https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6232-8939
”Return her to her name, which is her home. Can you not hear that? Her name is Home. She should be there inside her name.”
-Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned, p. 75
In our final editorial we, as co-editors, have chosen to (re)turn to the improvisational approach of kitchen-table dialogue that we have drawn on since the inaugural issue of our tenure. In continuing to evoke this Black radical tradition, we have underscored our editorial vision, which brought those things moving at the margins to the center of our contemplations of equity and excellence across educational contexts. We do it for the culture, to call for the power of local knowledge systems and cultures in education. We do it for abolition and fugitivity to break free from (school) systems that thrive on carcerality, colonial logics, exploitation, and attempted erasure. We do it for cultivating care, dignity, love, and respect because we are driven by desire and not just the essentiality of disruption. We do it for disability justice to foreground the intersectional realities of disabled people of color and the nuanced complexities of their bodies as powerful, and not broken, in a society that continues to circumscribe their full participation. We do it for anti-oppressive critical immigrant and refugee education against the social-politics of “otherness” that marks our national consciousness. We do it for critical geographies of body, place, space, speech, and tongue, to lean into the geographies of identity, temporality of place, and the corporeal politics of language and culture. We do it for examining power through community in the era of ongoing pandemics. We do it for self-authoring of social identities in equitable education.
At this time of our transition, we have chosen to do it for curriculum and teaching across educational landscapes. Our final collective reflection below takes up the topics of this issue, and the (re)membering of our work together as it relates to the past, present, and future of the journal of Equity & Excellence in Education. (Re)turn Us to Our Names, a title inspired by the work of Alexis Pauline Gumbs (2020), can be understood as a call to (re)turn to our landscapes as situated complex spaces of nurture; to understand the ecology of self and community; and to pursue the multiplicity of possibilities anew.
Transitions and elsewhere possibilities
All right. Let’s jump in. So, as we close out our editorial tenure together, we are gonna just reflect on a few questions for the last issue that we’re curating together. I am in Brooklyn, New York, the landscape that raised me! So, you are getting all the authentic background audio. Y’all might hear that. Can you hear that?
No.
No.
*laughter*
Really? What?! Okay. Cool, noise suppression is on point today. So let’s jump in. We have a couple of questions that we’re bringing to the table today. Let’s just roll with it in organic conversation. Starting with the question in relation to this issue, which is our last official issue before the final guest edited issue that will close out our tenure as editors of this journal. As you all know, each issue that we did, we named it “For something,” and so this particular one is For Curriculum and Teaching Across Educational Landscapes. But let’s unpack that: What do we even mean by “educational landscapes”? Why is this the place that we chose to transition or ‘end’ our time together?
*all pause*
It’s the wait time for me
*laughter*
I can jump in with the response. I think landscapes suggest or denote geography and space, and I think that in many ways this can be seen as an invitation to continue doing the work of engaging equity or thinking about what equity means in vast spaces, like spaces yet unknown or unexplored, or underexplored over the course of our tenure.
Yeah, I appreciate that perspective and was thinking that when I think about educational landscapes, in addition to the geography and the land and the vastness, I think about variety. And I think about just how landscapes can look differently as they support whatever that context needs. So I think it’s interesting for us to think about education in that way; that it can be vast and varied and support the life and the needs of folks engaging in that context or in that landscape.
I think it’s nice that we end on a note that recognizes that there is not a singular answer to questions like, “what is educational equity or excellence in education?” in the same way that educational landscapes are not singular. They’re vast and varied and layered and textured, and they change and they shift, you know, and hopefully are tended to. We hope, right? We hope that we tend to and nurture landscapes. In the same way, I hope that we’re advocating for cultivating the kinds of approaches that are featured in this issue—which are also varied and layered and textured.
Word. I think, just going back to Esther’s notion of this as an invitation, and even just riffing off of what you shared, Keisha, what comes to mind for me is that it feels like our work has been intentional about valuing the various landscapes that knowledge exists within. So that when we think about something like equity in education, we think about it through the lenses of knowledge that exist beyond the walls of the academy—beyond the walls of the classroom. What does it mean to witness and invite and engage substantively the various landscapes that shape the learning experiences of our communities? What you shared, Keisha, really resonated with me because it felt very ecological. Landscape is a living thing. When you talk about it being nurtured, then it brings it to life for me in a way that I before felt flattened in my mind.
Hmm.
But when you think about the intention that goes behind nurturing a landscape and the ecological dimension of it, that puts Esther’s notion of “invitation” into perspective. As opposed to just an end, the invitation exists alongside an end. An invitation to continue cultivating new beginnings across varied landscape. A transition for those who are going to be picking up the work that we’ve done.
Yeah, this is really beautiful, as always, when we get together in these spaces and these ways of like “the kitchen table” that we’ve been really leaning into. It’s inspiring to think about this. And, particularly reflecting on this issue and where we are now, having done three years, I think of educational landscapes as like, what are the knowledges present and the knowledges that are happening on the land where you currently are taking up space? And that can be anywhere, right? So I’m thinking about Jamila saying that you’re in Brooklyn, right? In those spaces that you know so well—what’s happening, right? In the streets? In those stores? And going back to Esther’s point, what of those unknown spaces that people might want to tuck away or sort of run away from in Brooklyn or elsewhere, right? All those places that we know and are familiar with, but that may not get lifted up.
Hmm.
But we know that these spaces are where deep learning is occurring and where much of us were reared and how we came to know and sort of be in the world. If you’ve read any of my work now, you probably know that I reference poet Danez Smith often. And they have a poem called dear white america where they open [by] talking about how they have left Earth in search of darker planets. And so, I want us to think about educational landscape in that way. What do we abandon to find those sort of darker, far out, unknown spaces that are propelling, really, the world forward, but we think that kind of propelling is only possible in formal spaces.
So thinking about turning to darkness as a mode of educational landscaping. When I say darkness here, I’m just referring to the ways we must be attentive to places and spaces where learning can occur that are often overlooked. Across all of our issues we tried to amplify that. But, I think ending here, we’re really just making sure that we close out with sort of this one last motion over to the Academy, to the community, to everyone, to seek those darker spaces.
Word, word.
That jumps out to me a lot. Particularly because I’ve been re-reading Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of. Yeah. [Laughs]
Recently I just was like, “I need some literary inspiration for my spirit” and so, I’ve been reading the one and only Toni. So when you talk about the landscapes that we do inhabit, when you ask, “What do we abandon in pursuit of those darker planets?” I think of even how that within that darkness there is variety, multiplicity, and richness that exists in such spaces. Kind of like Toni Morrison points us to the reality that an abiding Black presence is imbued into a white hegemonic landscape that consistently tries to erase us or deny or ignore our presence. Whether by relegating us to the background of the literary imagination or forwarding a narrative of American-ness in no way shaped by the force of our presence, labor, or humanity. So, what does it mean to attend carefully to how we show up in landscapes that insist on being exclusionary and marginalizing?
Yeah, and thank you for bringing in our sister. Our good sister, Toni Morrison.
Mhmm. Anything else on this concept of landscape? Because we could transition. Do we feel like we answered the question of why? Is there anything folks want to add about why, in particular, this is the space that we chose to transition [and] end our time?
I have some general musings. So for you all, for the fam who will read this, I’m okay with saying that I think that is also the beauty of transition. Before we came [into these roles], that was a transition. We didn’t know what this would look like, and we now have three years of what it has been. Now we’re leaving this educational landscape, right? This journal, this place that holds people’s dreams or careers and possibilities, all these things, right? And so, I’m just thinking about this journal as a landscape itself and how we sought to (and we’ve heard this from people) embody the work that we do and embody all of our titles, you know?
So yeah, I want to think about us, too, as an educational landscape and this transition as a good point to end. Because landscapes shift and they change and they grow and they go into new directions. And that’s what this journal is doing. So, hopefully, we’ve left a legacy within our tenure to—going back to this word of invitation that Esther started off us with—to invite other people into this shift and change, and to mold this landscape to be something that is disruptive to normative landscapes, to violent landscapes. So yeah, this is how I’m thinking about our transition.
Word.
It’s beautiful.
So, that’s actually a good turning point. Because when we think about the transition, and we think about the theme that we chose to transition on, it’s still within our commitment as a journal to deepen notions of equity and excellence as it relates to the field of education. Why do we feel like this theme in particular is important for our understanding of equity? And I will say them separately: Not equity and excellence in education, but why is it important for educational equity? Why is it important for educational excellence?
Mhmm. I mean, this might be a simplistic way to think about equity. And it’s probably on my mind because I was just in conversation with a colleague about a showcase that we’re doing for families and children. Thinking about how you talk about equity to a child as in [a] kindergartener … would explain equity as making sure that there’s space for every single person to have access to all of what they need to achieve their fullest potential. I know that’s super simplistic, but I was really pushing to think about how I talk to a 5- or 6-year-old about equity. In the way that Justin so beautifully shared those musings, I am proud of the ways that we—through the journal itself, through the articles across each issue, the conversations that were a part of the featured webinars, and I think even in the ways that we try to push among the four of us, in the re-articulation of the aims and scope and in the way that we try to make the journal visible or accessible—for me, that feels like, as Justin was remarking, it feels like a push to hold us accountable in stewarding a journal.
We know how academic journals can be, and I think actively choosing to do something differently—even if it was sort of small turns, was hard. It’s easier to do some things, and hard to do others in terms of being disruptive. But I think at the heart of it was always this notion that … understanding equity, in part, means being aware and clear about the ways we as folks of color, Black women and men, have been historically marginalized in and out of the academy. So, how do we make spaces more equitable? At every turn, even in the most mundane parts of things, we tried to think about how this is an equitable process as a way to be a model for equitable practices and a space where folks can read about equitable approaches to education.
And trying to do that with excellence. And by that I mean—I don’t want to use words like “rigor”—showing that we can curate work that pushes our thinking, our intellectual capacity, you know, that really pushes us to question and reconsider. To me, that’s part of excellence—not relying on old constructs or old ways. But really trying to hold us in loving accountability and push beyond what we’ve been doing, beyond “business as usual.”
I feel like I’m taking my time because it is perhaps the core of our conversation, this question. And thank you for those words, Keisha. Whew! Why does this theme feel important? You know, I think you said something, Keisha, that I think honestly really captures it. It is just the full circle moment. I think, of what we tried to do. And I think when we think about all of our work—collectively and individually—it is rooted in space, right?, in landscapes. That’s how we all sort of come to be and know our work. And, again, just going back to that full circle. We’re all rooted in some sort of geography, right? Going back to how Esther brought that language into the conversation. And geography matters. I think it matters more for certain folks. I think, particularly we try to uplift the voices of marginalized communities, historically marginalized and minoritized scholars and amplify those geographies. How do we continue to do that? And so, I think that is equity, right? To directly make, create, cultivate, sustain—all those words that we know—space for people. Right? And to give space—‘cause we did not have to do that. I think a lot of journals don’t do that. I think a lot of the academy doesn’t do that. And so that is directly why that’s important for an equity standpoint to think about educational landscapes.
And then, the excellence thing has always been funny, and I think we’ve talked about that first when we came here, and other people have. What is excellence? I think it means many things for different people. Then we work to try to define that and we push our authors to define that. But I think in a world that thrives off of individuality, competition, violence of all kinds, you know, to be excellent is to counter those things. And again, part of doing that is thinking about going to those darker, unknown geographies. And so that is for me, excellence. And again, obviously thinking about education, it’s really just going to that fact that learning can be everywhere and it is everywhere. And so that is why it’s important for us to end on that note.
Word. And to that point, I think, when it comes to equity, I want our readers or anyone thinking alongside us to be careful about how we engage with various educational landscapes. I think sometimes many think, “Okay, we’re, educators, academics going to teach and research across educational landscapes or extract from those educational landscapes.” What feels important, especially with the notion of equity, is what it means to understand various educational landscapes as having the capacity and power to teach us on its own. To be its own authority over its own knowledge, its own experts, you know? Whether it be the land or the people. And what does it mean to sit with that wisdom and become a student of that and not just think, “I’m gonna go in and either extract or try to become a teacher within this other space”? That feels important for me. Because to value the wisdom and the learning that can happen across various landscapes is a way to push back against knowledge hierarchies and to understand what it means to become a student of everything in important ways. And yeah, you right, we always grapple with this notion of excellence. I love what you just said, Justin, about what does it mean to be the opposite of all those things. Because that’s what’s rewarded in our society, right? violence, individuality, and conquering and supplanting. That’s typically how people move through this society.
Right.
Yeah, I would just add—maybe extending or connecting some of the dots that I heard in all of your responses. I think, for me, all of those terms, equity, excellent education, all of those terms, imply a kind of texture, or at least should. I would hope, or I would like for them to imply a kind of texture when folks encounter EEE as a journal and the work that EEE has published over our tenure. So that whatever notions of equity or excellence or education that people are coming into the journal with that are sedimented, I hope that they have encountered work that’s challenged that, or pushed that and just illuminated how textured and complex each of those terms are individually, let alone when they are put together in the kind of really varied landscape that they form, as a place on which to think through issues of justice in education, and schooling and all the various things that we’ve tried to think through or shepherd in our time as editors.
Word. That’s also a good transition point for us to reflect together on: Who this issue is for. In terms of who we expect to engage with it, but also in terms of how these ideas throughout the issue, and even just the conversation that we’re having here, might be applied in practice.
For me, I think it would be dope if I found out scholars, academics, education researchers, teacher educators, practitioners get a hold of this journal. There’s so much in each of our issues, and especially in this last one, we’re curating so much for folks to grab hold of and remix and consider and take up and revisit and revisit again. I think it’d be pretty exciting to know that it’s being read by some of the folks in the community who we were thinking of when we created our community board, when we thought about who we want this journal to be in front of or be on their coffee table. It’d be great to know that some of the artwork on the covers or the for the culture sections are pieces that people remember and are starting to incorporate in their own work. It’s one thing to cite an article, I think it’s another if we know people are using the images in their classroom for some kind of critical engagement in questioning around a particular issue. So who’s this issue for? It’s for anyone thinking about the expansiveness that is this thing called education. Anyone working with young people, and anyone wanting to work in a way that questions and allows for inquiry and to do otherwise, to do otherwise. I hope it ends up in the hands of folks like that.
Yeah, I think I generally push a bit of the idea that everything that we do in education, or much of what we do in education, should be applicable. And I understand that more broadly, that education is thought of as an applied field. But I also think that there’s, and I’m thinking about Michael Dumas, specifically here and the critiques that he put forth years ago about there being this rush in education to do. I think there’s space to often just sit with thoughts and sit with ideas, and even just push on the notion that everything should immediately be transmutable into some kind of action. There’s action in thinking, there’s action in integrating new ways of thinking into one’s schema. And so, I just hope that whomever picks this up finds space and permission and freedom to do that, and doesn’t necessarily feel rushed to do anything and can just find value in having thought partners either thinking with us or thinking against us or thinking beside us, but just thinking and trusting that that also is doing important work.
Absolutely, I love that. It’s another reason why I love the aesthetic quality of it, because I think that that helps facilitate just that, being able to sit with it.
One of the most exciting things for me across our tenure has been graduate students and scholars who were just so excited that they could see the possibility of their work fitting into the journal in a way that didn’t require them to have to compromise who they are. So, when this work ignites that in people, it excites me. When I think about this issue expanding the notions of what and who “belongs” for scholars and practitioners alike, that is what excites me the most. And to the degree that it does transform how they might think as new ways are integrated into their schema, as you mentioned, Esther. How they even see what academic possibilities exist, how they see the disruption of academia and the authenticity of who we are, that is something that I see as an exciting opportunity for people to have in their hands and to sit with. I’m most excited about people who didn’t believe that their full self could exist somewhere and they see that possibility here.
Yeah, it’s resonating, this theme that you all are on about sitting and even perhaps adjusting, thinking about both points, particularly how we started off our journal tenure in a way that felt a bit rushed, right? Like almost mad dash to respond to all the incoming articles and chart a path for the future of the journal, and I think sometimes that means things may not be moving with care, right? We can’t really address or think through real issues and problems if we’re forcing thoughts, forcing ideas, forcing community. And I think about, thank you for bringing up Michael Dumas, and also I want to bring in Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz who I remember one time I was in this space and she was just like, “Justin, there is a such thing as slow work, you don’t have to move so quickly.” Particularly for the things that we deal with in our work, these aren’t short term things, these are moments that cross time and space that we’ll always be thinking through so I think this is for those people who want to be in that slow work, of sitting, and doing it well and collectively.
I’m thinking about landscapes within our space, across space, across borders, all those sorts of things that we can say. I also want to say that it’s for us. I think sometimes people may not say that, I think that we have done this work, and I think we came to it because we had a vision and we shared that vision with others and we got to be in deep community with a lot of people. And then of course, going back to the core of it and sort of how we started, and why I really say it’s for us, is because in our first issue and our editorial we included pictures of ourselves and we talked about our younger selves and what equity means. I think we’re ending here too, in thinking about these three years and what we’ve been able to do, are our younger selves proud of that? Would the world be better? Hopefully, eventually, because of these three years and helping have these new thoughts in the world. And lastly, just going back to those darker spaces, I think this issue and our whole time here is for those folks who are in these darker enclaves that are often unacknowledged.
Why don’t we close out by going around and giving one quick final thought?
My final thought is just a note of gratitude. I think that this has been a journey, and for all the ways that we have journeyed, and as far as landscapes go, they are not flat. So I want to acknowledge and recognize that I’ve been shaped by this engagement amongst the four of us. As Justin mentioned, it’s a legacy, a small piece. It feels like we were able to play a small role or small piece in this larger academic landscape and I’m proud of that. The road has not been easy and yet it’s something that I will cherish, if only for the ways that it opens up the kinds of possibilities that we mentioned. The possibilities of working with folks at different institutions in this way and for reminding me that, in the same way that I talk about freedom-dreaming in a workshop with educators or to young people, it’s also a possibility in my own work. Sometimes that idea can get lost when your head is down and your nose is on the grindstone, and so I think experiences like this remind me of all the varied ways that we can be, and engage, in this kind of freedom-dreaming and doing. So, thank you, and I want to make sure that I recognize that we did something here and hopefully some doors have been opened and not necessarily in the literal way but, perhaps, more importantly doors opening toward different ways of being and thinking.
I’ll echo that. I think for me this has been a space of deep learning over the last three years and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for having encountered each of you in this place and for what I’ve learned with you, what I’ve learned through you, what I’ve learned ‘cause of you, and ultimately for me, this is a space that in many ways has shown me what’s possible in terms of moving an ambitious idea or project from thought to practice in all the ways that are textured, so I’m grateful for the myriad lessons learned here. I’ll end where I started which is that I hope that folks who encounter this issue, encounter any issue that’s come out under our tenure, feel an invitation to go deeper, go broader, and see where that leads.
Keisha kind of gave us a prompt on recognition and gratitude, so I’m hearing what both you and Esther shared. I think it opens up that space for me to think about that gratitude and really just to acknowledge and affirm. Going back to Esther’s point, to all your points about what we were able to do, and I think really reiterating that while there were us four as editors, there was also an entire team. The three of you had this really bright idea to have these apprenticesFootnote1 and to also have these different boards; community board and advisory board, and to put art on the cover of each issue, and to reach out to artists, and to have the journal issues in museum windows. There’s a way in which this is a living journal (I think as I mentioned in one of the many panels we’ve done). Hopefully all journals can be that way because we are living people, so we shouldn’t pick up things that are dead or create things that are dead, right? Things that are created to really just exist only in memory. So, I want us to think about that, and I want to acknowledge that this is hopefully a contribution that we made. I, too, thank you all, and thank everyone who has played a role, whether you clicked a link that one of our authors posted on Twitter, whether you attended one of our sessions, or whether you even poured into us individually well before we became journal editors, or even if you do that well after, because I think that is all a circle. Our existence isn’t just finite, but it’s like the entire ways that we are present across time and space. So thank you to everyone who has contributed, even to those who have been editors before us and those who will be editors long after us.
The Hebrew word anavah in scripture is translated into the English word humility. But our understanding of humility does not capture the true meaning of the word, which means “to take up your God-given space in the world.” That is what I want to invite people into as I think about what I learned from the gift of our time together—take up space and just honor the full vision of who we are.
For curriculum and teaching across educational landscapes
As we close out our dialogue, let’s lift up the amazing manuscripts within this issue. I say we just name each one and the heat that they each bring to the table. I’ll start! To kick off this issue, Yvette Regalado brought Jessica Martell, Farima Pour-Khorshid, Tim San Pedro, Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, and Mariana Souto-Manning to the table in “A Kitchen-Table Talk on Disrupting and Dreaming Beyond the Prescribed Curriculum.” They kicked off their dialogue by sharing how a small ofrenda or artifact situates, inspires, and propels their work of pushing beyond the prescribed curriculum in professional spaces. The authors lift up the power of Indigeneity, abolition, decoloniality, and the power of hustle as disruptive forces in their educational praxes.
I got next because I want to lift up a significant feature of every issue under our tenure, and that’s the For the Culture section. In this issue, Phelps, Taylor, and Purdy offer us, “Finding Renewal and Inspiration through the Teaching and Learning of Black Education,” where they draw on counter-storytelling to explore the dynamics, content, and last meaning of a course focused on the past, present, and future of Black education.
That’s a great transition because “Diggin” in the Racial Literacy Crates” features Jordan Bell, Karen Zaino, and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz exploring co-excavative letter writing as a method for relational racial literacy development. This innovative approach to letter writing challenges dominant forms of knowledge production in the academy while also functioning as a tool for both reflexivity and collaboration.
Elevating student voices and experiences, Brandi Hinnant-Crawford and colleagues in “Good Teaching, Warm and Demanding Classrooms, and Critically Conscious Students: Measuring Student Perceptions of Asset-based Equity Pedagogy in the Classroom” use a new psychometric tool, AssetBased Equity Pedagogy Scale (ABEPSc), to capture student responses to teaching practices that include care, high expectations, and criticality or the ability to understand and change inequity. Grounded by a QuantCrit framework, the authors demonstrate how the results of numerical data collected from students’ can be used to enhance culturally responsive instructional approaches.
Also centering youth voices and experiences, Lauren Kelly In “It’s What We’re About:” Youth Epistemologies in the Design of Social and Educational Futures,” takes up how Black and Indigenous youth and Youth of Color collaboratively engage in designing a youth conference on Hip-Hop culture, art, activism, and social justice. Through participant observation, the author documents the insightful process of youth-developed approaches to community-based and youth-centered learning.
Being responsive to the ways educators in Canada are moving to teach about Indigenous knowledges and epistemologies, in “Teaching as Trespass: Avoiding Places of Innocence,” Daniela Bascuñán and colleagues share insights on the nuances of such teaching in elementary and secondary contexts. Noting various points where educators can begin to take on this necessary work, the authors highlight the possibilities of curriculum that can take shape when developed in collaborative ways with Indigenous populations.
This is followed by Kisha Porcher and Shamian Bertrand’s conceptual article, “The Marathon Continues: Black Faculty Awakened & Inspired by Neighborhood Nip to Redesign Community-Engaged Teacher Education Courses,” illuminates the ways the life and music of hip-hop artist Nipsey Hussle prompted a redesigning of their teacher education courses. The purpose of this piece, engaged through self-study as practitioner inquiry, was to serve as a model of disruption into the ways teacher education courses may better tend to the conditions of Black living and learning experiences.
Keeping on that theme, Anthony R. Keith, Jr., turns to hip-hop for more expansive and effective education leadership possibilities. In “On Being Ed Emcees: Toward Hip-Hop Educational Leadership Theory, Research and Praxis,” Keith examines the leadership styles of hip-hip educational leaders who are also poets, rappers, or emcees. Keith builds on hip-hopography as an interdisciplinary and critical qualitative methodological framework for conducting hip-hop centric research. Introducing blackout poetic transcription techniques to analyze interview data, Keith illustrates how the particular practices of hip-hop educational school leaders, or education emcees, are uniquely situated to identify, successfully enact, and promote inclusive practices in schools.
Bretton A. Varga and Tommy Ender also turn to hip-hop for otherwise possibilities in teaching and learning, particularly among marginalized and minoritized youth in schools. In “Wu-Tang for the Children: Swarming Elsewhere for Aesthetic (Re)Imaginings of Community, Theory, & Praxis” readers will engage the music of Wu-Tang Clan as a fugitive space for (re)theorizing ways to disrupt hegemonic and oppressive curriculum and instruction.
Now we know Hip-Hop and jazz might as well be distant cousins, so we’ll segue into “Towards a Jazz Pedagogy: Learning with and from Jazz Greats and Great Educators,” where Autumn Griffin and colleagues center jazz as resistance work, particularly in relation to its roots and legacy of resisting anti-Blackness. Referring to a group of expert teachers as Jazz Pedagogues, this team of researchers and teachers analyze dialogue between Jazz Pedagogues, moving toward a framework for Jazz Pedagogy.
Following this, Juan Carrillo draws on Anzaldúa’s (2007) conception of borderlands, in “Basketball as Borderlands Play: Informal Spaces as Sites of Learning and Refusal,” to think through the ways basketball can serve to develop the critical subjectivities of and within communities of color. This conceptual piece shares a framework that gets educators and researchers to imagine the possibilities of basketball as a form of borderland play.
Brittany Jones and Joel Berends also focus on educational responses to racism in “Enacting Antiracist Pedagogy: An Analysis of Lebron James and Doc Rivers’ Antiracist Discourse.” Joel and Berends provide a Black Crit-informed critical discourse analysis of Lebron James and Doc Rivers’ responses to the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot seven times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, illuminating how the athletes’ words serve as protest, resistance, and models for pedagogical antiracism.
In “Co-making Against antiBlackness” ReAnna S. Roby and colleagues take a look inside the complex world of Black girls in STEM using a participatory, critical, and relational ethnography shaped by Black feminist inquiry. The authors highlight the ways Black girls engage in margin work or community engaged co-making practices centering their already present knowledge and wisdom to counter antiBlackness in STEM/making contexts.
Willie C. Harmon and colleagues—each Black male fathers—remind us of the influence of Black fathers on their sons’ schooling experiences. In “Black Fathers Rising: A QuantCrit Analysis of Black Fathers’ Paternal Influence on Sons’ Engagement and Sense of School Belonging in High School,’’ the experiential knowledge of Black fathers and the positionality of the authors is central to making sense of the longitudinal quantitative high school data featured in this study. The authors necessarily trouble dominant narratives of disengagement toward a (re)claimation of Black father educational habitus or the intentional parenting practices of Black fathers in relationship to their children’s feelings about and engagement with school.
To close out this issue, in “Epistemologies of Family: Intentionally Centering Relationality, Mutuality and Care in Educational Research,” Hui-Ling Malone joins “scholar-siblings,” Grace Player and Tim San Pedro, to lift up familial ways of knowing and how knowledge is nurtured in their situated lives at the intersections of race and gender. They offer methodological pathways that center the values of marginalized families—Values that refuse to extract for research and that insist on relationality and care in educational research.
Notes
1. Under our tenure we inaugurated “apprenticeships” for graduate students wishing to work with us from any institution across the nation. Selected students worked closely with us and our Editorial Assistants to live into the editorial vision of the journal in expansive, dynamic, and multimodal ways.