As the American Educational Research Association brings its annual conference to Toronto this April, nearly five-dozen scholars from USC Rossier are preparing papers and presentations for the country’s largest gathering of education researchers.
The five-day conference is highlighted by the Early Career Award Lecture to be delivered by Associate Professor Julie Posselt, an expert on undergraduate and graduate admissions. Posselt said she plans “to speak broadly about the social construction of merit in U.S. higher education,” including how colleges and universities have institutionalized inequities in their admissions processes, but also “why hope is not lost” for them.
Admissions has become a flashpoint in the past month following allegations of bribery and fraud committed by wealthy parents looking to get their children into elite universities, including the University of Southern California. The scandal has caused wider conversations about elitism, merit and wealth, and what social and political levers can be used to curb the role of money in admissions.
Posselt is the fourth professor at USC Rossier to win the AERA Early Career Award in the past five years. Last year, Associate Professor Morgan Polikoff delivered his Early Career Award Lecture on the rocky implementation of standards-based reform.
Five additional USC Rossier scholars will speak as invited speakers or in presidential sessions, while 10 professors have roles as discussants.
USC Rossier School of Education: Presentations at AERA 2019
The annual meeting for the American Educational Research Association is headed to Toronto from April 5–9. More than 50 scholars from the USC Rossier community will represent the school at this year’s convening.
Featured Events
USC Rossier 2019 AERA Reception
Join Dean Karen Symms Gallagher for a toast to our Centennial year.
Saturday, April 6, 6–8 p.m., The Westin Harbour Castle
"The Social Construction of Merit: How Admissions Institutionalizes Inequities and Why Hope Is Not Lost"
Associate Professor Julie Posselt delivers the Early Career Award Lecture, speaking about how operational definitions of merit in undergraduate and graduate admissions have institutionalized inequities, and what strategies can center students and mission within institutions focused on status.
Sunday, April 7, 3:40 p.m., Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Room 104CD
Invited Speaker and Presidential Sessions
Sexual Harassment and Climate Change in Scholarly Associations and the Academy: A Town Hall Meeting
Shaun R. Harper joins AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine and a panel of other experts to discuss how higher education has addressed harassment and climate issues.
April 5, 4:20 p.m., Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Room 103 A&B
Truth and Trauma: What Educators Need to Understand about Societal Racial Trauma and Its Impact on Youth of Color
Brendesha M. Tynes joins a panel session exploring social inequalities that cause harm to minoritized and marginalized youth/students, and how even in illuminating the “truth” about these inequalities, trauma can be perpetrated.
April 6, 2:15 p.m., Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Room 206A
Advancing Academic Success Through Research and Program Development
Shaun R. Harper speaks as part of the 23rd Annual Conversation With Senior Scholars on Advancing Research and Professional Development Related to Black Education.
Sat, April 6, 4:10 p.m., Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Room 107
We Cannot Be "Post-Truth": Handling Public Speech Controversies on Campus
William G. Tierney joins a panel of other higher education leaders in answering the question: How should campus leaders negotiate the tensions between providing a public forum for controversial ideas and their institutional missions to create knowledge and promote integrity?
April 7, 8 a.m., Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Second Floor, Civic Ballroom South
Centering Us: The Role of Institutional Centers in Educational Sovereignty, Justice, and Liberation
Charles H.F. Davis III and Shaun R. Harper join other leaders from institutional centers enacting community-engaged research and practice seeking to sustain Indigenous and Black peoples, alongside other communities of color.
April 8, 2:15 p.m., Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Room 104A
Digital Equity and Computer Science for All: Research Addressing the Normative, Political, Technical, and Pedagogical Dimensions of School Reform
Zoë Corwin will join a panel of other experts drawing on their work in schools, districts, the federal government, and non-profit institutions to describe how school reform policies can broaden participation in K-12 computer science.
April 9, 10:25 a.m., Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Room 104A
Full Schedule
April 5:
- Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work (Poster Session)
April 6:
- Faculty and Muslim Student Interactions
April 7:
- Post-2016 Presidential Election Perspectives and Experiences of Muslim College Students
- Centering Students' Identities in Varied Institutional Contexts
April 7:
- Institutional Perspectives on Education Policy: New Directions in Theory and Research (chair)
April 8:
- Reciprocal Relationships: Advancing Equity Through Democratic Engagement and Finance Reform
April 7:
- Exploring How Socioeconomic Status and School Contexts Influence Staff Perceptions of School Climate (roundtable)
- Creating Safe K–12 Schools: International Trends
April 8:
- Role of School Climate in School-Based Violence Among Homeless and Nonhomeless Students: Individual- and School-Level Analysis
April 7:
- Engaged Graduate Education and the Research University: A Learning Community Approach to Campus-Wide Change
- Adapting College-Going Cultures for a Digital World: A Case Study of Six California High Schools
April 8:
- Scaling Culture Change Through Institutional Logics: A Look at the AAU STEM Initiative
April 6:
- Technopolicy and School Reform: Privatization and the Governance of American Education
April 7:
- Institutional Perspectives on Education Policy: New Directions in Theory and Research (discussant)
Jennifer Candipan (USC Dornsife)
April 5:
- Neighborhood Change and the Neighborhood-School Gap
April 7:
- Choosing Schools in Changing Places: Examining School Enrollment in Gentrifying Neighborhoods (poster)
April 7:
- Analytics to Improve Motivation and Persistence
April 9:
- Analytics to Improve Persistence, Motivation, and Learning
April 6:
- Faculty and Muslim Student Interactions
- Latina Students from College Preparatory Charter High School to First Year of College (roundtable)
April 7:
- Post-2016 Presidential Election Perspectives and Experiences of Muslim College Students
April 9:
- Examining the Effects of Social Self-Efficacy Among Two Cohorts of First-Year Students Participating in a Comprehensive College Transition Program
April 6:
- Peers as Brokers of College Resources and Support (roundtable)
April 7:
- Adapting College-Going Cultures for a Digital World: A Case Study of Six California High Schools (roundtable)
April 9:
- PS19: Digital Equity and Computer Science for All: Research Addressing the Normative, Political, Technical, and Pedagogical Dimensions of School Reform (invited speaker)
April 7:
- What's in a Name? A Study of Mathematics Teachers' Implicit Bias (roundtable)
- On the Alignment of Teachers' Mathematical Content Knowledge Assessments With the Common Core Standards
April 8:
- K–8 Mathematics Teachers' Overall and Gender-Specific Beliefs about Mathematical Aptitude
April 8:
- PS12: Centering Us: The Role of Institutional Centers in Educational Sovereignty, Justice, and Liberation (invited speaker)
April 9:
- Student Activism, Resource Mobilization and New Tactical Repertoires in the "Digital Age" (speaker/chair)
April 8:
- Examining Efforts to Achieve More Inclusive and Equitable Engagement in District Decision Making (symposium)
April 7:
- Round and Round They Go: The Effects of Teacher Churn on Quality, Absences and Retention
April 6:
- Race, Identity and Activism for Institutional Change
April 8:
- Challenging Racist Stereotypes: An Examination of the Portrayal of Asian American and Pacific Islander Students in Higher Education Research (speaker/chair)
April 9:
- Alignment in U.S. History State Standards
April 5:
- Sexual Harassment and Climate Change in Scholarly Associations and the Academy: A Town Hall Meeting
April 6:
- Advancing Academic Success Through Research and Program Development (invited speaker)
April 8:
- Centering Us: The Role of Institutional Centers in Educational Sovereignty, Justice and Liberation (AERA Presidential session)
April 7:
- Engaged Graduate Education and the Research University: A Learning Community Approach to Campus-Wide Change (roundtable)
April 5:
- "Trust Me": Latino Male Gang Youths' Letters to Their Younger Peers (symposium/chair)
April 7:
- Perceptions of College Affordability in Alternative Schools: A Focus on Gang-Associated Latino Youth
April 8:
- Black and Latino Males: A Qualitative Focus on Validation and Support in Six High Schools
April 9:
- Derailed Chances: Continuation Schools, College-Going Identities, and Latino Males
April 5:
- Designing College Programs to Promote Career and Major Self-Efficacy Among Underrepresented Students: An Ecological Perspective
April 6:
- Career Decisions and Identity (roundtable/chair)
- Interventions, Validation, Fidelity, and Data Congruence (roundtable/chair)
- Communicating What We Value: Institutional Responses to Increasing Diversity (roundtable/chair)
April 7:
- Black Undergraduate Networking: A Relational Understanding of Connections, Constraints, and Capital (symposium)
April 9:
- Uncovering Implicit Factors in Experiences of Students of Color (chair)
- Examining the Effects of Social Self-Efficacy Among Two Cohorts of First-Year Students Participating in a Comprehensive College Transition Program
April 6:
- Self-Regulation of Learning and Intentional Conceptual Change
April 9:
- Promoting an Agentic Engagement Mind-Set: Preliminary Results for an Intervention With College Students (poster session)
April 6:
- Nested Ecological Systems: An Examination of the District Role in School Improvement
April 7:
- Kaleidoscope of School Options: Differentiating School Missions, Values, and Practices in Los Angeles (symposium)
April 8:
- The CORE Improvement Community: Testing Continuous Improvement in a Network of Large Urban Districts (symposium)
April 5:
- Designing College Programs to Promote Career and Major Self-Efficacy Among Underrepresented Students: An Ecological Perspective
April 8:
- Scaling Culture Change Through Institutional Logics: A Look at the AAU STEM Initiative
April 5:
- The Effects of Teacher Policy Reforms on Teacher Effectiveness and Student Achievement (discussant)
April 7:
- Free Meals for All: The Effects of the Community Eligibility Provision Program in Tennessee
April 5:
- Designing College Programs to Promote Career and Major Self-Efficacy Among Underrepresented Students: An Ecological Perspective
April 7:
- STEM Outreach Programs as a "Third Space" of Engagement: Potent Solutions to Stagnated STEM Interest
April 7:
- Exploring Boundaries, Illuminating Processes: Conducting Relational Research in Education (symposium/chair)
- To "Suffer by Choice": Latinx High School Seniors Preparing for College (roundtable)
April 8:
- Ethnographic Cross-Examination: Cultural Inquiry and the Contentious Pursuit of Truth
Hok Chio (Mark) Lai (USC Dornsife)
April 6:
- Comparisons of Reliability Estimates for Correcting Measurement Errors of the Exogenous Composites in Interaction Models
April 5:
- The Future of Academic Freedom: Identifying Global Threats and Defining Universal Values (symposium/chair)
- Neoliberal Policy and Academic Freedom: A Case Study From Florida (United States) (symposium)
April 7:
- Transactions, Power, and Multiple Perspectives: How a Relational Approach Can Enrich Research on Remedial Education (symposium)
April 8:
- Choose or Be Rendered Invisible? Reconceptualizing the Multiracial Student Experience Through Institutional Culture (roundtable)
April 7:
- Racially Minoritized Faculty Activating and Mobilizing Cultural Knowledge and Assets to Resist Racist Work Environments
Ying Liu (USC Dornsife)
April 5:
- Shifting to Project-Based Learning in the Advanced Placement Context
April 6:
- Strengths-Based Blended Personalized Learning: An Impact Study Using a Virtual Comparison Group
April 7:
- Collaborative Data Use: Why, How, and When Does It (Not) Work? (discussant)
- Kaleidoscope of School Options: Differentiating School Missions, Values and Practices in Los Angeles
April 8:
- Democratic Engagement and Local Control Funding Formula (speaker/chair)
- Reciprocal Relationships: Advancing Equity Through Democratic Engagement and Finance Reform
- Invited journal talks: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
April 7:
- Adapting College-Going Cultures for a Digital World: A Case Study of Six California High Schools (roundtable)
April 6:
- Lost in the Transition: The Cost of College-Readiness English Standards Misalignment for English Learners
April 9:
- Visual Texts Teach: Making Sense of the Value of Visual Texts in Teaching Racial Literacy in Higher Education (poster session)
April 6:
- Technopolicy and School Reform: Privatization and the Governance of American Education (symposium)
April 6:
- Faculty and Muslim Student Interactions
April 7:
- Post-2016 Presidential Election Perspectives and Experiences of Muslim College Students
Daniel Novak (USC Keck School of Medicine)
April 8:
- Shaping Teacher Candidates' Perceptions of Planning, Instruction and Assessment Using Accomplished Teachers' Video and Commentary (poster session)
April 6:
- The Role of Identity-Based Motivation in Teachers' Advanced Math Course Placement Decisions
April 7:
- Does Developmental Math Help Community College Students Persist in STEM?
- Comparative Advantage in STEM During the First Year as a Mechanism Behind the Gender Gap in Community College
April 6:
- Drawing on Self and Reward Perspectives to Understand the Benefits of Choice (workshop)
- It's About Time: Giving Serious Consideration to Race, Culture, and Equity in Motivation Scholarship (chair)
April 9:
- Promoting an Agentic Engagement Mind-Set: Preliminary Results for an Intervention with College Students (poster session)
April 6:
- Resources Allocation in Pre-K–16 Education (discussant)
April 5:
- Accountability for Schools and Teachers (discussant)
April 7:
- Setting Targets for School Improvement on Social-Emotional Learning and Other Nonacademic Indicators (symposium)
April 8:
- What Shapes Public Perceptions of Educational Systems? (chair)
- Invited journal talks: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
April 9:
- Intended Curriculum, Enacted Curriculum and Student Learning (discussant)
April 6:
- Geological Fieldwork: A Developmental Rite of Passage with Implications for Diversity
April 7:
- AERA Early Career Award (2018) Lecture
April 8:
- K–8 Mathematics Teachers' Overall and Gender-Specific Beliefs about Mathematical Aptitude
April 6:
- “Trouble Will (Not) Bury Me Down”: Narratives of Black Women Faculty Experiences in Intergroup Dialogue
Ji Hoon Ryoo (USC Keck School of Medicine)
April 5:
- New Model Evaluation Tools in Component-Based Structural Equation Modeling (roundtable)
April 6:
- Component-Based Item Response Theory Utilizing Generalized Structured Component Analysis
April 7:
- Utilities of Automatic Item Generation on Parallel Form Construction
Anna Rosefsky Saavedra (USC Dornsife)
April 5:
- Shifting to Project-Based Learning in the Advanced Placement Context
April 7:
- Post-2016 Presidential Election Perspectives and Experiences of Muslim College Students i
April 5:
- Speedometry (AERA Youth Conference)
- 2019 Division C New Faculty Mentoring Program
April 6:
- Self-Regulation of Learning and Intentional Conceptual Change in Advances
- Division C Tea Time with Leaders
April 6:
- Geological Fieldwork: A Developmental Rite of Passage with Implications for Diversity
April 7:
- What's in a Name? A Study of Mathematics Teachers' Implicit Bias
April 8:
- K–8 Mathematics Teachers' Overall and Gender-Specific Beliefs About Mathematical Aptitude
April 5:
- Debating Academic Freedom in India
April 6:
- Analyzing Equality and Social Justice in Higher Education in China (discussant/chair)
April 7:
- We Cannot Be "Post-Truth": Handling Public Speech Controversies on Campus (invited speaker)
- Exploring Boundaries, Illuminating Processes: Conducting Relational Research in Education (symposium/discussant)
April 8:
- Examining the Complicated Relationship Between Evidence and Ethnography (symposium/discussant)
April 6:
- Truth and Trauma: What Educators Need to Understand About Societal Racial Trauma and Its Impact on Youth of Color (invited speaker)
April 6:
- Lost in the Transition: The Cost of College-Readiness English Standards Misalignment for English Learners
April 6:
- Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Critical Race Resistance (symposium)
April 8:
- Theorizing Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Critical Race Resistance
April 9:
- Visual Texts Teach: Making Sense of the Value of Visual Texts in Teaching Racial Literacy in Higher Education
April 9:
- Promoting an Agentic Engagement Mind-Set: Preliminary Results for an Intervention With College Students
This schedule was compiled by Ross Brenneman (Office of Communications) and Susan McKibben (Research Office).
