Please keep me on the list.  

Lynn

Lynn Cohen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Special Education & Literacy
School of Education
C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University
720 Northern Blvd. Brookville, New York 11548-1300
Tel: 516-299-3675
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-----Original Message-----
From: (AERA SIG FOUCAULT & EDUCATION DISCUSSION LIST)
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Linda Graham
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 4:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: New AERA SIG rules

Dear Foucault List and SIG Members,

Firstly, my apologies if this goes to folks who have recently requested
removal from the listserv.  We will action that as soon as we can but we
also have busy schedules, so if you wish to be removed, please just send
a request to delete your details from the Foucault list directly to
Christine or I and this will help reduce traffic to the whole list.

However, it is very pleasing to see that the main volume of emails to
the list are those requesting to remain on it!  Thank you to each of you
for your interest and commitment.  

Overnight I received an email from AERA management and there are a few
changes that I want to share with the list as these will affect the
future of the SIG.  These relate to the administrative culling of small
SIGs, the new process of review and lastly, the new AERA session
allocation method:

1. Membership Minimums: As in past years, AERA will take the official
membership count on June 30. SIGs with fewer than 45 members, the
minimum number of members required for a SIG in good standing, will be
notified that they have one year to increase their membership to that
minimum. 

2. Review Panels: This is the time when you and your program committee
are creating the review panels to rate the submissions for the 2010
Annual Meeting program. Smaller SIGs may wish to share panel members, or
panels on specific topics with another SIG or division with similar
interests. 

On the first topic, I urge those of you who do want to see the Foucault
SIG remain as a space for critical theoretical work to make sure that
your Foucault SIG membership is up to date.  This is easily done when
you renew your AERA membership. It is not a matter of funding I can
assure you as Christine and I have kept the membership rates lower than
other SIGs.  It is a matter of keeping the SIG viable for, as you can
see from the above AERA communication, those with less than 45 members
will be forced to justify their existence.

As to the second, I have to admit I'm still confused and somewhat
ambivalent about the review panel idea. In any case, it excludes
graduate students from the review process (they can still review but
their scores are not counted). Christine has objected about this process
to AERA management, particularly because of its affect on small SIGs but
... to no avail.

3. My final point is an important one:  the SIGs presence at AERA has
been seriously dwindling over the last few years because AERA have
changed how they allocate sessions.  It is now allocated on number of
proposals submitted - not number of SIG members, as it used to be.  

This has drastically affected us.  For example, in 2007 we received
about 34 proposals and were allocated 19 slots (mainly individual paper
sessions and we massaged this up to 21 by requesting longer sessions -
not ideal but better than rejecting good papers).  In 2008 however, we
only received 11 proposals and were granted 4 slots - all individual
roundtables.  This also has implications for the presence of SIG members
at the conference as one of our international presenters couldn't get
funding to present at a roundtable and so didn't come (this is common in
Australia also).  So basically in 2008 we had three people present in
the Foucault SIG.

This can't continue.  Therefore I ask folks to remember the Foucault SIG
when they renew their AERA membership and, if you are hatching something
Foucauldianesque right now, do submit it to the SIG for Denver in 2010.

Christine and I will be getting back to you soon with some plans for a
revitalisation of the SIG that will hopefully broaden the church to
include those members now experimenting with Agamben, Deleuze, Butler
and so on.  We raised this at the 2009 SIG Business Meeting - although
one of the people most interested in the reasons for change happened to
be a right-wing member of the press!  Her question was "So, why don't
people like Foucault?"

We gleefully gave her a number of reasons, so she probably doesn't like
us now but let me remind you, this SIG's reason for being is to act as a
space for those who do.  (ie., Welcome Joseph Kurz, new program
co-chair!)

I hope you all continue to submit your work and, if you do attend AERA
next year, please come to the Business Meeting.

Regards,

Linda (2010 Foucault SIG Chair and Program Co-Chair)





Dr Linda J. Graham
Macquarie University Research Fellow
Children and Families Research Centre
Faculty of Human Sciences
Macquarie University  NSW  2109

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