Metropolitan Center for Research
on Equity and the Transfomation of Schools
AERA 2016
Metro Center staff are presenting at this year’s annual
meeting of the American Education Research Association
Also Check Out:
Can Equity Be Mandated and Achieved? Examining the
Relationships Among Policy, Local Context, and the Production of
Racial Inequities in Special Education
Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Alexandra Aylward, Adai A. Tefera,
and Alfredo J. Artiles
Despite legal protections provided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA), students of color are disproportionately represented in high incidence
disability categories and disciplinary outcomes. This issue has been under examined
in suburban communities. We used mixed methods to understand the contextual
factors that contribute to the educational paradox between a policy framework
designed to provide equal opportunity and persistent racially disproportionate
outcomes. Findings show: (1) among suburban districts, the greater percentage of
students of color and higher poverty rates increased the likelihood of
disproportionality, and (2) IDEA mandates were disassociated from contextual factors,
such as residential segregation and sociodemographic changes, which practitioners
reported as having a strong influence on practice.
Fri, April 8, 12:00 to 1:30pm, Convention Center,
Level Two, Exhibit Hall D Section D
School Contexts, Teachers' Perceptions of Student Ability, and
Implication for Special Education Disproportionality
Roey Ahram and Alexandra Aylward
This study uses a multilevel analysis of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) to better understand the relationship
between schools’ socioeconomics and racial demographic characteristics, and
perceptions of Black students’ academic ability. The analysis shows that Black
students are perceived as having lower levels of literacy compared to their peers,
even when controlling for their actual reading ability. Moreover, in schools with greater
concentrations of Black students, students’ were perceived as having higher literacy
skills compared to students in schools with lower concentrations of Black students.
This may help explain why Black students are more likely to be classified as learning
disabled or mentally retarded in schools district with lower concentrations of Black
students.
Fri, April 8, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Convention Center,
Level Two, Exhibit Hall D Section A
Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools
726 Broadway, 5th Floor | New York, New York 10003 -6680
212 998 5100 | 212 995 4199 fax | 800 4NYU 224 |www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter
"Dangers Seen, Unseen, and
Unforeseen": The Experiences of
Black Male Researchers
Interviewing K–12 Black Males
David E. Kirkland – Discussant
Sat, April 9, 4:05 to 5:35pm,
Convention Center, Level One,
Room 155
A Nation at Promise: Challenging
Deficit Constructions of Male
Youth Labeled "At-Risk"
David E. Kirkland – Chair
Sun, April 10, 10:35am to 12:05pm,
Marriott Marquis, Level Four,
Liberty Salon K
Lessons in Community School
Implementation: Case Examples
From Oakland, Chicago, and Utah
Joseph P. McDonald – Disussant
Sun, April 10, 2:45 to 4:15pm,
Marriott Marquis, Level Two,
Marquis Salon 2
Social Context and Social Media:
Extending Our Research Through
a Professional Online Presence
David E. Kirkland – Invited Speaker
Mon, April 11, 7:45 to 9:15am,
Marriott Marquis, Level Two,
Marquis Salon 5
A special congratulations to
David E. Kirkland on his
much deserved
Early Career Award
from Division G
(Social Context of Education)
The award will be presented
April 9, 6:15 to 7:45pm,
at the Marriott Marquis,
Level Four, Independence Salon D
About the Metro Center
The Metropolitan Center for Research
on Equity and the Transformation of
Schools (Metro Center) is a
comprehensive, university-based center
that focuses on educational research,
policy, and practice. We are a partner
and resource at the local and national
levels in strengthening and improving
access, opportunity, and the quality of
education in our schools. Our mission is
to target issues related to educational
equity by providing leadership and
support to students, parents, teachers,
administrators, and policy makers.
For 35 years, the Metro Center has
been a transformational force inspiring
positive change in schools, districts, and
regions across the country.
The Metro Center is powerfully focused
on driving equity and access in urban,
suburban, and rural school settings especially when confronting issues of
race, gender, and national origin. Under
the visionary leadership of Dr. David E.
Kirkland, the Metro Center is continually
expanding and evolving its services.
Persistence of vision has forged the
Metro Center into a nationally
recognized leader in educational equity.
Our comprehensive programs serve a
wide range of constituencies - more
than 5,000 classroom staff impacting
125,000 students, as well as 2,800
parents and 61 agencies, schools, and
school districts.
For more information about the
Metro Center visit us at:
www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter
Follow us on Twitter:
@metronyu
Like us on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/brown60/
Examining the Root Causes of Racial Disproportionality: Analyzing
the Role of Beliefs, Policies, and Practices in the Production of
Disproportionate Outcomes in Special Education and Discipline
Maria G. Hernadez, Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Patrick Jean-Pierre, and
Alexandra Aylward
The American educational system has a troublesome history with racial
disproportionality in disciplinary outcomes and special education placement and
classification. This paper takes up the complexity associated with identifying the root
causes of disproportionality. It employs a document and content analysis of 5 school
district’s “Root Cause Reports” which are a compilation of qualitative and quantitative
data points related to disproportionality. The “Root Cause Reports” were generated by
a technical assistance center that works in partnership with disproportionate school
districts to identify beliefs, polices and practices contributing to disparate outcomes.
Findings indicate 1) disproportionality tends to manifest more in middle and high
schools; 2) practitioner beliefs about students and notions of colorblindness permeate
all districts in the study.
Sat, April 9, 8:15 to 9:45am, Convention Center,
Level Two, Exhibit Hall D
Still Searching: Understanding Black Males in (Literacy) Education
David E. Kirkland
Deficit assumptions of Black males persist in literacy education because relatively
little is known about the literacies Black males practice. The paper asks: How are
Black male literacies practiced across various stages of social development, and for
what purposes? By addressing this question, this paper examines literacy, in relation
to ideology—a specific theory of beliefs informing practice. It is guided by nuanced
understandings of race, gender, and geography–e.g., post-feminist conceptions of
intersectionality and complex masculinities (hooks, 2004), neo-formulations of
Blackness (Coates, 2015), and critical geographic understandings of space (Kinloch,
2009). Findings suggest that Black males have used literacy to navigate a life beyond
various forms of plight—the most recognizable being physical incarceration and
chronic un(der)employment (Muth & Kiser, 2008). Such findings give rise to a new
logic on Black males as highly literate consumers and creators of symbolic culture.
Hence, negative associations of Black males, as projected in the media as well as a
variety of literacy research studies, this study concludes, mischaracterize young Black
men by ignoring the rich and resilient practice of literacy in their lives.
Sun, April 10, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Marriott Marquis,
Level Four, Liberty Salon K
#BlackLivesMatter: Rethinking Urban Education in the Age of Mass
Incarceration
David E. Kirkland
This paper inquires into the ways in which U.S. schools—particularly in the conceptual
and ideological space of the Black Lives Matter Movement—have kept pace with U.S.
prisons and jails in producing a new social group of outcast citizens who are joined by
their shared experience of incarceration/detention, crime/rule violation, poverty, racial
minority status, and school failure. This paper calls for new types of
analyses/methodologies that reframe topics of social justice in urban schooling as
critical inquiry designed to peer into transinstitutional sites of discovery, like the space
between schools and prisons. The session will include discussions of collaborative
methodologies targeted at topical/systemic intersectional analyses, and topics on
cross-disciplinarity, ways to research schools by researching prisons (and vice versa),
and how educational research aimed at ending mass incarceration might also
interrupt other forms of educational inequity.
Mon, April 11, 4:30 to 6:30pm, Marriott Marquis,
Level Two, Marquis Salon 10