The historical record reveals that in the final opinion of the landmark school segregation case "Cooper v. Aaron," the U.S. Supreme Court justices intentionally used the term "desegregation" rather than "integration" to soften the ire of those opposed to the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision. The…

In "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent regarding the federal right to an abortion for people who can carry pregnancies. This case has substantial significance for the education field, directly affecting school- and college-age marginalized students who can carry…

The realities of a global pandemic coupled with economic, climate, and racial crises have exacerbated existing racial injustices in schools and society. Although many have argued for a principled refusal to return to an inequitable "normal" (Roy, 2020), dominant models of educational improvement prioritize technical-rational approaches…

The field of multilingual learner education has become increasingly complex, with longstanding efforts focused on promoting "access" to multilingual learners being criticized for failing to "transform" systems responsible for these students' marginalization. This essay brings clarity to the complex terrain of equity for…

In this article, based on my Presidential Address for the 2022 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, I offer some thoughts on the education and learning systems we need for the future. Specifically, I take up two core questions: (1) How do we organize education and learning systems for a multicultural democracy? (2) How…

Theories of learning developed in education and psychology for the past 100 years are woefully inadequate to support the design of schools and classrooms that foster deep learning and equity. Needed is learning theory that can guide us in creating schools and classrooms where deep learning occurs, where learners' full selves are engaged, and that…

Most students in the United States attend suburban schools. However, most education research focuses on urban school districts. This may be in part because many of the core issues that currently drive education research--issues of race and class inequities, social mobility, immigration, English learning--are believed to be "urban"…

Scholars argue that the "racial achievement gap" frame perpetuates deficit mindsets. Previously, we found that teachers gave lower priority to racial equity when disparities were framed as "achievement gaps" (AGs) versus "inequality in educational outcomes." In this brief, we analyze data from two survey experiments…

Public accountability through information disclosure is a pillar of modern education reform efforts. Despite the ubiquity of this approach, we argue that public accountability in education is undertheorized and often predictably unlikely to achieve its intended policy goals. Drawing on examples from an equity-oriented court case in California and…

Calls for justice-centered education approaches have gained traction over the years. Yet given the entrenched inequities that disproportionately harm multiply-marginalized students of color, it is evident that they remain incomplete. Using a specific incident as our launching point, we explore current conceptualizations of justice through a…

Market-based policies, especially school vouchers, are expanding rapidly and shifting students out of traditional public schools. This article broadens, deepens, and updates prior critiques of the free market logic in five ways. First, although prior articles have pointed to some of the conditions necessary for efficient market functioning, I…

I engage longstanding challenges and risks associated with conducting and using research on complex equity problems. I engage these challenges in the context of research on disability identification disparities, which have been historically intertwined with particular identity markers (e.g., race, social class, gender, language). Some of these…

This study examines how the student transportation options available to families affect which schools are accessible to them in a choice-based setting. The study has two parts. First, we compare commute times by foot, public transit, school bus, and car. We show that providing school bus service reduces commute times and improves access for…

This article offers a framework for analyzing social movement participation in public education through a focus on universities in Brazil. It builds on the literature on social movement-state relations, participatory governance, and community organizing in schools, drawing on the case of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement and the National…

The ascendance of White Christian nationalism has profound implications for democracy and public institutions in the United States, including public education. This article explains the core beliefs and features of White Christian nationalism as a contemporary religiopolitical movement that seeks to fuse Christianity with civic life; delineates…