Weeks after we left SRCD last spring, 25-year-old Freddie Gray died of spinal injuries he sustained while in police custody. The SRA membership had already been engaging in conversations about the deaths of Black adolescents and young adults in encounters with the police, on the President’s Blog and in SRA News. Now, the SRA membership will be gathering one of the central hubs of the grassroots movement to address these issues: Baltimore Maryland. We don’t want to miss this opportunity to engage with each other, and to connect with local community organizers, around dismantling structural racism and promoting social justice. We have designed this preconference to address how structural racism manifests both in the lives of the young people we study, and in the ways in which we study them. We hope you will join us.

SRA Preconference, Wednesday, March 30, 2016

#BlackLivesMatter: Can adolescent researchers contribute to racial justice?

Organized by Elise Harris, Lisette DeSouza, and Miriam Arbeit
10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Fee: $55.00

***A portion of the registration proceeds will go to Baltimore grassroots organizations that are committed to racial equity.

This full-day workshop will consist of three main sections:

Part 1. SRA members reflect on role for researchers in anti-racism

What does the #BlackLivesMatter movement mean for us as researchers? How can we critically assess our own racialized experiences and academic positions of power in relation to Black youth and communities? Featured speaker: Margaret Beale Spencer, Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education Endowed Professor, Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago.

Part 2. Panel of youth and community organizers from Baltimore

How does structural racism manifest as youth interface with “youth development” systems and practices? How do youth perceive the potential risks and contributions of research on adolescence? Featured speaker: Qiara Butler, activist and community organizer.

Part 3. Collaborative critique of research projects and approaches

How are we responding to or addressing issues of structural racism at each point in the research process? How we frame developmental questions that account for structural racism as a feature of the developmental context? Chair and moderator: Amir François, Postdoctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Join us! Email any of the organizers with questions or for more information.