Issue #56: Recovering and Reclaiming Black Education Histories in Teaching and Research
Photograph by Marion Post Wolcott, March 1939.
Please note that the below call is now closed and we are no longer accepting submissions.
As legislation and policies affecting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are enacted across various states and internationally, educational stakeholders must be equipped with effective strategies that support the continuation and growth of practices of educational equity. In Issue 56 of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we are highlighting the history of Black educators, whose intellectual, cultural, and political contributions have provided guidance in navigating various sociopolitical currents in education. We look to Black educators’ intricate narratives and histories, their lived experiences and successes. In this special issue, we call for manuscripts that center the vibrant and resilient histories of Black teachers who can shape our understanding of the possibilities of powerful practices of curriculum, pedagogy, advocacy, and activism in these political and social times.
Inspired by Dr. Cynthia Dillard’s work in The Spirit of Our Work (2021), we invite submissions that uplift often forgotten and overlooked stories and pedagogies of Black educators across the history of education in the United States and internationally. Our objective is to cultivate an archive of stories, artifacts, voices, and perspectives that highlight the work of Black educators. Not limited to stories from North America, we recognize the African diaspora in extending the call to the Global South. We aim to feature histories that narrate Black educators’ navigation of the sociopolitical contexts that have influenced schooling, the networks of negotiation they have developed to maintain educational access for communities and families, the approaches to curriculum and pedagogy they have embraced to support their students, and the advocacy systems through which they have continuously worked toward greater educational equality and justice. This process nurtures Dillard’s endarkened feminist praxis framework through (re)searching, (re)envisioning, (re)cognizing, (re)presenting, and (re)claiming to reimagine educational futures through storytelling and research that puts the Black experience at the heart of our journey. We are excited to consider what these educators can teach us both about today’s classroom practices and the future of education research.
We invite teachers, researchers, administrators, community members, policy makers, parents, and other education stakeholders to contribute submissions of essays and manuscripts with a maximum length of 5,000 words. We also welcome short films, audio essays, photo essays, and small-scale artistic works. Questions addressed might include (but are not limited to):
- What erased, obscured, forgotten, or under-highlighted stories of Black educators might support our efforts toward educational equity in contemporary times?
- How can we leverage the stories, histories, and perspectives of Black teachers across the diaspora to maintain liberatory practices in tumultuous political climate?
- What significant Black oral traditions can help us in building towards embodied or living education archives?
- In this time of the erasure of history, what are the affordances of (re)membering in education? What are the implications of disremembering, the right to forget, and the politics surrounding being forgotten?
Only unpublished materials that are not currently under review by other publications will be considered for evaluation. While not mandatory, we encourage interested individuals to contact the editors to propose ideas and obtain feedback and assistance. For further information or to discuss your concepts, please contact the guest editors, Mariah Harmon at mth5601@psu.edu or Taryrn T.C. Brown, at taryrnbrown@coe.ufl.edu.