Education research and critical race praxis: fieldnotes on “making it matter” in New Orleans

Abstract

Urban South Grassroots Research Collective for Public Education (USGRC) is a New Orleans-based coalition melding research and grassroots organizing for racial-economic equity. Buras examines her involvement as a scholar activist working in solidarity with community groups to document the effects of the charter school takeover on black public schools and neighborhoods – and push back. Through narrative accounts, Buras illustrates and analyzes USGRC’s collective efforts as an instantiation of critical race praxis. Unlike mainstream approaches to scholarship, which treat people and places as data points to be leveraged for academic purposes, USGRC’s approach prioritizes the meanings and consequences of research for communities. “Making it matter,” Buras argues, requires insurgent scholarship grounded in history, counter-storytelling, place-based knowledge, democratic collaboration, long-term commitment to community, and anti-racist action. Ultimately, she situates USGRC’s work in a lineage of freedom fighting and reveals how solidarity and historical knowledge sustain scholars and community members engaged in struggle.

Keywords:

• Critical race praxis
• charter school research
• urban south grassroots research collective
• New Orleans
• scholar activism

Acknowledgments

I thank the members of USGRC for their friendship and offer my deepest respect. It has been my honor to learn from you and contribute to the good fight.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kristen Buras

Kristen Buras is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She is director and co-founder of the New Orleansbased Urban South Grassroots Research Collective for Public Education and recipient of the Distinguished Scholar-Activist Award from Critical Educators for Social Justice of the American Educational Research Association.