URBAN special edition

Abstract

Currently, neoliberalism serves as the foundation for the majority of educational reform efforts. Neoliberal approaches repeatedly privilege the value of ‘expert’ knowledge in framing policy and practice, resulting in limited opportunities for the impact of local community knowledge and experience on teaching and learning. While the neoliberal context narrows what counts as learning, participatory action research (PAR), youth-led participatory action research (YPAR), and engaged scholarship emphasize collaborative problem-solving among community organizations and schools that can expose the dangers of neoliberal trends in education. The articles in this special edition, titled ‘Challenging Neoliberal Reforms through Collaborative, Community Engaged Research,’ illuminate diverse approaches to collaborative research aimed at fostering a more inclusive, productive dialog regarding the impact and possibilities for educational reforms in K-16 schools. The authors identify the specific neoliberal reforms that shape their contexts, the nature of their collaborative research partnerships and methods, and the kinds of inroads their coalitions are making in altering harmful neoliberal policy implementations. Individually and collectively, the authors speak about new ways of framing the impact of neoliberalism on local communities. They provide alternative designs for educational policies.

Keywords:

• Community engaged research
• neoliberal
• activist research

Notes

1. Marilyn Gittell, 1931–2010, was an avid scholar-activist in NYC, dedicated to justice for racial, economic, and gender inequalities. She is particularly well known for her 1960s activism in Ocean-Hill Brownsville, which returned public school control to the local communities of color the schools served. (The Marilyn Gittell Archives. The Public Science Project. http://publicscienceproject.org/the-marilyn-gittell-archives/)

2. Mark Warren is an Associate Professor for the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the McCormack Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

3. Ronald Glass is a Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of California Santa Cruz and the Principal Investigator and Director of the U.C. Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California (CCREC).

4. Jerusha Conner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education and Counseling at Villanova University, Villanova, PA. She has been integral in many dimensions of the URBAN educational node and served as chair for the planning team from 2015 to 2016.

5. Michelle Fine is Professor in the Ph.D. Program in Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her leadership and scholarship have been invaluable to the many different facets of URBAN, including URBAN National Meetings, AERA presentations, fundraising, and planning and chairing URBAN conferences.

6. Sarah R. Hobson, Lead Editor for the Special Edition has served a variety of roles on the planning team, including heading the Publication Committee by reviewing all special edition manuscripts and coordinating the organization of internal and external reviewers, contributing to the educational node since 2012, helping organize sessions for AERA, attending URBAN conferences, and contributing to the design of the URBAN website. She now serves as co-chair for the educational node leadership team. Sarah Hobson is an Assistant Professor of Adolescence English Education at SUNY Cortland and President of Community Allies, LLC.

7. Samara Foster is the Managing Director of the Student Success Evaluation & Research Center at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where her work focuses on practices and policies that promote student retention and persistence to degree, particularly for underrepresented students. She was previously the Assistant Director of the University of California CCREC through which from 2012 to 2014, she coordinated the Education Node meetings. She reviewed manuscripts for this special edition.

8. Dana Wright is Associate Professor of Education and Co-Chair of the Education Department at Connecticut College. For this edition, she provided internal reviews and helped locate authors and external reviewers. She has also served on the planning team. She recently published Active Learning: Social Justice Education and Participatory Action Research.

9. Joy Howard, Internal Reviewer for the special edition, has served on the planning team since 2013, took part in internal reviews and securing external reviewers, and has organized and participated in URBAN node-sponsored AERA sessions. She now serves as a co-chair for the Educational node Leadership team. Joy is an Assistant Professor in the Teacher Education Department at the University of Southern Indiana.

10. Bernadette Doykos is a Ph.D. candidate in Community Research and Action at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University and a Research Associate at CEPARE at the University of Southern Maine. For this edition, she provided internal reviews.

11. Elizabeth Hudson is an Honors Faculty member at the Irvin D. Reid Honors College at Wayne State University. She has been a member of the URBAN Educational node planning team and contributed internal reviews for this edition.