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The 2025 AERA Annual Meeting is the single largest gathering of scholars in the education research field and is a showcase for groundbreaking, innovative work in a diverse array of areas. Dates, times, and locations will be added as they become available. All times are in Mountain Time.
AERA Presidential Address Friday, April 25, 5:10 pm to 6:40 pm Colorado Convention Center, Terrace Level - Bluebird Ballroom Room 1BC
Speaker: Janelle T. Scott (University of California, Berkeley)
Title: Education Research for a Time Such as This
Learn from the wisdom and knowledge of AERA President Janelle Scott. The Presidential Address is an annual “can’t miss” event, where the state and future of the field are examined and attendees are inspired.
2025 AERA Distinguished Lecture Thursday, April 24, 3:35 pm to 5:05 pm Colorado Convention Center, Ballroom Level - Mile High Ballroom 2BC and 3BC
Speaker: Vanessa Siddle Walker (Emory University)
Title: Erasures and Mappings in African American Education: Tag, You Are It
The scholarship of Vanessa Siddle Walker has explored sequentially the school-level characteristics that allowed African American children to believe they could succeed in a segregated world: the leadership practices, beliefs, and networks that African American educators used to build similar segregated school practices across the South; and the hidden advocacy collaborations that sought to create full access to all schools for African American children. In this lecture, Walker (a) elevates the context in which African American educators worked by overviewing some of the negative societal perspectives on African American children that filtered through American society as these educators worked to build schools; and (b) describes several specific strategies, invisible to unsuspecting eyes, African American educators employed to create opportunities for children despite the negative climate. By reviewing their erasures, challenges, and agency, Walker hopes a current generation might locate maps to import in their historic moment.
2025 Awards Ceremony Luncheon Thursday, April 24, 11:40 am to 1:25 pm Colorado Convention Center, Terrace Level - Bluebird Ballroom Room 1BC
The newly revived Awards Ceremony Luncheon, with an emphasis on community, will be a highlight of the 2025 AERA Annual Meeting. AERA encourages Annual Meeting participants to add the luncheon to their registration and to help honor notable accomplishments and achievements, across career stages, in education research.
Leveraging Research for the Public Good: A Scholars' Roundtable Honoring the Contributions of Felice J. Levine Thursday, April 24, 1:45 pm to 3:15 pm Colorado Convention Center, Ballroom Level - Mile High Ballroom 4AB
Moderator: Deborah Loewenberg Ball (University of Michigan) Participants: David E. DeMatthews (University of Texas at Austin), Liesel Ebersohn (University of Pretoria), Kent McGuire (William and Flora Hewlett Foundation), Rachel M. Perera (The Brookings Institution), Leah Watson (American Civil Liberties Union), Janelle T. Scott (University of California - Berkeley)
A core dimension of AERA's mission is "the use of research to improve education and serve the public good." This session gives tribute to the laudable intellectual vision, leadership, and organizational contributions of Felice Levine, AERA Executive Director, to AERA’s mission and to the field. It will focus on the central questions: What is the role of evidence and research in supporting the public good? And what does that look like in this moment? It will also highlight major areas of inquiry and research advanced by Dr. Levine during her tenure as AERA's Executive Director. Roundtable participants will bring a wide range of perspectives and expertise to examining these questions, centering the discussion on the threats to knowledge and to scholarship in the present moment and the unique role of universities, scholars, journalists, the legal community, and professional associations in supporting research that makes the world and our education systems more equitable. At the end of the discussion, members of the audience will have opportunities to direct questions to roundtable participants.
2025 AERA Opening General Session: The Future of Higher Education in Polarized Times Wednesday, April 23, 6:10 pm to 7:40 pm Colorado Convention Center, Terrace Level - Bluebird Ballroom Room 1BC
Chair and Moderator: Janelle T. Scott (University of California, Berkeley)
Participants: Shaun R. Harper (University of Southern California), Danielle Holley (Mount Holyoke College), Bryan Brayboy (Northwestern University), OiYan A. Poon (University of Maryland, College Park), Sarah Willcox (Scholars at Risk)
Higher education institutions play a vital role in a multiracial democracy. The teaching missions and research produced by colleges and universities have been instrumental in broadening and deepening learning, expanding access, fostering knowledge creation and innovation, improving labor market outcomes, and enhancing civic engagement. However, higher education has also contributed to racial, social class, and other forms of stratification. Recent federal actions and state legislative bans on teaching critical race theory and related subjects have undermined academic freedom and challenged the core research of many education scholars. Amid fiscal and enrollment constraints, numerous colleges and universities are facing closures or eliminating selected departments and disciplines. This panel will explore the future of higher education, particularly schools and departments of education, in an era of political polarization where their core functions are increasingly scrutinized and under attack.
2025 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture Saturday, April 26, 11:40 am to 1:10 pm Colorado Convention Center, Ballroom Level - Mile High Ballroom 2BC and 3BC
Speaker: William Penuel (University of Colorado–Boulder)
Title: Education for Flourishing: Building Initiatives and Partnerships for More Just and Sustainable Futures
Today’s education systems are governed by logics of scarcity and rooted in histories of exclusion and erasure. But what if education systems were organized around a logic of abundance and a commitment to the values of compassion and dignity? In this talk, Penuel develops the idea that education systems can be organized for flourishing, that is, based on relationships grounded in our common humanity and an appreciation for our dependence on the gifts of our planet for sustaining life. Such education systems would be organized around an expansive view of learning that weaves together different knowledge systems and disciplines and engages people in building new knowledge and practice for just and sustainable futures. In this talk, Penuel explores how three teams are working toward building systems for flourishing within three strands of work at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at the University of Colorado–Boulder to engage young people in culturally relevant learning opportunities, strengthen families’ meaningful connections to schools, and nurture compassionate educators. He concludes by discussing the need for partnerships that nurture this kind of work and attend to power and history, to bring about educational systems that promote flourishing.