The compendium of writings in this edited volume sheds light on the event "Race & Ethnicity: A Day of Discovery and Dialogue" at Washington University in St. Louis and the work current students, faculty, and staff are doing to improve inclusivity on campus and in St. Louis. The book includes speeches, reflections, art, and photography aligned with the Day of Discovery and Dialogue in addition to original academic work on race in higher education, race in St. Louis, and race in the United States. Leading scholars and emerging voices feature in this volume, filling a void in the race and higher education literature since it will foreground a case study of a single university at the epicenter of a national racial crisis and how a university-wide event brought a campus together. This praxis focus may have far reaching impact in aiding other universities across the country in addressing racial tensions in their own communities.

Ask practically any academic department chair why they do not have more African Americans among faculty members and they generally respond with stock stories or folktales, which stimulated the title of this volume. Stock stories are akin to grand narratives that explain 'why things are' in ways that satisfy those in dominant positions. Frierson and Tate argue it is time to move beyond these. The purpose of the book is to provide historical, conceptual, and empirically-based analyses focused on the development of African Americans in STEM fields. There is rarely any real understanding of the uneven contours of the education pipeline or the transition to academic life experienced in these situations and this volume will shed light on opportunities to advance African American attainment in STEM disciplines throughout the academic and professional spectra, and the mitigation of disparities that continue to be so prevalent. The editors hope that it will generate discussions and actions that are based on empirical evidence and policy analyses, rather than long standing stock stories and folktales that misrepresent the paths linked to African Americans' attainment in STEM fields.

Edited by Patricia Alexander (University of Maryland), Felice J. Levine (AERA), and William Tate (Washington University in St. Louis), this centennial volume of RRE takes a "retrospective, prospective" approach on a diverse range of education research topics spanning the last 100 years. While using historical trends as foundations for their chapters, the authors also look ahead to the most challenging issues and promising directions for the next century. The chapters contribute to cumulative knowledge, capture research developments and findings of sustained significance, and address research innovations anchored in their time or place, which could ultimately shape directions of scholarly promise and potential for the future. To bring conceptual cohesion to the volume, the editors nested the chapters in four thematic sections: (1) the Research Enterprise and the Doing of Education Research, (2) the Contexts of Education, (3) the Process of and Substance of Learning, (4) and the Changing Attention to Diversity and Difference.

Research on Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities: Toward Civic Responsibility focuses on research and theoretical developments related to the role of geography in education, human development, and health. William F. Tate IV, the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and former President of the American Educational Research Association, presents a collection of chapters from across disciplines to further understand the strengths of and problems in our communities. Today, many research literatures--e.g., health, housing, transportation, and education--focus on civic progress, yet rarely are there efforts to interrelate these literatures to better understand urgent problems and promising possibilities in education, wherein social context is central. In this volume, social context--in particular, the unequal opportunities that result from geography--is integral to the arguments, analyses, and case studies presented.Written by more than 40 educational scholars from top universities across the nation, the research presented in this volume provides historical, moral, and scientifically based arguments with the potential to inform understandings of civic problems associated with education, youth, and families, and to guide the actions of responsible citizens and institutions dedicated to advancing the public good.