Berkeley Review of Education

In 2014, the BRE Editorial Board felt compelled to step outside the structures of traditional academic publishing and provide a space for a wide array of voices—within and beyond academia—to engage in an open and dynamic dialogue. We issued our first Call for Conversations (CFC) to solicit written and multimedia pieces on the intersection between the Black Lives Matter movement and public education. Following the 2016 Presidential Election, we revived the CFC in order to provide an intellectual space for individuals to reflect upon and make sense of what the election of Donald Trump would mean for public education in the United States. Again, we were compelled to facilitate a dialogue among individuals from a range of perspectives in order to build community and democratize knowledge. At a time of deep political, cultural, economic, and racial division in our country, we invited the broader education community to exchange ideas and reflections about how we got to this moment and where we go from here. We asked: What does the election of Donald Trump tell us about society in general and education specifically? What can we do in our roles and with our skills to teach, learn, protest, resist, and understand education in the era of Trump?