CRSEA 2026 Conference

May 20 - 22 | Portland, OR

Beyond Resistance: Building Critical Solidarities and Transformative Futures

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This Year’s Theme

CRSEA continues to cultivate a community of resistance and liberation rooted in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and related frameworks that challenge systemic racism, white supremacy, settler colonialism, and intersecting forms of oppression in education and society.

❋ Historical Crossroads

Across the United States and the globe, we are witnessing intensifying efforts to suppress truth-telling and silence communities of color. Bans on Critical Race Theory, book censorship, and the erasure of ethnic studies are paired with anti-immigrant legislation, anti-Black violence, and escalating attacks on queer and trans communities. At the same time, Asian communities continue to face heightened xenophobia and scapegoating, while Palestinian communities—both in diaspora and in occupied homelands—endure ongoing displacement, censorship, and state violence that echo struggles against settler colonialism worldwide.

❋ Interlocking Systems of Oppression

Underscoring the urgency of imagining otherwise—of creating educational, political, and community spaces grounded in justice, love, solidarity, and freedom. This year’s theme calls us to envision what becomes possible when we build across movements and geographies, weaving together Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Palestinian, and other marginalized struggles into critical solidarities for transformative futures. It also calls on us to prepare not only critical producers of knowledge but also critical consumers of information—those who can discern truth from distortion, resist dominant narratives, and engage education as a practice of freedom.

❋ Together, we honor our collective history while looking ahead to the next generation of struggle, scholarship, and solidarity—reaffirming our shared commitment to justice, liberation, and community.

We invite proposals that critically engage with this year’s theme by addressing questions such as:

Call for proposals

How are communities, educators, and youth resisting current attacks on CRT, ethnic studies, and truth-telling in education?

What does it mean to build critical solidarities across movements for racial, linguistic, gender, economic, environmental, and disability justice?
How do our collective struggles—rooted in testimonio, storytelling, art, activism, and research—open up transformative possibilities for education and social change?
In what ways are students and communities positioned as both critical producers and consumers of knowledge, media, curriculum, and cultural narratives?
How can CRSEA continue to serve as a homeplace of resistance and affirmation for scholars, practitioners, and activists committed to racial justice?

Deadline for submissions has been extended to January 12th, 2026 at 11:59PM (CST)

Submit a Proposal

conference Programming Chairs

Jasmine Hawkins

Jasmine Hawkins, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at New York University. Her research examines the intersections of race, power, and liberation in education, with a particular focus on Black teachers’ experiences within neoliberal contexts. Her work seeks to center stories of resistance and reimagine education as a site of collective freedom and transformation. Dr. Hawkins is deeply committed to CRSEA’s mission of advancing critical race scholarship and community-driven educational justice.

Alycia Elfreich

Alycia Elfreich is an Assistant Professor at Montana State University. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Education Studies. She was also a K-12 educator for a decade and a former school counselor. Alycia’s work is situated at the intersections of multicultural education, curriculum studies, and critical feminist qualitative research, and is grounded in methodological and theoretical traditions that interrogate power, privilege, and structural inequality in education. Dr. Elfreich draws upon feminist and anti-racist projects informed by critical whiteness studies, participatory inquiry, and critical feminist theory and analysis. Her research centers on participatory, egalitarian, and communitarian methods that value the lived experiences of students, families, and communities.