Four faculty members in the College of Education have been named co-editors of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) journal Review of Educational Research (RER) for 2022–25. Mildred Boveda, Karly Sarita Ford, Erica Frankenberg and Francesca López will succeed P. Karen Murphy, who has been editor-in-chief of the journal since 2017.
“Congratulations to my colleagues on being selected as the incoming editors of the No. 1 Education/Education Research journal in the world. I could not be more excited to be passing the journal on to such capable scholars,” said Murphy, head of the Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling and Special Education, and distinguished professor of education (educational psychology).
College of Education Dean Kim Lawless said she cannot wait to see how the journal continues to advance under the newly named co-editors. “The fact that the editorship of this journal has been with our college for the past five years and will continue for the next three years is a testament to the nationwide respect for the work of our outstanding faculty,” Lawless said.
The team was appointed by AERA President Na’ilah Suad Nasir. Their appointment culminated an extensive search driven by the AERA Journal Publications Committee, which is charged with making editorial recommendations to the president. As editors, the new team will begin receiving new manuscripts on April 1.
“I am thrilled with the appointment of such an outstanding team of scholars,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “Under their leadership, the journal will continue to build on its strengths while also focusing on equity concerns among the journals’ readers, authors and content.”
The co-editors will be joined by a distinguished group of associate editors that includes Hollie Kulago, associate professor of education (curriculum and supervision), along with Suzanne Eckes (Indiana University), Marc Guerrero (Ohio State University), Nicol Howard (University of Redlands), Danield D. Liou (Arizona State University) and Edna Tan (University of North Carolina-Greensboro).
Associate editors under Murphy’s leadership were López; Alicia Dowd, professor of education (higher education) and director and senior scientist of the Center for the Study of Higher Education; Gwendolyn Lloyd, associate dean for faculty affairs; and Peggy Van Meter, associate professor of education (educational psychology).
RER publishes critical, integrative reviews of research literature bearing on education. The reviews include conceptualizations, interpretations and syntheses of literature and scholarly work in fields broadly relevant to education and educational research. RER encourages the submission of reviews relevant to education from any discipline, such as psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, political science, economics, computer science, statistics, anthropology and biology, provided that the reviews bear on educational issues.
Boveda is associate professor of special education (special education) and an honorary visiting professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests include teacher education, intersectionality and Black feminist epistemology. She uses the terms "intersectional competence" and "intersectional consciousness" to refer to educators’ understanding of sociocultural differences and how learners, families and colleagues navigate multiple systems of oppression.
Ford is assistant professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies. Her research examines how the policies and practices of educational organizations shape the experiences of marginalized students. She pays particular attention to how educational organizations socially construct and make meaning of categories for race, gender, socioeconomic status and dis/ability.
Frankenberg is professor of education (educational leadership) and demography and the director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights. Her research interests focus on racial desegregation and inequality in K–12 schools, and the connections between school segregation and other metropolitan policies. Given demographic, legal and political changes, her work focuses on policy design and extralegal factors affecting school segregation. These include the extent to which boundary lines between and within districts divide populations and students; how the design of school choice policies relates to racial and economic segregation of students; the intersection of housing and school composition; and the complex patterns of segregation and inequality emerging in suburban school districts.
López is the Waterbury Chair in Equity Pedagogy in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She began her career in education as a bilingual (Spanish/English) elementary teacher, and later as an at-risk high school counselor, in El Paso, Texas. Her research has been funded by the American Educational Research Association Grants Program, the Division 15 American Psychological Association Early Career Award, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Institute of Education Sciences, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Assessment for Good. López is a former co-editor of the inaugural unified American Educational Research Journal.
The American Educational Research Association (AERA), a national research society, strives to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Founded in 1916, AERA is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.