"New Terrains of Justice": Directions for Systems-Change Research and Praxis Spanning the PreK-12 Educational Continuum

In post-2020 America, COVID-19, structural inequities, exclusionary laws and legal institutions, climate crises, and the geopolitical context backdrop persistent injustices observed in preK-12 education. Scholars and practitioners committed to eradicating structural oppression and promoting equity and healing in schools increasingly engage restorative/transformative, trauma-informed, antiracist, and abolitionary frameworks. These frameworks appear potent avenues to interrupt "school-to-confinement pathways" (Morris, 2016), to improve educational outcomes, and to reduce closely associated health inequities. Herein, we take up Davis's (2003) provocation, "How can we take seriously strategies of restorative rather than exclusively punitive justice?... The most difficult and urgent challenge today is that of creatively exploring new terrains of justice, where the prison no longer serves as our major anchor" (pp. 20-21). We ask, how is progress toward "new terrains of justice" in preK-12 schools evaluated "in the meantime, in-between time" (ross, 2019)? This roundtable, therefore, attends to measurement issues fundamental to Davis's (2003) abolitionary call to build "new terrains of justice," with specific attention to critical directions for social work research and praxis in preK-12 settings. Within this overarching theme, roundtable panelists attend to four distinct questions: (1) What are the dimensions of antiracist pedagogy and praxis in early childhood settings?; (2) What core components of social work education must be transformed for practitioners to engage antiracist and anti-oppressive frameworks in diverse educational settings?; (3) What criteria indicate social workers' preparedness to engage in antiracist praxis?; and (4) What are the measurement implications of evaluating race-conscious, trauma-informed, anti-oppressive educational settings? The first panelist will discuss core dimensions of antiracist pedagogy and praxis in early childhood education contexts, distilled through a systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis. The second panelist will then synthesize the implications of measuring the efficacy of pedagogies that bolster antiracist and anti-oppressive social work practice in diverse school-based settings. Next, the third panelist will propose recommendations for measuring social workers' preparedness to engage in antiracist praxis based on an empirical investigation of preparedness to address racism at all levels of social work practice among racially diverse social work students and practitioners. Then, the fourth panelist will explain the development of a survey measure used to test a conceptual framework for trauma-informed K-12 schools, with particular attention to the impact of individual biases and institutional factors that cause or worsen student trauma and discipline. Finally, the fifth panelist will discuss a study of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among girls in Tennessee, wherein Black girls are disproportionately represented in 7 of 9 ACEs categories, with a special focus on the limitations of ACEs measurement as well as the utility of existing ACEs data to present an intersectional, race-conscious approach to trauma-informed care in K-12 schools. Audience members will engage in reflection upon and application of the discussed empirical and practical dimensions of measuring progress toward "new terrains of justice." This roundtable holds special relevance for community-engaged, interdisciplinary, and transformative social work scholarship and praxis in schools.