Note: Applications for Summer 2023 are now closed.

Just Education Policy Summer 2023

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.

This year, the Just Education Policy program will have a theme to focus discussions and learning while also providing space for directly targeting some of the most pressing issues in our current education policy and politics environment. The theme for this year is, “Justice as Action: Conducting Policy Research to Combat Racism.” The objective is to engage policy scholars in dialogue and instruction about how to conduct research that is rigorously driven by principled and sound resistance to ideologies that would dismiss the role of racism in our modern society. These discussions will be policy-focused, and as such, will mainly feature conversations about the decisions and norms that our governments, institutions, and social organizations make that structure our educational systems.

Program Details

The summer 2023 JEP scholars program will be held virtually (via Zoom) on June 6-8, 2023, from 11-4pm PT/2-7pm ET each day. Accepted participants are expected to attend all of the program, for a total of 15 hours, and will be compensated $600.00 at the end of the program for their participation.

This program is designed for doctoral students and recent graduates who are committed to advancing racial equity and justice education policy and politics and have ethical ambition to create 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:

  1. Contextualizing knowledge about racial equity and justice in education policy, including defining racial justice, historical perspectives, and institutional politics.

  2. 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.

  3. Engaging with racial equity and justice work as a public scholar, including what activists and practitioners need, getting involved, and public communication.

  4. Doing research work that centers racial justice, including finding a research agenda, theory, methodology and design, finding support, and working in the field.

Eligibility

Applications will be accepted from those who (a) will be active doctoral students as of June 2023, (b) have completed at least one year of coursework, and (c) are interested in pursuing work in racial equity and justice in education policy. Applications from recent graduates who graduated in either Fall 2022 or Spring 2023 will be considered after active doctoral students.

To provide greater depth of mentorship and community building, the program will be taking a reduced number of applicants, and 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) that work on issues relevant to education policy.

Ineligible groups include students who have not taken at least one year of coursework, those who graduated from their doctoral programs in Summer 2022 or earlier, and those who participated in the Just Education Policy program in any of the previous years.

All eligible students are welcome to apply, and we especially encourage applications from people from minoritized groups and those who do not have access to this type of content in their home programs.

Application Details

Please click the application link below to submit your application. If you have any questions about the application, email Joseph-Emery Kouaho at josephemery.kouaho@uga.edu.

Applications must be submitted by 11:59pm PT on Monday, February 13, 2023 and applicants will be informed by the end of March 17, 2023.

Applicants should submit, in this form:

  • A current CV or resume,

  • Responses to some brief background questions, and

  • Answers (written in the form) to the following questions (maximum of 1000 characters each):

    • Please describe why you are applying for the Just Education Policy program, how it relates to your career goals, and what gap in your current academic journey you think the program will help fill. (Keep in mind that these responses will be kept confidential to the planning team.)

    • Name a policy area in education in which you would like to combat racial injustice/advance racial justice, and describe your current thoughts about how you would like to contribute to that change during your life.