Editorial Statement

As this issue of The Educational Forum goes to press, we face an uncertain educational path ahead of us in the United States. In the months preceding and following the 2016 presidential election, the national debate about such fundamental issues as health care, taxation, environment, immigration, civil rights, and other issues related to social justice has become increasingly politicized and polarized. Influential decisions about education, educational reform, and educational funding are not excluded from this divisive dialogue. In fact, imminent actions and policies about how the United States should provide educational services to all its schoolchildren are poised to be changed in radical ways that will affect the lives of students, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders for the foreseeable future.

Regardless of how one views these changes and the implications of their potential implementation, a concern for educational researchers and their professional journals focuses on the role of educational research in such a contentious academic landscape. Several journals are wasting little time distributing calls for papers on such topics as “Education in Challenging Times” or, more pointedly, “Supporting and Preparing Teachers in the Trump Administration.” Editors of educational research journals are exploring the ways in which academic research can be explicitly linked with a call to action in service of educational activism. If education as a system, process, and civic service is to be refined, how can contemporary educational research respond? Alongside the traditional challenge of researching how we can provide more meaningful and equitable education for all, journal editors now face the need to assume an explicit form of activism and advocacy on behalf of educational practitioners, students, and society as a whole.

Although controversial, and even harmful, responses to the problem of how to educate a large and diverse country grounded in the right to disagree are not new, they may seem more virulent and urgent right now as we face what may be several major shifts in our national character evidenced by how we structure our educational systems. In just the past two generations of recent political history, our country has legislated a new tradition of exclusion and inequity. Social movements designed to secure rights for large-scale marginalized groups (rooted in race, class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, for example) have not reversed that history. The election of a biracial president or the candidacy of a woman for that office, in fact, seems to have unleashed a new and more powerfully overt wave of outright hatred. The current political climate, specifically in education, has resulted from a succession of federal-level reforms such as “Goals 2000,” “No Child Left Behind,” and “Race to the Top,” none of which resolved the issues of equity or outcomes that they promised. In fact, several experts (e.g., Abedi, 2004; Onosko, 2011; Tanner, 2013) have argued that these reforms have caused serious consequences for our nation’s schools, their teachers, and the children they serve.

Changes ahead promise to be even more divisive. New questions and anxieties emerge on a frequent, even daily, basis, eclipsing extant problems. Some of these worries, which range from micro- to macro-concerns, include but are not limited to:

•	H.R. 610, which distributes federal funding to the states in the form of vouchers for eligible elementary and secondary students, and its impact on daily educational support services
•	The repeal of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which requires equal opportunity for all students
•	The progress toward a voucher system and redistribution of funds, to the likely detriment of children with Individual Education Plans and exceptional learning needs that diverge from a possibly mythic and inequitably constructed norm
•	Repeal of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which requires school meals that meet a high standard of nutritional value
•	An enhanced repositioning of specific religious-rooted values in educational curricula
•	An expedited pathway to the problematic domain of privatized educational structures and services

Even this partial selection of current issues conveys the dramatic redirection that education within the United States faces within the next four years. The contemporary educational discourse issues a challenge to those of us who read, write, publish, and care about educational research. How do we respond to this challenge and what can we expect of our research? Can we conceive of an educational research paradigm that features activism and influences a generation of educational policy focused on equity? In his provocative essay “Daring the Imagination: Unlocking Voices of Dissent and Possibility in Teaching,” O’Loughlin (1995) first calls for a liberatory pedagogy and a critical agenda for educational research, but cautions that power exposed or confronted tends not to acquiesce. It comes back double strength, he warns.

So where does that leave us? As we write this editorial we face an uncertain educational future. Remembering that this is not just an American political movement, we contemplate ways to ensure that educational research, as published in journals all over the world, looks toward an increased ability to influence policy. We continue to embrace the ideal of educating for self-actualization and participation in a democratic republic. Although we have no way of knowing today what will be in place just a few months from now, we feel a responsibility to our readers and those working and learning within the education system to explore the possibilities.

This editorial purposely departs from our tradition of framing a thematic context for the articles within the issue. We feel, collectively, that the larger context for all educational research and the decisions faced by journal editors across the political spectrum may be of equal importance to our readers at this time. We hope you agree.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alan Amtzis

Dr. Alan Amtzis is Director of the Master of Education Program in Educational Leadership: Instruction for The College of New Jersey. A former English teacher, special education teacher, and school principal of a therapeutic school for adolescents in recovery for drug and alcohol problems, he received his doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from Boston College in 2003. Dr. Amtzis served for four years as Chair of the Teacher-as-Researcher Special Interest Group for the American Educational Research Association and currently serves as their Historian and Immediate Past Chair. His research and professional interests include teacher research and practitioner inquiry, creativity development, arts-based education, narrative and other forms of qualitative research methodology and assessment, and new and emerging issues about teaching, learning, and knowledge. He has presented his work on teacher education, therapeutic education, research methodology, reflective practice, and creativity development at more than 40 regional, national, and international professional research conferences.

Tabitha Dell’Angelo

Dr. Tabitha Dell’Angelo is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Urban Education Master’s Program at The College of New Jersey. Her research interests include social justice in education, cultural identity development, stress tolerance, and coping strategies for teachers. She uses improvisational acting techniques to support teacher development and arts-based approaches in data analysis and presentation. She is a licensed Yoga4Classrooms instructor and promotes the practice of yoga with children to help support self-regulation and learning readiness. Dr. Dell’Angelo holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development from the University of Pennsylvania and teaches courses in child and adolescent development, urban education, cultural foundations, and teacher research.

Ryan Flessner

Dr. Ryan Flessner is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. Prior to his work at the university level, he taught elementary school students in Indianapolis, New York City, and Madison, Wisconsin. Dr. Flessner’s teaching, research, and service interests include teacher education, elementary education, math education, practitioner inquiry, and issues of equity, diversity, and social justice.