Antwi (A.A.) Akom, Chair Assistant Profesor of Urban Sociology & Co-director of Educational Equity Institute Cesar Chavez Institute (CCI) Dept. of Africana Studies 3004 16th Street, Suite 301 San Francisco, CA 94103-3462 Phone: 415.522.5025 FAX: 415.522.5899 Email: akom@uclink4.berkeley.edu Adrienne D. Dixson, Co-Chair Assistant Professor The Ohio State University School of Teaching and Learning 333 Arps Hall 1945 N. High Street Columbus, OH 43210M 614.247.8461 (office) 614.292-7695 (fax) Email: dixson.1@osu.edu Wes Shumar, Chair Department of Culture and Comm. Drexel University 3141 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 Phone: 215.895.2060 FAX: 215.895.1333 E-mail: Wes@drexel.edu Jolley Christman, Co-Chair Research for Action 3701 Chestnut Street SW Philadelphia, PA 19104 Phone: 215.823.2500 FAX: 215.823.2510 E-mail: jchristman@researchforaction.org AAA 2007 Annual Conference committee-sponsored workshop: Education and the Risk of Sociaty: Discourses and Identities in Educational Settings For over a century, public school "bashing" has led to numerous education reform movements. However, A Nation at Risk was particularly instrumentalin bringing to the public the discourse of "risk" to education, a concept that had startedin other areas over 30 years agao. Certainly the concept of "at risk" was not entirely new to schooling, the origins dating back almost 200 years agao when members of the New York Free School Society asked the state legislature to create a school for children from impoverished famalies because of the deleterius outcomes these children faced. But A Nation at Risk did something more, specifically two things: It not only made predictions about the future,but its language brought the future into the present and made it calculable; These predicted futures were designed to cause the perception of risk leading to fear. Therefore, individuals, families, school districts, and in particular, politicians would (with the help of media reporting) take it upon themselves to safeguard themselves and their (predicted) futures. Most of the work in risk has been examined sociologically, although several anthropologists (e.g. Mary Douglas) have made important contributions and the interest is growing. Proposals we accepted descripted how the concept of risk and risk narrative are theorized in education. For more information see the following links: American Evaluation Association which is an international professional association of evaluators devoted to the application and exploration of program evaluation, personnel evaluation, technology, and many other forms of evaluation. Back to About CAE | CAE Home | AAA Home | Back to About CAE | CAE Home | AAA Home |