample of School Personnel Perceptions of School Violence.”
Fensterstock’s paper, co-written with UCLA Professor of Social Work and Education Ron Avi Astor, and Kate R. Watson, Vista Del Mar Child & Family Services, examined how school social workers perceive and experience school safety and violence, highlighting data-driven reflections and suggestions on how to improve school safety from the school social worker lens, offering suggestions for preventing and mitigating school violence at the local, state, and federal levels.
Professor of Education Tyrone Howard, past AERA President, and Professor of Education Lori Patton Davis, Heyman Endowed Chair and faculty director of the UCLA Educational Leadership Program, shared their papers during a Vice Presidential Session titled, “Brown vs. Board of Education@70: Centering Blackness in the Brown Decision (1954 to the Present), a Candid Conversation.” The session focused on centering Blackness through an exploration of the 70th Anniversary of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, inviting multiple versions of centering Blackness stands “enough,” “able,” and “significant” in the discourse.
Professor Patton Davis discussed, “Towards an Afrofuturist Perspective on the Black Women and Girls of Brown,” using a “centering approach” to illuminate the voices and contributions of Black women and girls, while offering an Afrofuturist reimagining of Brown, looking at investment in the educational success of Black women and girls; the possibilities to be realized when Black women and girls have full access to educational resources; and how re-narrativizing through the lens of Black women and girls would lead to the fulfillment and promise of Brown.
Patton Davis referenced her 2021 AERA Brown Lecture in Educational Research, noting that women were the majority of plaintiffs in Brown vs. Board; that the contributions of Black women and girls have still not been rightfully centered in the discourse on Brown; and how women shaped the movement for educational equity.
“We can… draw parallels between Black women’s resistance during the Brown era and our present-day circumstances,” said Professor Patton Davis. “For example, 70 years ago, Black women showed up, and although situated in the background, were integral to pushing the Brown decision forward.
“Today, 92 percent of Black women showed up to the polls, to exercise their right to vote and preserve our democracy, a democracy we haven’t yet fully realized, and we continue to be major facilitators of … legal and social change, whether it be raising attention to the push-out that Black girls are facing in the schools, challenging curriculum, or fighting anti-Black policies, such as hair discrimination in schools.”
Professor Howard shared his paper on, “What They Knew. What They Did. The pedagogies, politics, and practices of teachers Pre-Brown. Implications for Today’s Teachers.” Despite his acknowledgement that progress that there has been progress for many Black students since Brown, additional progress is needed, and examined the pedagogies, politics, and practices that were rooted in the teaching and learning.
The director of the UCLA Center for Transforming Schools and the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families, he highlighted a central and continuing issue that has pervaded since the historic ruling.
“You can change all the laws you want to but at the end of the day, you can’t legislate and undo people’s racism,” said Professor Howard.
Above: Tim Herd, PhD candidate and Wasserman Fellow in the Higher Education & Organizational Change division, shared his paper, “The Time Is Now: White Suburban School District Response to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Blackness,” which examines a majority-white suburb and school board’s efforts to develop DEI policies. Photo by John McDonald
Friday, April 25
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Saturday, April 26
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Sunday, April 27
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Joanie Harmon contributed to this article.