Esther Ohito, an assistant professor who specializes in curriculum studies, Black studies, teacher education, and feminist-oriented qualitative research, has been named a co-editor of the journal Equity & Excellence in Education.
Ohito is one of four members of a team that begins a three-year term leading the journal this month. The other co-editors are Jamila Lyiscott and Keisha Green, both of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Justin A. Coles of Fordham University.
Ohito joined the School of Education in 2019. Her primary line of research addresses the role of race in teacher education programs, with publications that have focused on efforts to promote anti-racist pedagogy in teaching and teacher preparation. She is also conducting research on the educational opportunities for Black girls.
Equity & Excellence in Education publishes articles and essays that describe and assess efforts to achieve educational equity. The range of topics explored by the journal includes social justice issues in school systems, individual schools, classrooms, and/or the social justice factors that contribute to inequality in learning for students from diverse social group backgrounds.
Ohito and the other three members of the editorial team have collaborated in the past, co-authoring papers, co-editing special issues of journals and on development of the forthcoming Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In their proposal, the team said it would sustain the work of editing the journal by involving scholars and graduate students who are working with the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research, all of whom are deeply engaged in the theorizing, research, and practice of equity and social justice in education.