This citation recognizes Dr. Amy Stuart Wells for her extraordinary contributions to sociological knowledge about how education policies connect with cultural concerns over race, social stratification, and access to high-quality schooling. Her work examines efforts to equalize schooling advantages by investigating how culture, ideology, and racial politics affect educational policy making, implementation, and the structures, opportunities, and outcomes that follow. Answering significant research questions using rigorous qualitative case study methods informed by a deep understanding of sociological theory, Dr. Wells demonstrates how the perpetuation of racial inequality in schools is part of a broader, often subconscious ideology that constrains the realization of racial justice.

This citation recognizes Dr. John S. Rogers for his extraordinary research investigating whether and how active engagement by communities negatively affected by schooling inequalities can help shift policy and practice in ways that bring high-quality educational opportunities and experiences. Combining Deweyean theory of participatory social inquiry and action, collaboration between grassroots groups and educators, and careful empirical methods, his public scholarship brings new insights into the efficacy of community-based action research and social movement organizing. It teaches us that such public engagement promises to generate both knowledge and power needed to disrupt the cultural norms and politics of privilege that sustain structures of inequality.

Special Recognition

Dr. Kevin G. Welner, Program Chair of the 2016 AERA Annual Meeting, is Professor of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he directs the National Education Policy Center (NEPC). The author of 7 books and more than 80 articles and book chapters, he is an AERA Fellow and recipient of AERA’s Early Career and Palmer O. Johnson Awards. Respected by academics and persuasive to a fair-minded public and journalists, Dr. Welner and NEPC provide accessibly written and high-quality research, policy briefs, and other documents to support democratic deliberation about education policy. For us, his colleagues, he is the funniest serious person we know.

Dr. Michelle Renée Valladares is Associate Director of the National Education Policy Center, University of Colorado Boulder. As the Program Vice Chair of this year’s AERA Annual Meeting, she brings skills and talents drawn from the demanding and intersecting worlds of scholarly research and teaching, national and state politics, philanthropic foundations, and her personal lifelong commitment to social justice. Dr. Valladares combines her deep organizational understanding and grasp of research with a powerful regard for people in and outside the academy. She is a steady catalyst for finding common purpose and getting important work done well.

Recipients are selected by the President of AERA for distinguished service and/or significant contributions to education research.