April 2026
The 2026 AERA Distinguished Lecture and Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture, held during the Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, were delivered by prominent scholars Bryan Brayboy and Bianca J. Baldridge.
Bryan Brayboy, dean of Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy and the Carlos Montezuma Professor of Education and Social Policy, presented “Re-memory, Genealogy, and Dreams for the Future.” Drawing on the history of attempted assimilation of Indigenous peoples through schooling, he examined how these lessons might help move us toward a future in which individuals and communities can create futures of their own making.
Brayboy opened by describing the enduring impacts of erasure, noting that Indigenous experiences have been excluded from land, collective memory, and national consciousness.
“Restoring our full presence across all these domains is necessary not only for securing the future of Indigenous peoples but also for securing the future of our planet,” he said.
He argued that U.S. schooling is rooted in the dispossession of Indigenous land, and that this legacy of colonialism remains visible and influential today—particularly in the erasure of the peoples on whose lands schools and universities now sit.
“The history of Indigenous peoples, more broadly, is rooted in a battle for power,” said Brayboy. “That power resides in quests for land.”
Brayboy urged postsecondary institutions to move beyond land acknowledgments and symbolic gestures by accounting for promises made in exchange for land, assessing how many Indigenous people they have served, and identifying opportunities to honor past commitments.
“Postsecondary institutions must include an honest assessment of how and in what ways land dispossession has factored into their origins and imagine ways they may better serve the children and communities whose cosmologies are rooted in their lands and buildings,” he said.
Bianca J. Baldridge, associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, delivered the 2026 Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture, “(Re)memory, Community-based Education, and ‘Youth Work’ as the Process of Futuring.” Her lecture urged rethinking of schooling—expanding who is recognized as an educator and calling for greater support and investment in youth workers, who make significant sacrifices to support children.
Baldridge showed how the commitment of contemporary Black youth to educate, affirm, and protect young people is rooted in a historical tradition of communal care.
“Black educators and activists are central to movements for Black education and liberation, and Black youth workers are part of that tradition,” she said. “Black communities have always found ways to educate, nurture, and prepare Black youth for the world.”
She also highlighted how systemic forces and social and educational policies shape out-of-school, youth-serving organizations, elevating the perspectives of community-based youth workers.
“Education research must account for the complexity of community-based educational spaces, and failing to do so neglects the structural forces that shape them, leading to various forms of harm for young people and complicating the lives of youth workers,” said Baldridge.
Baldridge pointed to a central paradox: while society relies on youth work, it remains underrecognized and underfunded, and some youth workers experience financial and housing insecurity.
Looking ahead, she emphasized the role of joy as a form of resistance and protection for youth workers and the young people they work with.
“Engaging in a profession saturated with uncertainty, Black youth workers sometimes struggle to care for themselves amid the day-to-day grind of a physically and emotionally taxing field, with limited structural support and financial resources,” said Baldridge. “Still, Black youth workers foster and experience joy in their work, which is important to elevate as a pathway for resisting structural harms.”
Recordings of the lectures will be posted on the AERA website and YouTube channel in May.