American Educational Research Association: Envisioning the Future of Education Through Historical Lenses

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting serves as a crucial platform for educators, researchers, practitioners, and students to converge and engage in dialogues that shape the future of education. The AERA 2026 Annual Meeting in Los Angeles promises to be an enlightening event, encouraging participants to leverage disciplinary and methodological diversity to explore the intricate connections between the past, present, and future of education.

Meeting Overview

The AERA 2026 Annual Meeting will be held in Los Angeles from April 8 through April 12, 2026. This five-day event will primarily take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The meeting provides a space for attendees to learn, network, and contribute to the ongoing discourse on educational research and practice.

Theme: Leveraging History to Shape the Future

Under the guidance of AERA President Maisha T. Winn, the 2026 meeting emphasizes the theme of "unforgetting histories" to inform future norms and practices. Winn (2025) defines "futuring" as "intentional collective planning and future making that seeks to spark innovation, sustainability, and equitable opportunities." This theme invites participants to reflect on how historical frameworks can guide the development of equitable and innovative educational strategies.

Keynote Speakers and Participants

The meeting will feature prominent figures in the field of education, including:

Daniel Gilbert Solorzano (University of California - Los Angeles)
Jarvis R. Givens (Harvard University)
Stacey J. Lee (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Veronica Terriquez (University of California - Los Angeles)
Amanda R.

These thought leaders will contribute to discussions that bridge historical insights with contemporary challenges in education.

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Registration and Accommodation

Registration Details

To participate in the AERA Annual Meeting, registration is mandatory for all presenting authors. The deadline for presenting authors to register is March 6, 2026. Failure to register by this date will result in the removal of the author's name from the presentation. If no presenting author registers, the paper will be removed from the program. Onsite registration will be available for those who miss the initial deadline. Registration rates can be found on the Registration page.

AERA encourages attendees to become members by December 31, 2026, to take advantage of discounted registration rates. Professional development courses can be added to existing Annual Meeting registrations through the re:Members profile.

Guest registration is available for spouses, domestic partners, or family members of registrants, allowing them to visit exhibits and attend sessions in which the registrant is a participant.

Hotel Accommodation

AERA has secured discounted rates at several hotels in Los Angeles for meeting attendees. A special room rate has also been arranged for AERA Graduate Student members at select participating hotels for the 2026 Annual Meeting. Registration for the Annual Meeting is required before booking hotel accommodations.

Accessibility and Support

Accessibility Services

AERA is dedicated to providing a safe, inclusive, welcoming, and productive environment for all attendees. Sign language interpretation will be available for all plenaries and selected major sessions, including the Opening Plenary, the Presidential Address, the AERA Distinguished Lecture, the Wallace Foundation Distinguished Lecture, the Social Justice in Education Award Lecture, and the AERA Awards Ceremony, among other sessions. Individuals registering for the Annual Meeting may request accessibility services at the time of registration. The Accessibility Services Desk will be located in the registration area in the Los Angeles Convention Center.

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Childcare Services

AERA will offer subsidized rates for on-site childcare for meeting registrants. Advance registration is requested to ensure proper staffing and age-appropriate activities.

Graduate Student Support

AERA offers the Annual Meeting Graduate Student Assistance Fund to help graduate student members with demonstrated financial need offset the cost of attending the Annual Meeting. Additionally, some AERA Divisions and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) provide limited travel awards or sponsored Annual Meeting registrations for graduate students and early career scholars.

Program Highlights

The AERA 2026 Annual Meeting program includes a diverse range of sessions and events designed to foster intellectual exchange and collaboration.

Key Sessions and Events

Awards Ceremony Luncheon: A highlight of the meeting, recognizing outstanding contributions to the field of education research.
Graduate Student Research-in-Progress Roundtable Series: A special component of the Annual Meeting that will give accepted graduate students the opportunity to share and discuss their work in progress on site in Los Angeles.
E-Lightning Ed-Talks: Nearly 250 e-Lightning Ed-Talks will feature selected poster authors presenting their work in the form of brief and engaging presentations.
i-Presentation Gallery: All authors are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to be part of the innovative i-Presentation Gallery. Creating an i-Presentation and being part of the Gallery offers authors a web-based product with a citable and discoverable asset. It also offers networking opportunities through this open access portal. Authors with papers accepted for poster presentations must create their poster presentations with the Gallery. Authors using the gallery can create a dynamic web-based presentation or they can simply upload a PDF of their PowerPoint (or another presentation format like Prezi) and benefit from all the advantages of the gallery.

AERA Online Paper Repository

AERA encourages all presenters to participate in the voluntary AERA Online Paper Repository and share their papers widely with other scholars in an open access environment. The Online Paper Repository authenticates and time-dates all uploaded papers and assigns a digital object identifier (DOI). The papers in the repository have a digital object identifier (DOI), a persistent identifier that makes authors’ work easier to discover, locate, and cite.

Quiet Rooms

The 2026 Annual Meeting will feature designated Quiet Rooms for persons who desire a quiet place to relax or prepare for a presentation.

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Submission Guidelines and Updates

Uploading Final Papers

To upload a final paper, users can log in with their username and password. If you are the submitter, you will find the upload option on the "Submissions" tab. If you did not submit the paper the upload option is available on the “Participations” tab. Scroll down on the page to the ‘Submissions’ tab. You will see an Upload Final Draft screen. At the top of the page, click either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to participate in the AERA Online Paper Repository. If you need to upload a further revised paper before the March 6 deadline, just follow the instructions above. You cannot edit the paper once it has been uploaded.

Updating Personal Information

To update personal information such as affiliation, institution, or name, users can log into My AERA and click on “My Profile” to update their information.

The Significance of Historical Context

Maisha T. Winn emphasizes that understanding the past is crucial for shaping a better future. Drawing inspiration from historians like Vanessa Siddle Walker (2020), the meeting encourages attendees to consider how histories of education can inform contemporary education changemaking and coalition building. By taking a "long path" approach, as suggested by Wallach (2022), education researchers can consider the long-term impact of their work on future generations.

Addressing Current Challenges

The meeting also acknowledges the current national and global concerns that can impede the ability to imagine and plan for education futures. In a deeply divided social and political terrain, it is essential to support teaching and learning communities with the skills of civic reasoning and discourses (Lee, White, & Dong, 2021). Education researchers have opportunities to examine these issues and to construct their research as a pathway to solutions and equitable futures for learners in P-12, higher education, and community education settings.

Learning from Nondominant Communities

Nondominant communities have long engaged in active re-imagining of their lives and their children’s education, because institutions and institutional dynamics have so often isolated or excluded their ingenuity (Gutiérrez et al., 2017). The meeting seeks proposals that offer a new vision of education research as an intentional process and practice of futuring, through engagement with historical pasts and current tensions and challenges.

Related Events

The National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Annual Meeting will be held at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. For more details visit NCME 2026 Annual Meeting.

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