Sessions are listed chronologically
Roots of Education for Social Justice on the Near West Side of Chicago: Jane Addams's Hull House
Thursday April 16 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Jane-Addams Hull-House Museum, 800 S Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60607
Relating to the AERA's 2015 meeting theme of Social Justice through Culture, Action and Research, this "off-site" event will discuss the historical roots of and contemporary innovations in education and social action to realize social justice in Chicago. Professor Mary Jo Deegan, who is the author of Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School: 1892-1918, will speak. She will discuss how Jane Addams’ pioneering work in what we now call qualitative methodologies was incorporated by professors of sociology at the University of Chicago and shaped approaches to research and social action. There will be ample time for discussion. This will be followed by brief presentations by organizers of current social justice projects dealing with civic involvement, community psychology and with first generation college students in these neighborhoods. A tour of the Hull House Museum will be included (and an optional Dutch treat lunch in Greektown will follow the event).
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Community Resistance to School Closings: Defending Public Education in Chile and Chicago
Friday April 17, 8:15 to 9:45 a.m.
Marriott, Seventh Level - Grand Salon III
Cosponsored with Division B - Curriculum Studies
This roundtable is focused on how communities have experienced and resisted school closings in Chicago and Chile. Communities in these areas have experienced this phenomenon as an imposition. The roundtable could initiate an international comparative research team to analyze larger social processes in order to promote and protect public education.
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Improving Life Chances of Poor Children: Experimental Evidence from Chicago
Friday April 17, 10:35 a.m. to 12:05 p.m.
Swissotel, Event Centre First Level - Zurich AB
Cosponsored with Division L - Educational Policies and Politics
Despite the growing importance of schooling attainment and achievement for labor market success, high school graduation rates have not changed much over the past 40 years and inequality in achievement test scores by income seems to have increased. This session presents the results of a portfolio of randomized experiments from the city of Chicago that address intervention strategies related to educational challenges targeted at different stages of a child's life course and to students at different predicted risks of school failure.
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Chicago and Spoken Word
Friday April 17, 12:25 to 1:55 p.m.
Marriott, Fifth Level - Chicago E
Cosponsored with the Graduate Student Council
For this event, the Graduate Student Council is hosting a group of spoken word artists to perform a series of poems and narratives and engage in a dialogue about some of the issues that are of concern to them. These students will speak from their hearts on their perspectives, views, and ideas about what it means for them to experience their worlds.
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Connected Learning in Chicago Public Schools
Friday April 17, 4:05 to 5:35 p.m.
Hyatt, East Tower - Green Level - Plaza A
Cosponsored with the Media, Culture and Curriculum SIG
Much of the research documenting connected learning—a peer-supported, interest-driven approach to education that capitalizes on networked media to engage youth and bridge their formal and informal learning—has focused on after- or out-of-school sites rather than examining how schools can support such work. Four research papers will be presented that document various aspects of the implementation of a whole-school reform model with connected learning principles at two high-need, low-performing public schools in Chicago.
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"We All We Got." Reclaiming Our Humanity With Genealogy Research, Reducing Gang Violence With Neighborhood Basketball: Chicago Community Perspectives on Youth Vulnerability in the Context of Extreme Impoverishment
Friday April 17, 4:05 to 5:35 p.m.
Hyatt, West Tower - Gold Level, Regency D
Chicago natives, internationally recognized genealogist, Tony Burroughs, founder of the Center for Black Genealogy, and NBA All-Star Isiah Thomas, will present practical interventions with youth—the power of community-family genealogical research and a youth basketball program that reduces gang violence.
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Saturday, April 18
The Art of Complicated Conversation: Narrative Approaches to Enacting Social Justice in Chicago High Schools
Saturday April 18, 8:15 to 9:45 a.m.
Hyatt, West Tower - Gold Level - Atlanta
Cosponsored with Division B - Curriculum Studies
The papers in this session work across the adjacent fields of curriculum studies and art education to (a) observe and theorize the tensions and complexities that arise in social justice conversations between students and their teachers in four Chicago high schools, and (b) suggest how aesthetic approaches create contexts in which complexity and tensions can become the basis of personal and collective investigation in local sites.
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The Consortium on Chicago School Research: Taking Stock of 25 Years of Research–Practice Partnership
Saturday April 18, 8:15 to 10:15 a.m.
Hyatt, West Tower - Gold Level - Regency C
This session will examine the CCSR model of a place-based research-practice partnership, its evolution over 25 years, as well as its benefits, shortcomings, and challenges. The goal of this session is to consider influences of the CCSR model has had on the Institute of Educational Sciences and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the pros and cons of expanding research-practice partnerships.
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Closing Neighborhood Schools and Opening Charter Schools: The Restructuring of Public Education in Chicago
Saturday April 18, 10:35 a.m. to 12:05 p.m.
Marriott, Fifth Level - Kansas City
Cosponsored with Division G - Social Context of Education
This session brings together a set of papers that examine the current restructuring of urban education. In particular, the papers examine the coupling of two school actions that have been prominent in Chicago and other cities: closing neighborhood schools and opening charter schools.
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Community-Based Educational Activists and Teacher Educators Unite! Chicago as a Site of Change
Saturday April 18, 2:45 to 4:15 p.m.
Marriott, Fifth Level - Chicago FGH
Cosponsored with Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education
Chicago has been a site of significant organizing by students, parents, teachers and university professors on various hot-button issues, including the closing of community schools, the narrowing of the curriculum, and school safety. This session opens with a panel of Chicago education activists describing the past, current, and future landscape for Chicago public schools.
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Sunday, April 19
Teacher Preparation Partnerships for Mutual Benefit: Insights from Chicago
Sunday April 19, 8:15 to 10:15 a.m.
Marriott, Fourth Level - Belmont
Cosponsored with Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education
This workshop analyzes Loyola University Chicago’s field-based program and its aim to cultivate mutually beneficial partnerships with local educational institutions. Partner institutions, drawn from among public schools, cultural institutions, and community organizations, collaborate to more effectively prepare urban teachers and, in the process, address common educational concerns.
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Is Restorative Justice Possible in Chicagoland and Beyond? Sand Creek, Settler Colonialism, and Education
Sunday April 19, 10:35 a.m. to 12:05 p.m.
Hyatt, West Tower - Gold Level - Regency AB
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Navigating the Terrain of Teacher and Principal Education Reform: A Conversation With Chicago-Area Deans
Sunday April 19, 10:35 a.m. to 12:05 p.m.
Hyatt, West Tower - Gold Level - Regency D
This session will provide researchers and current and future leaders of education colleges with insight into the diverse array of leadership skills and perspectives that have shaped significant institutional and organizational change in Chicago and are laying the foundation for improvements in student learning in the future.
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How Multiple Stakeholders Are Using Research about Chicago's Teacher Evaluation System
Sunday April 19, 12:25 to 1:55 p.m.
Marriott, Fourth Level - Clark
Cosponsored with the Research Use SIG
This symposium will use studies of teacher evaluation in Chicago to motivate a discussion of how research is used by various constituencies and how repeated interactions between researchers and stakeholders can enhance that usage. Panelists representing members of the research team, the teachers’ union, and the state will share their experiences in connection with how and under what conditions research evidence was most useful.
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Listening to Voices From Chicago: Reaffirming Our Commitment to Local Knowledge Through a Joint Session With Community-Based Organizations
Sunday April 19, 12:25 to 1:55 p.m.
Marriott, Fifth Level - Chicago ABC
Cosponsored with Division G - Social Context of Education
This session affirms our commitment as an academic community to maintain a dialogic relationship between AERA and the communities that are often the subjects of our research. It provides a forum for attendees to connect directly and purposefully with local groups working with Chicago families and children and to support local knowledge through service.
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Town Hall Meeting: Chicago Teachers Union, Education Researchers, and New Orleans and Chicago Community Activists
Sunday April 19, 12:25 to 1:55 p.m.
West Tower - Gold Level, Regency AB
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Urban Educational Reform in the Belly of the Beast: Lessons and Reflection from Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia
Sunday April 19, 2:15 to 3:45 p.m.
Marriott, Sixth Level - Indiana/Iowa
Cosponsored with Division G - Social Context of Education
Join researchers and community leaders as they reflect and share their experiences of how they grapple with attempting to change urban education from the inside.
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Urban Indigenous Land-Based Pedagogies and Community Educational Design Research
Sunday April 19, 2:15 to 3:45 p.m.
Hyatt, West Tower - Gold Level - Regency AB
Cosponsored with Indigenous Peoples of the Americas SIG, Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific SIG, Division B, Action Research SIG, Committee of Scholars of Color in Education
This session features the work of a Chicago-based research collaborative including elders, parents, and youth members of the inter-tribal Indigenous community. Presenters have worked together over the past several years to design learning environments that would meet the present and future needs of their community. Presenters will speak from their own perspectives and roles in this longitudinal, intergenerational study. Two critical discussants will provide commentary about the larger implications of this approach to educational research, the implications of recovering Chicago as Indigenous land, and pose questions to the participants before opening the floor for questions from the audience.
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Monday, April 20
The Landscape of Education Policy and Politics in Chicago: Neoliberalism, Race, Resistance and Justice
Monday April 20, 10:35 to 12:05 p.m.
Marriott, Fifth Level - Chicago FGH
Cosponsored with Division G - Social Context of Education
Chicago has been a focal point and laboratory for neoliberal education policy and organized resistance; and race, justice, and the right to the city have been central. This symposium critically examines the landscape of education policy and politics in Chicago, highlighting contentious politics of neoliberalism and urban space, recognizing that schools are central to community heritage and place-making and the quest for justice.
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