Dean’s Lecture Series
2024–25 Theme — A Just Society: Equity, Belonging and Community
GSE is committed to creating an equitable, diverse, inclusive and just community where all feel welcomed, included, supported and empowered. It is crucial our communities have equal access to supports, services and opportunities that ensure learning and success.
Invited speakers were selected by a committee of junior faculty who also picked the theme. Their topics reflect a range of perspectives on the theme, representing the various departments within GSE.
The Power of Belonging: Reflections From Research With Latinx Immigrant Youth in Schools and Communities
Friday, March 7, 2025 | 2:30-4:30 p.m.
Sophia Rodriguez
Associate Professor
New York University Steinhardt
Sophia Rodriguez, PhD, is a leading scholar in racial equity, urban education and policy, focusing on the voices of minoritized youth. Her research, funded by the Spencer and W.T. Grant Foundations, explores how schools and communities foster inclusion for immigrant youth. She has received numerous accolades, including the William T. Grant Scholars Award and the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Rodriguez founded the ImmigrantEdNext Research Lab, where she mentors students in research addressing social justice and belonging. Her work has been widely published in prestigious academic journals and featured in the Washington Post.
Abstract
This presentation will highlight Dr. Rodriguez's longitudinal mixed-methods study with multiple school districts in the mid-Atlantic region and findings from surveys with over 3400 youth, as well as qualitative fieldwork and interviews with minoritized youth. The study shows that unwelcoming school racial climates impact Latinx immigrant youths' sense of belonging. She will outline ways that schools can create a more positive and welcoming environment, including how districts can forge partnerships with community-based organizations to ensure positive belonging and well-being for youth.
Trans-Disciplinary Learning With Community at Heart
Friday, Sept. 20, 2024 | 2:30-4 p.m. | Zoom
Miwa Takeuchi
Associate Professor
Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary
Associate Professor in the Learning Sciences at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. Her work is centered around equity and social justice in mathematics and STEM education. Working collaboratively with learners, teachers, community activists, and "families," she aims to co-design the learning environments that can leverage learners' embodied and emplaced disciplinary experiences into a transdisciplinary imagination toward social and environmental justice.
Abstract
Dr. Takeuchi's work has been guided by the voices of young learners and their families, who live across multiple national and linguistic borders and have experienced forced displacement. The voices and wisdom rooted in the community should be at the center of trans-disciplining acts that disrupt and repair the siloed disciplinary works within the academia, to address pressing socio-environmental issues. Drawing from ongoing research-design partnerships with community partners and teachers, she highlights how we have collectively learned to be attuned to colonial histories through micro-interactions grounded in the land, and how we have rekindled our relationships with the soil, more-than-humans, and each other.