(NAME-MCE) Elitization of AERA

[Christine Clark]

As a member of the SIG of Critical Educators for Social Justice, I consider that it is my duty to find out more about the antidemocratic changes in AERA. Why are they happening? How should we, as more socially concerned educators, respond to such challenges? I post these concerns on the ‘elitization’ of AERA as an invitation to all SIG members to join this overdue conversation on the anti-democratic trend of AERA in the last decade.

Best,

Myriam Torres
New Mexico State University
 
Elitization of AERA
 
The invasion by the neoliberal doctrine into all branches of society has significantly eroded the basis of democracy.  We, the people, are facing a “democratic deficit”[i].  AERA is not the exception. The elitization of AERA is on fast track and blatant.  The following are some facts that illustrate this trend.

Regular voting membership fee increased 182% from 2001 to 2010, from $45 to $120 plus $7 additional general fee for SIGs in addition to the fee for each SIG we subscribe for. This increase is not translated into more and better services in comparison to those given between 1995 and 2000, when this type of membership was $45. 
Early registration for the annual conference has been incremented 3:1, from $45 to $165, in the same period. Again, not apparent increase or betterment of services at the conference for attendees and presenters.
Conversion of the open process of peer review into a selection of a small group of ‘volunteers’ who supposedly are the ones who know how to judge the “highest merit and quality”. The immediate consequence is reduction of perspectives of research, and voices.  This is a change from being a volunteer service in various areas of interest to just one area, where the volunteer is going to be overburdened with 10-20 proposals and still consider it a privilege.
Reduction by 1/3 of presentations from 1500 (latest conference) to 1000 for 2010 Conference in Denver. This is clearly a reduction of choices with respect to the last year. However we are paying even more for the registration. Those with higher possibilities to be selected are those whose proposals are closer to the parameters and not necessarily to the importance and relevance for most people and for the profession. 
Moratorium on the creation of new SIGs. With few exceptions of some division sections, SIGs represent the most democratic forums for marginalized voices to speak out, non-conventional research paradigms and approaches to be represented and discussed, and non-mainstream but influential educators and researchers to be acknowledged and valued.
Tendency toward centralization of governance, homogenization of processes and procedures, thus excluding more democratic and socially responsive ways of organization and research at large. E.g. title of elected officials following the traditional hierarchical model.  
Standards for reporting qualitative research and conceptual papers in AERA journals[ii].
 
As we have heard over and over, these changes have been framed as imperative to improve rigor and quality of education research, and to some degree they will do so. However, the price for this improvement is the significant reduction in democracy at all levels and dimensions of the organization such as: real bottom-up participation in significant decision making, diversity of epistemologies, diversity of approaches, and above all, social, cultural and environmental responsiveness. Consequently, diverse and divergent ways of doing research and thinking about research are squeezed and sterilized until they disappear. 
 
The ‘new positivist orthodoxy’[iii] or a ‘repositivization’ of education research promoted by the National Research Council (NRC) and embraced by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) which has produced “policy entrepreneurs” and not the replicable and cumulative knowledge that justifies its creation in the first place[iv].
 
In his 2008 biennial IES Director’s report to the Congress, Grover Whitehurst[v] assures that there were very few research studies to show before the creation of IES in 2002.  He claims that IES is politically independent. However, the director is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. IES statutory mission is “to conduct scientifically valid research”.  The 2002 National Research Council Report[vi]   defines scientific research in terms of  the following principles: 1) Pose questions to study empirically; 2) Link research to related theory; 3)  Use methods to investigate questions directly; 4) Provide explicit chain of reasoning; 5) Replicate and generalize; 6) Disclose data and methods for professional peer review.  These principles are obviously positivist and even worse, heavily empiricist.  Getting even more radically positivist, Whitehurst defends “the methodological superiority of randomized trials for drawing causal claims in areas in which outcomes are affected by many variables and in which effects vary across individuals and settings is very widely acknowledged across all of the sciences, including education” (p.11). 
 
IES policy (Whitehurst’s report) establishes the recruitment of well-trained researchers (up to 190) and the allocation of resources for the training of cadres in scientific education research. This training is carried out outside the colleges of education due to the ‘woeful’ reputation of researcher in these colleges[vii]. These cadres are prepared to become leading researchers in major institutions, agencies, foundations, centers and professional organizations. After graduation, they will be in the front line to receive large grants from IES and to take leading positions in organizations like AERA. Even though I have not tracked anyone yet, it is easy to predict this flow of IES cadres of researchers. It makes sense as a self-reproductive system. The AERA representative(s) endorsed the Whitehurst’s report, “there is much to boast about in the accomplishments of IES” (p.3).
 
 IES researchers may also conduct research projects to self-serve and self-reproduce their research ways and interests. These ‘leading’ researchers[viii] (134) in ‘leading’ institutions are surveyed about the journals of most impact on scholarship and practice. How could we not think of their bias in favor of those journals that publish more of their research? Since this survey also included the impact on educational practice, I wonder, were practitioners in the trenches in schools in poor neighborhoods surveyed about the relevance of the ‘scientific education research’? If not, who was invited to speak for them? Studies like this resemble the debacle of the National Reading Panel[ix]
 

[i] Chomsky, N. (2009, October ). Coups, UNASUR, and the US. Z Magazine, 22, 21-26.
[ii] American-Educational-Research-Association. (2006). Standards for Reporting Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications. Educational  Researcher, 35(6), 33-40.
American-Educational-Research-Association. (2009). Standards for Reporting on Humanities-Oriented Research in AERA Publications. Educational  Researcher, 38(6), 481-486.
[iii] Howe, K. R. (2009). Epistemology, methodology, and education sciences. Educational  Researcher, 38(6), 428-440.
[iv] Lather, P. (2008). New wave utilization research: (Re) Imagining the research/policy nexus Educational  Researcher, 37(6), 361-364.
[v] Whitehurst, G. J. (2008). Rigor and Relevance redux: Director's Biennial Report to Congress. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Education Sciences.
[vi] National-Research-Council. (2002). Scientific Research in Education. Washington, D. C. : National Academic Press.
[vii] Levine, A. (2007). Educating Researchers. The Education Schools Project. Retrieved from http://www.edschools.org/EducatingResearchers/educating_researchers.pdf.
[viii] Goodyear, R. K., Brewer, D. J., Gallagher, K. S., Tracey, T. J. G., Charles, D. C., Lichtenberg, J. W., et al. (2009). The intellectual foundations of education: Core journals and their impacts on scholarship and practice Educational Researcher, 38(9), 700-706.
[ix] Yatvin, J. (2002). Babes in the woods: The wanderings of the National Reading Panel. Phi Delta Kappan, 364-369 and Coles, G. (2003). Reading the naked truth: Literacy, legislation, and lies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
 
 


———
Christine Clark, Ed.D.
chriseclark at mac.com
702.896.1527 Telephone
702.896.4529 Facsimile
702.985.6979 Cellular
 
"...In the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right." 

—Revered Joseph Lowery, Excerpt from the Benediction given at the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009