Abstract
As plans were under way for celebrating AERA’s centennial, the past presidents of the Association discussed a variety of initiatives that might tap their unique perspective on AERA’s development. They considered different approaches for featuring the addresses delivered by past presidents. However, before they could decide what form these might take, they learned that AERA had not systematically archived the addresses of early presidents. That gap in the historical record led Felice Levine, John Neikirk, Jessica Campbell, and their AERA staff colleagues to undertake a remarkably thorough effort to locate the missing addresses. They searched for presidential addresses in AERA’s journals and online databases and in university and institutional archives, and in some cases, they contacted surviving family members of past presidents. They learned that although all the presidential addresses for AERA’s second half-century are available in its publications (with a few obtained from university archives), the early years are more problematic for a number of reasons, including that the annual meeting was not held during World War II and that presidents in the 1920s and 1930s did not always deliver addresses. To compensate for the missing speeches, the AERA staff located, for each of the presidents for whom addresses could not be found, an essay or article that was authored during his or her presidency.
Many of the presidents’ addresses and related articles prepared during their terms of office comment on the state of education research at that time or discuss significant or new research findings. An AERA archive of presidential addresses and essays will be made available on AERA’s website, and we hope that it will become a useful tool for those interested in the history of education research.
Once the archive was established, the question was how this newly created resource might be used to the best advantage as part of the many activities and events that mark AERA’s centennial. After perusing the archive, we realized that a number of significant topics have continued to engage education researchers throughout AERA’s history. Along with our own contributions, we asked 11 other former presidents to write essays on topics in their area of expertise and to draw on the addresses of three to five or more past AERA presidents. The authors were asked to situate these speeches in their intellectual and social time, to consider what they tell us about the progress and challenges of education research in that period, and whether they suggest any implications for contemporary researchers. The result is a collection of articles, gathered into this special issue of Educational Researcher, that provide rare insights into the evolution of education research as a scholarly field of inquiry.
As readers will note, the presidential addresses reflect not just the era in which they were delivered but also the disciplinary training and research expertise of their authors. For example, a number of the early presidents were directors of school district research bureaus, and a substantial proportion of later presidents were trained as psychologists. Consequently, to some extent, the foci of presidential addresses are idiosyncratic to those delivering them. Nevertheless, because they were delivered by leaders in our field, these speeches can tell us much about the state of research in each period. Similarly, the authors of the essays in this volume approached the work of their predecessors from the perspective of their own research backgrounds and with the advantage of critical hindsight. They could see, for example, how the shortcomings of early research on testing adversely affected students’ learning opportunities and how AERA presidents’ faith in the power of research to improve practice has persisted even as that research has been contested and failed to meet its producers’ high hopes. With the benefit of a contemporary sensibility and a long view of the Association’s development, the authors of the essays collected here also reflect on the growing diversity of its members and leaders and on how this trend has contributed to expanding the field’s theoretical and methodological terrain.
At one level, then, these essays are exercises in the retrieval and preservation of the Association’s history as documented through the eyes of its elected leaders. But we believe they are more than that. They represent serious attempts to identify the advances generated by earlier research and to learn from the consequences of past errors and faulty assumptions—all with the hope of informing the work of AERA members as the Association begins its next century.
We are profoundly grateful to our fellow past presidents who prepared these articles on a very short time schedule. Their thoughtful essays are yet another example of their good citizenship and ongoing commitment to AERA’s mission. All of these essays underwent the peer review process required of any AERA publication. The 36 past presidents and other senior scholars who served as reviewers not only completed their tasks within a window of 2 weeks or less; they took their responsibilities seriously and offered comments that significantly strengthened the essays. We and the authors are most appreciative of their efforts. (The reviewers are listed at the end of this issue.) This special edition of Educational Researcher could not have been produced in a timely fashion without the assistance of Jessica Campbell, AERA’s publications associate. Not only did she keep us on track, but she willingly and graciously adjusted production schedules to fit the constraints under which the authors were working.
We hope that you find these essays engaging and thought provoking.