Just Education Policy Institute 2026
Justice is and has always been an important yet elusive target in education policy. Throughout history, the actions of the education system have both created devastating barriers to social justice and delivered crucial reforms for the path forward. Across all sectors, there is a continuing need for courageous and critical thinking in education policymaking. Now more than ever, the education policy scholarly community has at its disposal the tools to conduct rigorous research that can help fight racial injustice. The goal of the Just Education Policy scholars program is to inspire and engage the next generation of racial justice-focused education policy scholars. JEP 2026 has been made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Hewlett Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.
Program Details
The JEP 2026 scholars program will be held in-person, September 28 - October 1, 2026 from 8:30am-8:30pm ET each day (except October 1, which will be a half day). Accepted participants are expected to attend all of the program and will be compensated $800.00 at the end of the program for their participation.
This program is designed for doctoral students and graduates in postdoctoral positions who are committed to advancing racial equity and justice education policy and politics and have ethical ambition to create policy change through research. It will include a mix of guided discussions about important concepts for those seeking to work in educational equity and justice as well as community-building and direct mentoring sessions. Content will cover four large areas of focus:
Contextualizing knowledge about racial equity and justice in education policy, including defining racial justice, historical perspectives, and institutional politics.
Understanding modern efforts that challenge educational equity and justice, including understanding the debates on race-consciousness vs. race-neutrality, political ideologies resisting acknowledgement of race, and spaces for action on federal, state, and local levels.
Engaging with racial equity and justice work as a public scholar, including what activists and practitioners need, getting involved, and public communication.
Doing research work that centers racial justice, including finding a research agenda, theory, methodology and design, finding support, and working in the field.
Accepted participants are expected to attend all of the program and will be provided an $800.00 stipend for their participation. In addition to this stipend, participants’ costs of participation — including airfare/train fare, lodging, meals, and ground transportation — will be covered by JEP (up to a given amount, restrictions apply). Reach out to us if you have questions about how we cover travel and participation costs.
Eligibility
Applications will be accepted from those who (A) will be active doctoral students as of September 2026 and have completed at least two years of coursework OR are recent graduates (who graduated in Spring 2026 or later) in postdoctoral positions, and (B) have demonstrated a commitment to conducting research in racial equity and justice in education policy.
We will be particularly targeting admissions towards applicants who demonstrate a commitment to working on education policy. The researchers who contribute to education policy are diverse, including those in traditional education policy programs and those in other fields (e.g., history, economics, law, political science, social policy).
Ineligible groups include students who have not taken at least two years of coursework, recent graduates not in a post-doc position, those who graduated from their doctoral programs in Fall/Winter 2025 or earlier, and those who participated in the Just Education Policy program in any of the previous years.
All eligible students and recent graduates are encouraged to apply, and we especially encourage applications from people who do not have access to this type of content in their home programs. This program is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal and state law.
Application Details
Please use the link to the portal (below) to submit your application. Note that applications will be kept confidential to the planning team. If you have any questions about the application process, email Charlotte O'Keefe Stralka at charlotte.okeefe@berkeley.edu.
Your application should give us a sense of who you are and how you are thinking about education policy and racial justice. Please refrain from the use of generative AI for essay responses or to produce writing samples.
Applications must be submitted by 11:59pm ET on Monday, June 1, 2026. Please refrain from the use of generative AI for any portion of your application.
Applicants should submit, via the JEPI application portal:
Responses to some brief background questions
A current CV or resume
A writing sample of no more than 15 pages, double spaced, 12 point font. This sample can be a course paper, an excerpt from a research or dissertation proposal, or a qualifying paper (partial papers are fine to align with the page length limit). It should demonstrate how you have written about education policy or politics at this stage in your doctoral preparation/post-doc. Please include, on a cover page, your name and a brief (200 word) description about the purpose of the paper and how it reflects your current thinking/curiosity/research questions.
Answers to the following questions (maximum of 1,000 characters per essay response in a single file):
Please describe why you are applying for the Just Education Policy Institute, how it relates to your professional goals, and what gap in your current academic journey you think the Institute will help supplement.
Name an education policy area or issue that you are researching to combat racial injustice/advance racial justice, and describe how you would like to contribute to that change through research.
What about your experiences and background leads you to be interested in pursuing research and work that advances racial justice in education policy?