Queer of Color Analysis in Education Research Institute (QOCAERI), which was originally scheduled to be held on march 12, 2020, was postponed due to covid-19 and reconvened virtually on october 28, 2020.

ABSTRACT 

The Queer Of Color Analysis in Education Research Institute (QOCAERI)’s primary goal is to bring together researchers whose substantive knowledge, theoretical insight, and methodological expertise can be assembled in ways that build upon and reach beyond familiar modes of thinking concerning conundrums or problems related to LGBTQI+ issues in formal, non-formal and informal education. In this 1.5-hour webinar six BIPOC scholars based in the United States who mobilize queer of colour analysis and critique in their work will discuss how they are re-imagining and redefining education in times of COVID and anti-Blackness.

Panel 1 (5:40-6:15pm): Cindy Cruz, Ed Brockenbrough and Roland Coloma will consider how trauma, stigma, violence and mourning haunt our everyday lives, including the streets, schools and transnational networks that are the sites of education.

Panel 2 (6:20-6:55pm): Steve Mobley Jr., Kia Darling Hammond and Vijay Kanagala will highlight how queer of colour communities are forging new ways of thinking and enacting healing, resilience, resistance and thriving in the midst of unprecedent pandemic- and anti-Black racism-related death.

BIOGRAPHIES 

Dr. Lance T. McCready

Dr. Lance T. McCready is an Associate Professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education and Director of the Transitional Year Programme at University of Toronto. Dr. McCready’s research program is concerned with the education, health and well-being of urban youth. His dissertation and subsequent publications focused on “making space” for diverse masculinities in urban education and how the experiences of gay and gender non-conforming Black male students reframe the troubles Black males face in urban high schools. His most recent research focuses on the educational trajectories of black queer youth in Canadian urban centers, specifically the ways school- and community-based violence drives queer youth away from formal education towards non-formal and informal education settings that nurture their identity development and resilience. His work is grounded in intersectionality theories, queer of color analysis and social determinants of health towards the development of more effective programs that promote education access and well-being.

Dr. Cindy Cruz

Dr. Cindy Cruz, Ph. D. is an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Arizona and a member of the editorial collective of Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Her work is with homeless queer and trans-youth in Los Angeles, California. Cruz’s research is reflexive and ethnographic, and she draw from the humanities-oriented social sciences to analyze and think with the narratives, testimonios, and social texts she is offered from youth on the street. Cruz centers U.S. feminism of color, Latinx and decolonial feminist theory within the analysis of youth narratives and their experiences. She was a high school English teacher and HIV counselor for many years, and this experience greatly influences her research and pedagogy with queer and trans-youth. Thus, her two central research concerns have been about: how the theoretical work of decolonial, Latinx and U.S. feminists of color interrupts how empirical research often approaches and conceptualizes the experiences and narratives of youth as deficit and inequitable, particularly in research on African American and Latinx youth; and how can these theoretical interruptions inform how social scientists do research in ways that benefit youth of color and first generation Latinx students in the U.S., and specifically, how do we approach socially just work in educational research more broadly.

Dr. Ed Brockenbrough 

Dr. Ed Brockenbrough is an associate professor and the inaugural Calvin Bland Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia, PA, where he teaches courses on diversity and social justice issues in education to future K-12 educators. His research focuses on negotiations of identity, pedagogy, and power in urban educational spaces, particularly through the lenses of Black masculinity studies and queer of color critique. He is currently preparing publications on findings from his co-led study, funded by the University of Rochester’s Center for AIDS Research, which examined young Black queer men’s pedagogical engagements with sexually explicit internet sites and smartphone hook-up apps. He is also preparing to launch a study with his Calvin Bland Faculty Fellow peers on diversion programs for young Black men in Philadelphia at risk of incarceration. He is the author of Black Men Teaching in Urban Schools: Reassessing Masculinity (Routledge, 2018).

Dr. Kia Darling-Hammond

Dr. Kia Darling-Hammond, PhD, has worked for more than twenty years in education and education-adjacent spaces, undertaking research, mentoring, teaching, coaching, and non-profit and school leadership. Her scholarship explores possibilities for thriving among youth and young adults who experience complex marginalization. Dr. Darling-Hammond holds a PhD in Education from Stanford University, a MAT from Bard College, and a BA from Yale University.

Dr. Roland Sintos Coloma

Dr. Roland Sintos Coloma is professor and assistant dean of Teacher Education and co-director of the Kaplan Center for Research on Urban Education at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, USA. A scholar of history, cultural studies, and education, his work addresses critical questions of race, gender, and sexuality from transnational and intersectional perspectives. His publications include Asian Canadian Studies Reader (2017), Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility (2012), and Postcolonial Challenges in Education (2009). Roland’s research has received funding from the US Department of Education, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and AERA-Spencer and Connaught foundations. He served as president of the American Educational Studies Association (AESA, 2018-19), program co-chair of the American Educational Research Association’s Division G – Social Context of Education (AERA, 2018-20), and editor of the Educational Studies journal (2014-17). He received the 2015 Article of the Year Award from AERA’s Queer Studies special interest group.

Dr. Steve D. Mobley Jr.

Dr. Steve D. Mobley, Jr. is an assistant professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Technology Studies at the University of Alabama.  He earned his B.A. in Communication & Culture from Howard University.  Upon graduating from Howard, he completed his Master’s in Higher Education Management from the University of Pennsylvania, and ultimately earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Maryland.  Dr. Mobley, Jr.’s research highlights the understudied facets of historically Black college (HBCU) communities and underscores topics surrounding race, social class, and student sexuality.  Ultimately, his work on queer and trans* HBCU students serves as a forum to summon the fields of higher education and student affairs to look critically at the issues that these students face and how they navigate contemporary collegiate contexts.

His scholarly work has also garnered national attention and commendation as he is the recipient of the 2018 Article of the Year Award from the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Queer Studies Special Interest Group (SIG), 2019 American College Personnel Association’s (ACPA) Coalition on Men & Masculinities Tracy Davis Emerging Research Award, and the 2019 American College Personnel Association’s (ACPA) Coalition of Sexuality and Gender Identities (CSGI) Research Recognition Award.  Dr. Mobley, Jr.’s scholarship has also been published in Teachers College Record, The Journal of Higher Education, The Journal of Homosexuality, The Journal of College Student Retention, The Urban Review, and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.

Dr. Vijay Kanagala

Dr. Vijay Kanagala (PhD, Iowa State University) is an associate professor and coordinator of the Higher Education in Student Affairs Program at Salem State University. Vijay is a former student affairs practitioner with extensive experience in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts. As an educational researcher, Vijay advocates for the use of asset-based frameworks (rather than deficit-based) to ensure that institutions of higher education employ student success frameworks that consider the diverse array of cultural wealth students bring to college. He has successfully secured nearly $4 million in external grants to examine issues related to college access and success of undergraduate and graduate students with marginalized identities–first-generation, limited income, students of color, and LGBTQ. Vijay endeavors to connect the heart and the mind of each learner by employing contemplative pedagogies and practices in a classroom community to ensure holistic student development.