July 2025

Bianca Baldridge will deliver the AERA Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture at the 2026 Annual Meeting, to be held April 8–12 in Los Angeles.

An associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Baldridge is widely recognized for her research on the sociopolitical context of community-based youth work, which critically examines the confluence of race, class, and gender and their impact on educational reforms that shape community-based spaces engaging Black and Latinx youth in the United States. She received the 2021 AERA Scholars of Color Early Career Contribution Award.

“Dr. Baldridge’s research challenges conventional narratives about where and how education happens and who it is meant to serve,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “Her lecture speak directly to the urgency and promise of education that centers equity and community.”

Baldridge is the author of the book Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work (Stanford University Press), which received the 2019 American Educational Studies Association Critic’s Choice Book Award. Her research has appeared in the American Educational Research Journal, the Review of Research in Education, Teachers College Record, Educational Researcher, and Race Ethnicity and Education. Dr. Baldridge's forthcoming book,  Laboring in the Shadows: Precarity and Promise in Black Youth Work (Stanford University Press) positions youth workers within a broader network of informal care workers in the United States, and underscores the significance, fragility, precarity, and power of these dedicated professionals, their essential work, and the possibilities they create for youth.

The AERA Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture is a highlight of the AERA Annual Meeting, offering a platform for important scholarly reflection. Details about other featured sessions will be announced in upcoming issues of Highlights and on the AERA website.