Research

As a doctoral student and researcher, I am pursuing pedagogical understanding that can be applied to the elementary classroom in order to support the education, individuality, and development of self for marginalized populations, specifically immigrant families and English Language Learners.  This marginalized population extends to what Kumashiro (2000) would refer to as “othered”, students who are oppressed or marginalized, treated differently and held to a different standard based on assumptions and expectations.  As a teacher, it is my job to “...not only acknowledge the diversity among [my] students but to treat students as raced, gendered, sexualized, and classed individuals” (Kumashiro, 2000, p.28).  The individuality and diversity of a group of students in a classroom, all seeking to gain an education, is what makes school a beautiful place.  As educators, we “need to acknowledge and affirm differences and tailor [our] teaching to the specifics of [our] student population” (Kumashiro, 2000, p.29).  

Current Publications:

Spencer, A.E.Q. (2023). Disrupting Oppression: A Case Study of Equity-Centered Collaboration for Emergent Multilinguals. Webster University ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. 

Lee-Johnson, Y. L., Flewellen, V., Fair, K., O’Connor, K., Dixon, T., Ono, J., Spencer, A., Singler, J., Schmuke, M., Hanses, J., Barton, A., & Rodney, T. (2022). Adapting an ethnographic research to an online survey amid covid-19: transformative lens in educational research. In SAGE Research Methods Cases. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529799736

How can we transform teacher collaboration?

Disrupting Oppression: a Grounded Theory of Equity-Centered Collaboration for Emergent Multilinguals


a. How do collaborative communities transform K-5 educators?b. What does equity and equity-centered mean to K-5 educators?

Where will my research go from here?