Adai Tefera

Interests

Research

Dis/ability policyIntersectionalityEducation equityResearch-practice partnerships

Teaching

Dis/ability policyCultural and linguistic diversityCulturally sustaining/relevant pedagogy

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Journals/Publications

• Tefera, A. A., Artiles, A. J., Kramarczuk Voulgarides, C., Aylward, A., & Alvarado, S. (2023). The Aftermath of Disproportionality Citations: Situating Disability-Race Intersections in Historical, Spatial, and Sociocultural Contexts. American Educational Research Journal, 000283122211470. doi:10.3102/00028312221147007
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  We used a situated approach to examine the aftermath of citations for racial disparities in special education and discipline. The study was conducted in one suburban school district and examined staff’s interpretations and responses to multiple disproportionality citations. We found that historical, spatial, and sociocultural contexts mediated stakeholders’ interpretations and reactions to citations and the consequences of their responses. Our findings demonstrate how a history of race relations in the district and the community as well as spatial opportunity structures shaped disability and discipline racial disparities; the consequences of a damaged imagery for multiply marginalized youth and their families in explanations of disproportionality citations; and the shortcomings of the district’s symbolic and predominately color-evasive responses as a consequence of ambiguous federal and state policy mandates.
• Tefera, A. A., Sjogren, A. L., & Siegel-Hawley, G. (2022). The (In)Visibility of Race in School Discipline Across Urban, Suburban, and Exurban Contexts. Teachers College Record, 124(4), 151-179. doi:10.1177/01614681221093282
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  Background/Context: Racial disparities in school discipline represent a long-standing injustice in U.S. schools. Students of color, particularly Black students, are systematically subjected to harsher school disciplinary actions compared with their peers. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the severity of the problem and the negative consequences of harsh punishment, particularly given that students who are disciplined are more likely to be forced into the complex nexus of education and incarceration. Focus of Study: In this study, we aimed to understand how different racial contexts in urban, suburban, and exurban schools shaped responses to and understandings about racial disparities in school discipline. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework that centers the visibility and invisibility of race (Artiles, 2019) throughout the disciplinary cycle, this study was guided by two research questions: (1) What are the similarities and differences in educators’ and students’ understandings of racial contexts and racial disparities in school discipline across urban, suburban, and exurban school districts? (2) How do urban, suburban, and exurban school districts’ racial contexts shape educators’ responses to racial disparities in discipline? Research Design: This research was part of a larger mixed-methods research–practice partnership that aimed to understand racial disparities in school discipline and how to address them across varying school contexts in Central Virginia. The qualitative portion of the study included individual and focus group interviews and classroom observations. The findings reported in this article focus specifically on 50 individual and focus group interviews with teachers, leaders, staff, and students. Findings: Our findings demonstrate the ways race was made visible and invisible in responses to and understandings about racial disparities in discipline. This was evident in the ways deficit perspectives were racialized and how race-evasive perspectives and ideologies dominated educators’ responses to the problem. We found these responses were mediated by the racial contexts of each school. For instance, we learned that educators at the urban middle school with a majority of Black and Latinx students were the most willing to discuss the role of race and racism in shaping racial disparities in discipline compared with educators at the suburban and exurban schools. Educators at the racially diverse suburban high school focused on socioeconomic diversity and relied on deficit cultural explanations for poverty. Contrastingly, educators at the exurban school openly discussed its racial homogeneity with its mostly White students, and their language regarding racial disparities was laced with race-evasive terms and some racist perspectives. Across suburban and exurban school contexts, many educators adopted race-evasive and deficit rationales for disproportionality in ways that failed to consider the role of the school in disciplinary outcomes. We also found that students across the three school contexts were more willing than educators to discuss the role of race and racism in explaining disparities in discipline. Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings from this study have important implications for how schools can respond more effectively to racial disparities in discipline. First, it is important that schools create policies and practices that provide clear guidelines to promote racial equity in discipline. Data should therefore be collected, shared, discussed, analyzed, and used to inform how to improve disciplinary practices and interventions at multiple intersections (e.g., by race, gender, socioeconomic status, and disability) given research that demonstrates disproportionality in discipline emerges among students of color and multiply-marginalized students. Second, schools must critically examine how their everyday beliefs about race become enacted in practice and ultimately institutionalized, thereby granting privileges to dominant groups. Third, schools can benefit from including and engaging with students as they reform disciplinary procedures to address racial disparities. Ultimately, disrupting racial inequities in discipline requires responses that include engagement with race and racism in ways that attend to both individual beliefs and school policies and practices.
• Noguera, P., Tefera, A., Kramarczuk Voulgarides, C., Aylward, A., Artiles, A. J., & Alvarado, S. L. (2021). Unpacking the Logic of Compliance in Special Education: Contextual Influences on Discipline Racial Disparities in Suburban Schools. Sociology of Education, 94(3), 208-226. doi:10.1177/00380407211013322
• Tefera, A. A., & Fischman, G. E. (2020). How and Why Context Matters in the Study of Racial Disproportionality in Special Education: Toward a Critical Disability Education Policy Approach. Equity & Excellence in Education, 53(4), 433-448. doi:10.1080/10665684.2020.1791284