AERA Educational Change SIG:  Announcement September 26, 2025

• Recent Webinar up on Youtube! https://youtu.be/z3s8cvkPnFA?si=EY2yzJBh6bj8maBC
• Data, Equity, Justice: A Conversation in Divided TimesHow can schools and communities use data not just to monitor performance, but to confront inequity and pursue justice? This interactive online discussion will bring together three nationally recognized scholars—Vicki Park, Stephanie Dodman, and Brandi Hinnant-Crawford—to explore how data use can both reproduce inequities and serve as a lever for change. Drawing on research in leadership, improvement science, and critical approaches to data use, the conversation will consider how schools and systems might reimagine data practices to advance learning, equity, and justice in divided times.The event will be held on Wednesday, October 29, 2025, at 4:30 PM Eastern (via Zoom) and is hosted by AERA’s Data-Driven Decision Making in Education SIG. All educators, researchers, and graduate students from AERA and beyond are warmly invited to join. Register here: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/LdAAJWJBQKO5LnNLctr1WQ.  Questions? Contact Vincent Cho at vincent.cho@bc.edu. 
• Job openings  (see flyer)
• A call for participants for a research study (see flyer)
• The new edition of Leadership for Increasingly Diverse School - 3rd Edition, will be published on Sept 23. This is a widely used and trusted resource for school/district teams, university classes, and leadership development. Understanding our increasingly diverse schools, the different identities/areas of difference, and key strategies for leadership is even more important now during this DEI backlash. Leaders need support, inspiration, and ideas - all of which are distilled in this powerful book. Please join the editors and authors for a book launch on Monday Sept 29 at 7:00 - 8:00 PM ET on Zoom. This festive event will include a special video, a raffle of books and other items, and a celebratory toast! Register here: https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/2SOCSO7HQJaNVl2T9A4vug
• Call for LSI SIG 2025-2027 RDP Faculty AdvisorThe UCEA Graduate Student Council (GSC), in conjunction with the AERA Leadership for School Improvement Special Interest Group (LSI SIG), created the Researcher Development Program (RDP) in Fall 2018. The Researcher Development Program is an initiative aimed at providing graduate students with research-focused mentorship sustained over one year (at least). The mentorship experience culminates in a research product. This faculty advisor would sit as an ad-hoc member of the executive council for the LSI SIG for a minimum of two years. The two-year term will begin effective November 1, 2025.Purpose of RDP: The Researcher Development Program is committed to matching faculty mentors and graduate students with similar research interests to facilitate the development of ongoing collaborative research projects and networks of support. Graduate students will benefit from the expertise of their faculty mentor(s) and frequent feedback throughout the course of project development. Mentors will benefit from collaboration with emerging scholars who share their research interests. The program is unique in its focus on establishing ongoing mentor-mentee relationships through the development of a research product, which could include conference proposals or presentations, posters, policy briefs, and papers.Faculty Advisor’s Expertise and Role: Scholarly interest, expertise, and experience in graduate student mentoring, and research collaborations; knowledge of both UCEA and AERA operational structures; a desire to promote graduate student leadership of this initiative; an ability to help gather and respond to feedback from RDP participants and make necessary program improvements; a commitment to sustaining and developing an innovative initiative, which is designed to encourage inter-university research and increase access to the professoriate and/or scholarly endeavors for graduate students; attend RDP scheduled meetings; assist with communication to participants; attend LSI SIG executive council meetings and be an LSI SIG member.Please submit a full CV and 1–2-page letter of interest to Drs. Craig De Voto (craig.devoto@gmail.com) and Jennifer Watters (jwatters@uttyler.edu) by Monday, October 13th. The LSI executive committee will select an RDP Faculty Advisor based on the outlined expertise and role. Please contact Drs. De Voto and Watters with any questions concerning the RDP Faculty Advisor Role.
• American Journal of Education Special Issue Call: “Relational Possibilities in Education: Social Network Analysis Illuminating Solidarity and Agency Amid Challenging Times,” with guest editors Kemi A. Oyewole (University of Pennsylvania), Craig De Voto (University of Illinois Chicago), and Paris D. Wicker (University of Buffalo).
  
  
  This special issue seeks to highlight scholarly and methodological developments in social network analysis (SNA), further positioning SNA as a powerful conceptual and analytical lens for examining how individuals and communities cultivate solidarity, exercise agency, and build resilience across diverse learning environments. We embrace the future of social networks scholarship by especially encouraging submissions from early-career scholars and individuals publishing from their dissertations. You can find more details at http://bit.ly/4p3V10P or attached. Extended abstract submissions are welcome until November 15, 2025.