AERA Presidential Program (APP): “‘There is no separation between past and present, meaning that an alternative future is also determined by our understanding of our past. Our history is the future.’  —Nick Estes, 2019”

APP: . . .

APP: “The 2026 annual meeting theme is an invitation to collectively reflect on how to leverage our disciplinary and methodological diversity in service of unforgetting histories.”

APP: “These histories inform our current challenges in education research and shape policies and practices that will enable thriving futures for learners across the lifespan in a range of contexts.”

APP: “We invite students, educators, practitioners, and researchers to engage in futuring for education and education research.” [emphasis in original]

APP: “Imagining and planning for the future is not solely about looking ahead. An important first step is looking back to look forward, being intentional about examining historical frameworks that can inform future norms we seek to give shape to, and nurture.”

APP: “What could happen if education researchers take a ‘long path’ approach by ‘thinking and feeling beyond our individual life spans’? . . . Through which intersections of our research, practice, and partnerships will we prioritize and invest in futuring for education and education research in the sites and systems of formal and informal education that we choose to research?”

APP: “Any discussion about histories and futures should not elude current national and global concerns that can impede our ability to imagine and plan for education futures. Our deeply divided social and political terrain—both nationally and globally—reinvigorates questions about how to support teaching and learning communities with the skills of civic reasoning and discourses.”

APP: “Harm and wrongdoing across education spaces—both in and out of school—suggest an urgent need for future-oriented restorative and transformative dialogue that can support empirical, conceptual, and applied research.”

APP: “Nondominant communities have long engaged in active re-imagining of their lives and their children’s education, because institutions and institutional dynamics have so often isolated or excluded their ingenuity . . .  This call thus invites scholars and practitioners to consider the expertise of Indigenous, BIPOC, and LGBTQ communities in innovating for equitable futures, and maps that already exist, from prior generations who grappled similarly with teaching and learning for future thriving and preparing future generations.”

APP: . . .

APP: “We seek proposals that offer a new vision of education research as an intentional process and practice of futuring, through engagement with historical pasts and current tensions and challenges. How can we address our most pressing education challenges through inter- and trans-disciplinary dialogue? What kinds of dialogue can we inspire when including historical perspectives on topics in proposed symposiums? How can we organize our findings with a keen eye on the past, present, and future?”

APP: “Teaching and learning in an era of polycrisis; neurodiversity and ability justice; climate justice and sustainability; restorative and transformative justice; equity-oriented scholarship examining intersectionality of race, class, gender identity, and abilities; Los Angeles and California as examples of rich local histories of education and equitable and thriving futures.”