Welcome to Division C!

Division C of AERA focuses on the processes and practices of learning and instruction across the lifespan, content areas, in and out of formal education contexts. We seek to engage in and employ rigorous research that is inclusive of all learners with the goal of improving education for everyone. 

I came to education research and AERA by way of classroom teaching. I began my doctoral studies in the fall of my fourth year of teaching and three short years later I gave my first AERA presentation in Division C. Twenty-six years later I am honored to serve as Vice President of this division. I assure you that my younger self would be shocked to see me. Upon our first meeting, I told my PhD advisor: “I’m not going to do research - I’ll never leave the classroom, maybe I’ll be an adjunct.” But, after that first research presentation Division C became a professional home for me. A place where I could (can and do) interact with colleagues as passionate and interested in the same topics and concerns as me as well as a place where I could (and did) find multiple sources for professional (and sometimes personal) mentoring through this world of education research. As a community we continue to do this for others.

Upon reflection, I think my younger self, while shocked at the direction my professional life took, would also understand why Division C became a place for me. You see, running the perimeter of my 5th grade classroom,  above the bulletin and chalk boards I posted this quote [modified to include my students in the “Is”]: 

"I have come to a frightening conclusion. That I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child's LIFE miserable OR joyous. I can be a tool of torture OR an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate OR humor, hurt OR heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated OR de-escalated, and a child humanized OR de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming." Haim G. Ginott, Between a Teacher & Child

The work that members of Division C embrace provide evidence to support this quote as well as real life recommendations for practice and policy that can help all of us to do better, because thanks to that research we know better.

Borrowing from my VP colleague in Division J, Nolan L. Cabrera, “this is your division.” If you have ideas for new initiatives or suggestions for improvement please reach out! 

Cheers!

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Helenrose Fives, PhD

Professor, Educational Foundations

Montclair State University

fivesh@montclair.edu

AERA 2026: Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures: Constructing a New Vision for Education Research

April 8-12, Los Angeles, California

We are looking forward to a great program for AERA 2026 in Los Angeles, CA! Our Division C program and section chairs have assembled an outstanding selection of papers, posters, and roundtables demonstrating the groundbreaking work that our members do.