The recent polarization of unarmed Black men killed by White police officers has sparked a sense of urgency to address as curriculum at the American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting last week. At the largest gathering in the field of education research, AERA scholars expressed the necessity of incorporating social justice into curriculum.
A panel that highlighted this year’s call to action, Toward Justice – Culture, Language and Heritage in Education Research and Praxis, “Bringing Ferguson to our Classrooms: The Implications of Michael Brown’s Teacher Curricula,” senior scholars discussed the significance of classroom conversations on the deaths of Brown, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride and most recently Walter Scott.
“We have to center the dialogue in terms of entrenchment or return. The death of Black people by way of law enforcement is not new to life in the United States for Black people. It has changed somewhat only because we now have visuals,” said panelist associate professor of educational policy studies and African-American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago Dr. David O. Stovall. <Read more.>
Professor Van Ry 