In this Perspectives article, the author grapples with the personal challenges of attempting to do ethical and high-quality research in the post world of the maturing 21st century. Among the challenges addressed are matters of purported relevance of research, equity research conducted by nonmembers of equity-seeking groups, the impact of rankings…

Professional learning focused on racial equity in schools should transform educators' beliefs and interrupt inequitable outcomes for students. To ensure that it does, professional learning leaders must not only excel at typical facilitation skills -- such as being aware of group dynamics, supporting inquiry, and creating relationships -- but…

A quarter of a century after South Africa's transition to democracy, the rhetoric of 'transformation' remains firmly ingrained in its higher education policy and discourse. In many of the reviews, reports, proposals, and frameworks on the transformation of the South African university system, one thing stands out: an oversupply of rhetoric and a…

In spring 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic collided with a national reckoning on racial injustice and ruptured our country's core. The effects of this collision necessitated something other than business as usual in school leadership: it called for the kind of courageous leadership rooted in equity and justice we describe in this paper. In this…

Equity in education begins with creating structures that support students inclusive of their social-emotional needs. Students exposed to trauma perform best in schools that adopt trauma-sensitive practices. Many of these trauma-sensitive practices naturally prepare students to learn social-emotional skills, as the trauma-informed staff also models…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between two recent currents in postsecondary education -- integrative learning and undergraduate innovation. We located the rationale for this study in postsecondary educational practices and policies (e.g., inclusive makerspaces, transdisciplinary courses) which have theorized the…

For decades, observant Americans have looked upon institutions of higher learning with dismay. The reasons for their anxiety varied; some were upset at the increasing politicization, others at rising costs, and so on. But it seemed as if there were no way to turn back the tide of higher education's degradation. That may be starting to change.…

Inclusive educational practices have been adopted worldwide to address inequalities endemic to education systems. In South Africa, the process toward inclusion commenced in October 1996 and was realized in 2001 with the Education White Paper 6. However, the implementation of inclusion in South Africa has been marred by challenges. These challenges…

This critical reflective essay highlights three significant moments in one White woman's ongoing efforts to move beyond performative equity work. Through this narrative, the author sheds light on the unspoken rules of Whiteness that limited her engagement with race, reflecting on ways that colorblind etiquette prevented her from seeing her Black…

We model schooling as a sequential process and examine why some children are left behind. We focus on the factors that explain selection at early stages of the education system. Our findings for Uruguay suggest that long-term factors, such as parental background or ethnicity matter across all education stages while the effect of short-term…

This paper's focus is on the "middle" of partnerships for equity in science education. Middle is used in a temporal sense, meaning the time after the general purposes and terms of working together have been set and before outcomes have been achieved. The middle of the partnership also represents people interacting, bounded around the…

Given its status as one of the highest-poverty, lowest-performing states in the nation, this article examines the ways in which dimensions of neighborhood poverty may impact student achievement in Alabama over and above student characteristics. We employ a unique longitudinal dataset that combines eight years of district-level student achievement…

Recent studies reveal people from marginalized groups (e.g., people of color and women) continue to earn physics degrees at alarmingly low rates. This phenomenon is not surprising given reports of the continued perception of physics as a masculine space and the discrimination faced by people of color and women within the field. To realize the…

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have grown rapidly in the last decade in the United States to challenge traditional notions of education research by emphasizing the importance of researchers and practitioners working together in a spirit of mutuality to develop research questions, collect data, implement interventions, and analyze and use…

My contribution to this special issue engages with Michael Sandel's "The Tyranny of Meritocracy" and its significance to the academic conversation about meritocracy and its discontents. Specifically, I highlight Sandel's diagnosis of the rise of populism and his proposed remedy for the 'tyranny of merit'. First, building on Menno ter…