The Changing Terrains of Research in a Time of Pandemic

If the regularities in the social, cultural, and political spheres are what we characterize as certainties, then what do we make of and do about the uncertainties? In this moment of pandemic, many of the regularities that we have come to expect—offering some sense of stability and some degree of comfortability in our lives—have been disrupted and thrown into flux. Many families are grieving the loss of loved ones or persons within their circles who battled complications of the novel coronavirus. With so much uncertainty, what we do know is that the numbers of COVID-19 related deaths have continued to rise in the United States. And social distancing has become a common practice. Many of us affiliated with colleges and universities have managed to teach courses online to complete the academic year. In addition to being thrusted into an online world of education, many of us also have taken on unprecedented caregiving responsibilities despite the privilege of working remotely. The pandemic shines a bright light on priorities such as parenting and meeting the daily demands of family life. Many field-based researchers have been forced to suspend research in schools and communities or have creatively devised ways to rearrange research according to institutional protocols. While work-life balance is more complex than ever, the research community continues to learn more about the behavior of this novel coronavirus. The State governance along with institutions of higher education are uncertain about how best to ease restrictions in order to mitigate the transmission of the virus and potential deaths. All of this creates tremendous anxiety and fear.

Yet, in the midst of uncertainty, we also know that many of those regularities in the social, cultural, and political realms have often served the interests, being, and becoming of some communities, and have remained a violent force of debility by constraining the regenerative capacities of other communities. Different forms of inequality exacerbated by the pandemic, including those in education, are a case in point. We see this most strikingly with the socially overdetermined recursivities of the code of COVID-19 with U.S. racial capitalism. That is, the indiscriminate code of COVID-19 is socially shaped by the discriminant conditions of existing health inequities and the State’s racist immunological response (e.g., who constitutes “essential” work). This socially overdetermining system of recursion also works to enable the conditions for capital accumulation and the acceleration of technocapitalist interests. As we have all been thrown into a Zoom world, so has the rest of the world become deeply dependent on and entrenched in the networked and algorithmic infrastructures of data capitalism (Parisi & Dixon-Román, in press). As Naomi Klein (2020) recently argued in The Intercept, such is an agenda that was already underway. The pandemic just removed all legal-political challenges to accelerate technocapitalist interests in a ubiquitously networked society that minimizes human influence. Take, for instance, a movement toward materializing the speculative fictions of Netflix’s series, Black Mirror, or HBO’s series, Westworld. From our vantage point, these seismic shifts in the social, cultural, and political-economic structure will have profound relevance and implications for equity in education. As editors of Equity & Excellence in Education, we want to implore the field to not fear the uncertain but rather take advantage of the potentialities conditioned in this moment. Engage in the speculative and dare to shape the changing terrain of our educational futures. In other words, the field is open. The processual conditions for lines of flight (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/1987) or rerouting (Glissant, 1997) are here.

We are moved by the potentialities in this time of pandemic. In this double issue, we feature two symposia that examine the changing terrain of the suburbs, on the one hand, and bridging multiple worlds, on the other. This double issue also features several articles from general submissions to complement what we have identified as a good push toward rethinking equity-centered projects in various social and educational contexts serving various social groups and constituents. At the center of these projects are discursive and material challenges that mark the uncertain times we are in. To face the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is to (re)think what is and (re)imagine what could be. We do so with boldness in our hearts. We curate these projects because it is necessary.

Symposium on the new suburbia

We are thrilled to open the pages of Volume 53, Issue 1 & 2, with a symposium that features three studies on suburban schools and communities. We invite you to first read the symposium introduction and then dive into each article in no particular order. In their symposium introduction “The Changing Terrain of the Suburbs: Examining Race, Class, and Place in Suburban Schools and Communities,” guest editors John Diamond and Linn Posey-Maddox call attention to a needed conversation about the new suburbia and a way for understanding the experiences of students, parents, and educators as they navigate racial inequities and whiteness in suburban contexts. Few studies have focused on the experiences of Latinx and Asian American youth, or white educators engaged in anti-racist work. As such, this symposium introduction sets the tone for examining and learning from emerging scholarship on increasingly multiracial and multiethnic suburban schools contexts.

In “Suburban Schools as Sites of Inspection: Understanding Latinx Youth’s Sense of Belonging in a Suburban High School,” Gabriel Rodríguez draws on critical ethnography to describe and analyze the experiences of Latinx youth at Shields High School in the suburbs of Chicago. The author asserts the interplay between space theory and borderland theory to illustrate how youth navigated (un)structured spaces of schooling that often questioned their sense of belonging. It is important to confront whiteness in all its forms and to challenge the social construction of race, space, and place in support of Latinx youth. Following this perspective on students is another on parental engagement. In “Asian Americans in the Suburbs: Race, Class, and Korean Immigrant Parental Engagement,” Eujin Park makes visible how some Asian American parents approach education. A critical examination of parent engagement reveals the complex ways that race, ethnicity, class, and immigration play in navigating school and participating in supplementary community education in the Chicago suburbs. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography, the author points to racial hierarchy in suburban schooling and how Korean American parents engage in a racial balancing act to advocate for their children. Anchoring the symposium with a focus on educators is “The Onus is on Us: How White Suburban Teachers Learn about Racial Inequities in a Critical Book Study.” Van Lac, John Diamond, and Maria Velazquez provide a perspective on practice-based interventions among educators for engaging in meaningful conversations about race and racial inequities. They draw on interview data of white educators participating in a teacher-led professional development series in the context of a critical book study. Findings demonstrate the value of critical reflection on professional learning.

Symposium on bridging multiple worlds

Taking us in a different but related direction is a symposium that also speaks to challenges faced by students, teachers, and parents. It might be worthwhile to first read the symposium introduction for themes before going into each article. In their symposium introduction “Bridging Multiple Worlds of Immigrant, Indigenous, and Low-Income Students,” guest editors Lois Yamauchi and Catherine Cooper underscore the importance of utilizing complementary theories for analyzing the strengths of students and their families. They describe the application of bridging multiple worlds theory along with critical pedagogy and cultural community wealth across three different studies. They identify ways of drawing on cultural resources as well as addressing inequalities that shape in particular the experiences of Native Hawaiian, Latinx, immigrant, and low-income groups.

In “Ke A‘o Mālamalama: Recognizing and Bridging Worlds with Hawaiian Pedagogies,” Rebecca Ka’anehe highlights the value of Indigenous cultural education and the need for equitable approaches in support of Native communities. The author pulls from interview and observational data to illuminate Hawaiian educators’ pedagogical practices in working with Hawaiian students. Findings affirm the importance of cultural ways of being in education and point to specific strategies toward “malamalama,” or the processes of learning and teaching that center relationships and reciprocity. Similarly, with an eye toward collective agency, Richard Durán, Zuleyma Carruba-Rogel, and Bertin Solis emphasize heritage language and cultural funds of knowledge in “Latinx Immigrant Parents’ Cultural Communicative Resources: Bridging the Worlds of Home, Community, and School Policy.” The authors describe and analyze particular ways of supporting parent engagement among Spanish-dominant Latinx families. Findings from an ethnographic study reveal the importance of plàtica (dialogic exchanges), as well as dichos and refranes (sayings and proverbs that convey cultural wisdom), in the context of Padres Líderes where parents worked with program coordinators to improve their children’s schooling. Implications include shaping policy and practice toward culturally responsive family engagement and family-school partnerships. Finally, to anchor the symposium is a look at a group of alliances with programs spanning preschool through graduate and professional schools. In “Using Integrated Logic Models to Build Equity in Students’ Pathways and Systemic Change,” Catherine Cooper, Maria Rocha-Ruiz, and Charis Herzon share findings from a multi-case study of six educational alliances in California that highlight communities’ cultural resources in supporting students and families. The authors discuss the use of an integrated logic model along with related strategies to link research, practice, and evaluation. They point to the importance of expanding what counts as family, school, and community capital and a shared language among constituents for building educational equity.

Articles from neocoloniality to feminist mentoring

Curation of scholarship may at times be guided by a desire for coherence. In some instances it may be guided by difference. Perhaps a coherence of difference. In this double issue, we feature nine articles from the journal’s general submissions. Each article brings to light a different context from which to interrogate issues of equity in education. Each article is distinct in its approach, which echoes our editorial desire to underscore the changing terrains of research in these uncertain times and to do so in a meaningful fashion. Consistent with the journal’s aims and scope, we believe that there is a need for robust theories and methodologies to help propel new questions and conversations. In “Exploring Your World, Exploring Other Cultures: How Neocoloniality and Neoliberalism Inform U.S. Education Abroad Programs,” Debjani Chakravarty, Kasi Good, and Hadley Gasser utilize critical discourse analysis to examine the content of advertising for education abroad programs from the top 50 university’s education abroad programs. Through a feminist and post-colonial lens, the authors illustrate the saturation of neoliberalism and neocoloniality in these programs. Present are tropes of global citizenship, colonial binaries, and travel connected to service-learning (often missionary in purpose), all of which, as the authors argue, deepen processes of “othering” and exoticization. The authors assert the need for programs to break the silence on issues of inequality and privilege, to help students explore their positionality in relation to processes of globalization, and to unpack buzzwords and phrases like “cultural exchange” on their websites. More than that, they call for courses that utilize a critical framework that also de-center student experiences. A similar analytic approach is found in “What Counting Words Has Really Taught Us: The Word Gap, A Dangerous, but Useful Discourse.” In this article, Stephanie Abraham utilizes critical discourse analysis to demonstrate how the word gap theory erases the complexities of poverty. The analysis provides a view of the word gap as politically mobilized because it excuses policymakers, professors, and educators from looking at racism and economic exploitation as foundations of poverty. The discussion suggests that the word gap discourse, a language grounded in folk theories of language and poverty, links to inequitable education. The author provides concrete steps for changing the word gap discourse. Suggestions include avoiding the hierarchy in linguistic practices, focusing less on the word gap and instead expanding approaches to linguistic repertoires, and looking at the connections between racial domination and economic exploitation.

Departing from critical discourse analysis but attentive to discourse, nonetheless, is the next article entitled “Critical Inclusion: Disrupting LGBTQ Normative Frameworks in School Contexts” by Michael Kokozos and Maru Gonzalez. The authors investigate current approaches to inclusion in K-12 schools, and build on the notion of homonationalism to argue for going beyond fixed categories of identity in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students. They articulate a critical inclusion framework deemed as applicable in different educational contexts. Along with implications for practice, they assert the value of promoting youth activism, reconceptualizing curriculum, and building alliances among members of LGBTQ comunities. Challenging normative discourse in practice and policy is further substantiated by “Extending Learning Opportunities: Youth Research in CTE and the Limits of a Theory of Change.” Korina Jocson and Itza Martínez offer a purview on human potential to challenge the longstanding vocational-academic divide in the context of career and technical education. The authors draw attention to a theory of change in CTE (Career and Technical Education) and reflect on their experiences with students who engaged in youth participatory action research as part of a high school multimedia production class. While hands-on learning with critical praxis illustrated some pedagogical possibilities in CTE, the authors also put forth the complexities of extending learning opportunities and the limits of a theory of change in shaping CTE practices and policies. Seeing human potential in the process of becoming goes beyond filling niches in the labor market. To advance a perspective on learning, we are reminded of projects in humanization taking place within universities. In “Learning-in-Relation: Implementing and Analyzing Assets Based Pedagogies in a Higher Education Classroom,” Timothy San Pedro, Kaitlyn Murray, Shannon Gonzales-Miller, Wendy Reed, Binta Bah, Crystal Gerrard, and Andrew Whalen probe experiences with assets-based pedagogical theories in one higher education classroom and how such approaches impacted students’ learning processes. The authors discuss what they call trialogic interactions: (1) with one another, (2) with scholars whose work they read and discussed, and (3) with/in themselves. In addition, they illustrate the interweaving of projects in humanization, storying, sacred truth spaces, and culturally disruptive pedagogy to center moments of tension, grappling, and awakening. In exploring these pedagogical practices, the authors direct the reader to implications that may lead to the creation of other sacred truth spaces in higher education classrooms.

Attentive to pedagogical practices utilizing intersectionality is the article entitled “A Bilingual Special Education Teacher Preparation Program in New York City: Case Studies of Teacher Candidates’ Student Teaching Experiences.” Patricia Martínez-Álvarez and Hsu-Min Chiang offer insights into a newly developed inclusive bilingual education program that fuses together the fields of bilingual and special education. This case study explores two teacher candidates’ applications of theory into practice, but more specifically their usage of intersectionality to enhance educational equity for bilingual youth with disabilities. Findings illuminate how the candidates attended to ability, culture, race, and language. The discussion points to the relevance of providing theoretical approaches in university courses alongside the candidate’s classroom work. The authors assert that teacher candidates may benefit from being active from day one of their student teaching, not only with the students but also the multiple support systems and professionals involved in helping students.

Similarly, in “‘Please Hire More Teachers of Color’: Challenging the ‘Good Enough’ in Teacher Diversity Efforts,” Anne Burns Thomas draws on a case study grounded in critical race theory to explore teacher diversity efforts in one school district. The author discusses how incrementalism in hiring and a strict interview process inhibit the connections and networks that potential teachers of color can have in the community. That is, a simultaneous decline in the quality of candidates reinforces racial domination via an educational system steeped in whiteness. Implications include the need for radically rethinking teacher diversity efforts rather than simply reinforcing add-on practices. Such a call for invigorating practice echoes the need for engaging in harder conversations. In “‘I Didn’t Become a Professor to Teach High School’: Examining College Educators’ Perceptions of Culture in Early College High Schools,” Amanda Molett, Matthew Sier, Jodi Linley, and Leslie Locke provide perspectives from seven early college high schools (ECHS) faculty and staff. Building on an exploratory study and interview method, the authors discuss frictions through cultural tensions, forms of deficit thinking, and lack of communication and collaboration across institutions. Implications suggest that, if ECHSs hope to live up to their equity-centered missions, it is important to have transparency to name and interrogate cultural norms, values, beliefs, and assumptions that hinder educational equity.

Lastly, in “Redefining the Work of Feminist Praxis: Making Space for (Rebellious) Undergraduate Feminist Research Group,” Breanne Fahs and Eric Swank explore the dynamics of research and activist collaborations in the context of women’s studies. Drawing on their experiences in a structured course, the authors highlight the role of feminist mentoring and what it might entail if classroom engagement went beyond one-on-one interactions for student success. Implications for practice include feminist pedagogy toward building models of mentoring and community for historically underserved students in higher education institutions.

Creative forum: fo(r) a people

To further champion the visual work of artists and their educational projects, we feature two pieces by multidisciplinary Chicago-based artist avery r young in the creative forum. The first is an excerpt from “bes(t) practice(is): on how to teach cultud chirrun to be blk,” a textual poem from his book Neckbone: Visual Verses. In our view, this excerpt requires a close look at the layering of text and what it suggests about sanctioned forms of schooling. Specifically, the curriculum and rubric point to various discursive and material assemblages of schooling that the artist is churning to nuance the experiences of many Black students through which and with whom the textual poem is speaking; the curriculum and rubric are agentive, a form of (re)writing, a conduit for resistance. We are fortunate to also have the opportunity to complement this issue’s symposium on new suburbia in the context of Chicago with the second piece entitled “fo(r) a people.” This image of “fo(r) a people” signals not only what young calls the “blk” experience in his collective work, but the image reminds us of the inextricable link between education, housing, and racial inequities in Black communities and neighborhoods. The image “fo(r) a people” serves as cover art for the printed version of this issue.

What’s next in these trying times

The COVID-19 pandemic is upon us. And in this moment, so much is asked of our minds and of our bodies. Trying times require renewed energies. We are emboldened and so very lucky to cull together studies that enable us to push conversations in insightful ways. Although we each have faced respective challenges living through this global crisis, we are grateful for a chance to write an editorial that insists on the regenerative capacities of critical scholarship—in this case, to explore the changing terrains of research and to hold each other accountable in the process. We hope that what is presented in this double issue can help promote the needed conversations not only for research purposes but for creating the conditions in schools, communities, and other educational settings in support of students, educators, parents, and many others whose experiences are often located in the social margins. It has been incredibly fruitful to think with scholars whose studies offer us more seeds for engagement in the future. That said, we will feature related studies and a final symposium to fill the year’s volume before transitioning to the journal’s new editorship. It goes without saying that this unique opportunity for curatorial work would be impossible without collective effort. We acknowledge the guest editors and all of the contributor in this issue for their important work. We also thank you—the reader—for supporting us at Equity & Excellence in Education. For now, we wish you and your loved ones well.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.