While the policy distractions outlined in this collection manifest in myriad ways—and our authors examine them through a wide range of lenses and analytic tools—we were struck as an editorial team by the commonalities they share. What is clear throughout these articles is that scholars, most centrally, raise the ubiquitous power of policy distraction as it relates to ignoring systems and structures that serve to maintain normativity in many forms. Throughout, scholars instead point to policy distractions that locate both problems—and solutions—in individual actors (e.g., students, educators), symbolic gestures, and taken-for-granted procedures and practices that are rooted in white supremacy, cis-heteronormativy, anti-blackness, and patriarchy, to name a few. In this final article we, as an editorial team, offer insights about how we see the voices in the Issue in conversation, and, in the spirit of curious collaboration and engaged scholarship, we invite you to think along with us.
AnnammaS. A. (2018). Mapping consequential geographies in the carceral state: Education journey mapping as a qualitative method with girls of color with dis/abilities. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(1), 20–34.
2.
BarnesM. B.MosesM. S. (2021). Racial misdirection: How anti-affirmative action crusaders use distraction and spectacle to promote incomplete conceptions of merit and perpetuate racial inequality. Educational Policy, 35(2), 323–346.
3.
BarnettB. S.NesbitA. E.SorrentinoR. M. (2018). The transgender bathroom debate at the intersection of politics, law, ethics, and science. The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 46(2), 232–241. https://doi.org/10.29158/JAAPL.003761-18
4.
BrownW. E. (1992). The convergence of neutrality and choice: The limit of the state’s affirmative duty to provide equal educational opportunity. Tennessee Law Review, 60(1), 65–133.
5.
Carter AndrewsD. J.BrownT.CastroE.Id-DeenE. (2019). The impossibility of being “perfect and White”: Black girls’ racialized and gendered schooling experiences. American Educational Research Journal, 56(6), 2531–2572.
6.
ChildsJ.LoftonR. (2021). Masking attendance: How education policy distracts from the wicked problem(s) of chronic absenteeism. Educational Policy, 35(2), 213–234.
7.
DelgadoR.StefancicJ. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press.
8.
DonnorJ. K. (2021). White fear, White flight, the rules of racial standing and whiteness as property: Why two critical race theory constructs are better than one. Educational Policy, 35(2), 259–273.
9.
EpsteinR.BlakeJ. J.GonzálezT. (2017). Girlhood interrupted: The erasure of Black Girls’ childhood. Center on Poverty and Inequality Georgetown Law.
10.
Evans-WintersV. E. & with Girls for Gender Equity. (2017). Flipping the script: The dangerous bodies of girls of color. Cultural Studies↔ Critical Methodologies, 17(5), 415–423.
11.
FarleyA. N.LeonardiB. (2021). Beyond bathroom bills and the gender identity debate: Complicating the policy conversation about supporting trans students in schools. Educational Policy, 35(2), 274–303.
12.
GroomsA. A.MahatmyaD.JohnsonE. T. (2021). The retention of educators of color amidst institutionalized racism. Educational Policy, 35(2), 180–212.
13.
HenryK. L.Jr. (2021). “The price of disaster”: The charter school authorization process in post-Katrina New Orleans. Educational Policy, 35(2), 235–258.
Ladson-BillingsG. (2018). The social funding of race: The role of schooling. Peabody Journal of Education, 93(1), 90–105.
16.
LewisM. M.EckesS. E. (2020). Storytelling, leadership, and the law: Using amicus briefs to understand the impact of school district policies and practices related to transgender student Inclusion. Educational Administration Quarterly, 56(1), 46–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X19840389
17.
MayoC. (2021). Distractions and defractions: Using parental rights to fight against the educational rights of transgender, nonbinary, and gender diverse students. Educational Policy, 35(2), 368–382.
SimsonD. (2019). Whiteness as innocence. University of Denver Law Review, 96(1), 635–698.
20.
SpadeD. (2011). Law as tactics. Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, 21(2), 40–71.
21.
SpadeD. (2013). Intersectional resistance and law reform. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38(4), 1031–1055.
22.
SpadeD. (2015). Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Duke University Press.
23.
TichavakundaA. A. (2021). A critical race analysis of university acts of racial “redress”: The limited potential of racial symbols. Educational Policy, 35(2), 304–322.
24.
WeberE. P.KhademianA. M. (2008). Wicked problems, knowledge challenges, and collaborative capacity builders in network settings. Public Administration Review, 68(2), 334–349.
25.
WilmotJ. M.MigliariniV.AnnammaS. A. (2021). Policy as punishment and distraction: The double helix of racialized sexual harassment of Black girls. Educational Policy, 35(2), 347–367.
