Golden Anniversary Sessions


2018 AERA Annual Meeting

Golden Anniversary Sessions

The year 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of:

 

  1. the passage of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968;
  2. the publication of Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed; and
  3. the Ocean-Hill/Brownsville conflict that signified New York City’s movement for community control.

These anniversaries warrant interrogation as we, as researchers and practitioners, work to make sense of and interrupt the inequalities that circumscribe the dreams and possibilities of public education. Featured as part of the 2018 Annual Meeting program, the presidential sessions which commemorate these anniversaries forward innovative pedagogy, actively engage audiences, and present knowledge in alternative forms.  The dates, times, locations and abstracts of these golden anniversary sessions follow.  Mark your calendars!

 

  • Revisiting the Bilingual Education Act of 1968: The Necessity and Possibilities of Language and Culture in Public Schools

 SATURDAY, April 14, 8:15 to 10:15 am, New York Hilton Midtown, Second Floor, Sutton South

The year 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the Bilingual Education Act (BEA). Passed in 1968, the BEA was initiated in response to the high dropout rate of low-income Spanish speaking students learning English as a second language. A half century later, language minority students still suffer under pervasive inequities in public education that warrant immediate redress. While the number of language minority students has dramatically increased across the United States, the bilingual/multicultural programs needed to build upon their linguistic and cultural repertoires remain absent in most school communities. Drawing upon empirical research and historical, political, theoretical, and practice perspectives, this session provides a comprehensive analysis of the BEA and forwards possibilities for re(imagining) the promise of the Act.

 

  • Radical Dreams and Transformative Praxis: Celebrating 50 Years of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed - AERA Paulo Freire SIG Presidential Session

    SATURDAY, April 14, 4:05 to 6:05 pm, Millennium Broadway New York Times Square, Eighth Floor, Gallery 8

    Over the past 50 years, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed has inspired readers to denounce “banking” education and activate critical consciousness. This session is a two-part immersive experience commemorating the 50th anniversary of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In Part I, Radical Dreams: Remembering Paulo and Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire’s life and work is celebrated by “first generation” critical pedagogues, Henry Giroux, Antonia Darder, Donaldo Macedo, Peter McLaren, Ira Shor and Nita Freire. In Part II, Transformative Praxis: The Influence of Pedagogy of the Oppressed in Diverse Contexts, attendees participate in two breakout dialogue sessions with scholars who are enacting transformative, Freirean praxis via critical literacy, critical environmental education, adult education with Indigenous communities, and urban science education, in diverse contexts in the U.S. and Brazil.

  • Ocean Hill–Brownsville and Its Relevance Today: The 50th Anniversary of New York City’s Movement for Community Control

MONDAY, April 16, 10:35 am to 1:55 pm, New York Hilton Midtown, Third Floor, Grand Ballroom Suite-West Ballroom

 

Through film, performance, and dialogue, this session will explore the historical significance of New York City’s community control movement in Harlem, East Harlem, Ocean-Hill Brownville, Bedford Stuyvesant, the Lower East Side, and the South Bronx in the 1960s. Scholars and community activists from the past and present will explore the long arc of intersectionality in New York City’s grassroots organizing for educational equity and justice and the city, union, and school system responses. Interwoven throughout will be stories from the classroom, school, district and neighborhoods touched by the community control movement and their relevance to organizing today.