Graduate Student Conference

Inclusive Education: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives

The 18th Annual College of Education Graduate Student Conference

March 4–5, 2027

Champaign, Illinois

Welcome!

The mission of the Graduate Student Conference is to build networks between faculty, colleagues, advanced undergraduate students, and graduate students across disciplines related to learning. As a community, our aim is to address the ways educational access, equity, and opportunity affect and are affected by our broader society.

We strive to introduce new scholars to the important role that academic conferences will play in their scholarly endeavors, create an inclusive and safe space for emerging scholars to present their ideas, and serve as a bridge between sharing scholarship at Illinois and the broader education field.

Theme

This year’s theme, “Inclusive Education: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives,” invites graduate students to examine how inclusion has been imagined, contested, and enacted across educational contexts and throughout history. Inclusive education extends beyond access and accommodations to creating learning environments where all individuals feel seen, heard, valued, respected, and empowered to participate and succeed. Recognizing the diverse identities, abilities, histories, and lived experiences learners bring to educational spaces, this theme encourages humility, authenticity, collaboration, and a willingness to learn from multiple perspectives. We welcome historical, theoretical, qualitative, quantitative, interdisciplinary, and community-engaged research that examines past systems of access and belonging, contemporary practices and challenges, and possibilities for more equitable and humanizing educational environments. Together, we invite graduate scholars to reflect on the past, engage critically with the present, and envision futures where every learner has the opportunity to belong, contribute, learn, grow, and thrive.

Sub-themes

We invite submissions that span both research and practice, covering a variety of theoretical, methodological, empirical, and technical approaches related to education. The following sub-themes are a guide, but the conference is open to all submissions that are committed to improving learning and instruction:

• Historical Perspectives on Educational Access, Equity, and Belonging: Examine the historical foundations, development, and background of educational inclusion, opportunity, and exclusion, including educational reform, civil rights, desegregation, student activism, and evolving approaches to equity and belonging.
• Inclusive Pedagogies, Curriculum, and Instruction: Explore teaching practices, curricular approaches, instructional innovations, and methods that acknowledge diverse learner identities, strengths, and needs, including culturally sustaining pedagogy, universal design, and holistic and humanizing practices.
• Intersections of Identity, Diversity, and the Student Experience: Investigate how identity, culture, language, race, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, age, disability, and other social identities as well as lived experiences shape educational participation, engagement, representation, and student success.
• Educational Policy, Leadership, and Institutional Change: Examine how educational policies, laws, systems, leadership practices, institutional structures, organizational conditions, and resource allocation facilitate or hinder equitable access, inclusive learning environments, and meaningful institutional change.
• Community Involvement, Collaboration, and Culturally Sustaining Education: Explore partnerships and engagement among educational institutions, families, and communities, emphasizing Indigenous and community-based knowledge systems, culturally sustaining practices, and reciprocal approaches to education.
• Student Well-Being, Belonging, and Holistic Development: Investigate how inclusive learning environments foster student belonging, wellness, identity development, authentic relationships, a sense of community, and academic and personal growth.
• Technology, Innovation, and the Future of Inclusive Learning: Explore how emerging technologies and innovative educational approaches expand or challenge equitable participation and safety, including artificial intelligence, accessible technology, digital equity and access, and online learning.
• Research, Methodology, and Innovative Approaches to Educational Inclusion: Examine theoretical, methodological, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches that challenge educational inequities, elevate marginalized perspectives and voices, and inform transformative research and practice.