About

Shaneé A. Washington is an Assistant Professor of Justice and Equity in Teacher Education at the University of Washington College of Education. Her research and teaching explore how Black, Indigenous, and other People of the Global Majority (PGM) have historically and continue to engage in educational advocacy and self-determination. Drawing from Indigenous methodologies and culturally sustaining pedagogies, she studies how PGM families, educators, and community leaders imagine more just futures and design more equitable, humanizing, and culturally sustaining, revitalizing, and affirming learning environments in schools and community spaces. Her work is informed by her personal experiences growing up as a Black girl in Queens, N.Y., raising Black daughters, and her 14 years of teaching elementary and middle school students of Black and Brown backgrounds in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Her research emphasizes Indigenous family and community engagement, relationality, and relational accountability, highlighting the importance of centering PGM communities and their ways of knowing. She has contributed to scholarly discussions on Indigenous methodologies, culturally sustaining/revitalizing leadership, and Indigenous community efforts for cultural continuity and educational equity.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Social Science
• Political Science
• Pedagogy
• Geography
• Psychology
• Public relations
• Law
• Anthropology

Selected publications

• Engaging Indigenous Families and Community Members: Leadership Towards Relationality and Relational Accountability

  Educational Administration Quarterly · 2025-01-31 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Purpose: Using relationality and relational accountability as both a conceptual and methodological framework, this study explored the leadership practices of educational leaders in a community that a Wampanoag Tribe has called home for 12,000 plus years. It asked if and how leaders were exercising relationality and relational accountability in their engagement practices with Wampanoag and other Indigenous families and community members. Research Methods: Drawing from an exploratory case study that included 30 participants, 10 months of participant observation, 45 semi-structured conversations and interviews, and two talking circles, this article shares findings from observations, conversations, and interviews with six school and district leaders and five Indigenous parents and community leaders. Wilson's (2008) Intuitive logic and Braun's and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis were used to identify the results that are presented in this article. Findings : Town and school history have been major barriers to building trusting and accountable relationships with Wampanoag families. Leaders nonetheless hoped to build relationships by creating opportunities for families to engage for what they called “community purposes” and through “open” and “reciprocal” communication. A newly formed Tribe-District Partnership held the most promise for building trusting and accountable relationships with Tribal members. Implications of Research and Practice : Relationality and relational accountability are powerful Indigenous protocols with the potential of disrupting colonial leadership practices that have perpetuated legacies of Indigenous erasure. Leadership towards relationality and relational accountability positions educational leaders to support Indigenous communities in their efforts to revitalize and sustain what legacies of colonization and colonial schools have disrupted.

  PublisherDOI

• Storying Black and Indigenous Communities’ Place/Land Relations in Educational Engagement and Advocacy

  Inclusive learning and educational equity · 2025-01-01

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Indigenous Methodologies in International Research on Indigenous Family and Community Engagement

  Review of Educational Research · 2024-09-29 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Indigenous research methodologies have been theorized by prominent Indigenous scholars over the past few decades and advocated for in research focused on Indigenous communities for their emancipatory power to reestablish Indigenous peoples’ expertise and self-determining and sovereignty rights over education and research. Western intrusion in Indigenous education and community focused research through colonial schools and Western research methodologies has negatively impacted the schooling experiences of Indigenous children, their families and communities, as well as the ways they are studied and depicted in research. Responding to calls for Indigenous methodologies in research focused on Indigenous communities, this literature review introduces an Indigenist Methodological Framework, developed from canonical scholarship on Indigenous methodologies, that we use to explore the applications (and potential misapplications) of Indigenous methodologies in 20 international studies about Indigenous family and community engagement. We aimed to determine if adherence to the elements of an Indigenist Methodological Framework served to disrupt extractive, exploitative, and damage-centered practices in and portrayals of Indigenous communities (common in Western research methodologies). Further, we critically analyzed the findings of these studies to see if they offered more culturally responsive and strength-based conceptualizations of Indigenous families and communities. We uncovered applications and misapplications of Indigenous methodologies that impacted researchers’ commitments to and actions towards establishing and maintaining relational accountability throughout and beyond the research while also influencing findings that, in most cases, challenged narrow and deficit-based perceptions and portrayals of Indigenous students, families, and community members.

  PublisherDOI

• Coming to and Designing for Relationality as Environmental Justice in Social Studies Education (Poster 3)

  2024-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• “It’s a Vibe”: Belonging, Healing, and Liberation in Community Spaces By Us and For Us

  Equity & Excellence in Education · 2023-10-08 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Through conceptual framing of “a vibe” and abolitionist teaching, our study explored the self-determining work of Black and other People of the Global Majority (PGM) who have curated “by us, for us” (BUFU) community spaces of belonging, healing, and liberation. We asked where PGM community members were finding refuge and what healing and abolition-centered work looked like in BUFU spaces during a spring and summer of viral and violent attacks and disproportionate deaths of Black folks and other PGM. Through engagement with two Black-led organizations, a community survey, and interviews, we identified three interrelated themes that characterized these community spaces. First, the spaces had soulful vibes cultivated through food, music, artwork, and the PGM folks who frequented them. Second, they offered healing vibes that allowed participants to exhale and find refuge from white supremacy and surveillance. Lastly, they were spaces that embodied abolitionist vibes evident in knowledge sharing, freedom dreaming, and calls for collective action.

  PublisherDOI

• Reflecting on an Indigenist Methodology in Indigenous Family and Community Engagement Research

  The Qualitative Report · 2023-04-17 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers of Indigenous peoples and contexts have argued that any research involving Indigenous communities must align with Indigenous paradigms, follow critical cultural protocols, and promote emancipatory agendas. This ensures ethical and culturally appropriate research practices that prioritize community needs while placing the interests, experiences, and knowledge of Indigenous peoples at the center of research methodologies. Drawing from canonical scholars who have explicated and refined, over time, the meaning of Indigenous methodologies, this article first offers my synthesis of their collective conceptualizations. Next, I reflexively consider my application and, at times, misapplication of Indigenous methodologies with Indigenous and white participants in a study I carried out exploring Indigenous family and community-school engagement. I conclude by offering some implications for researchers who desire and have the responsibility to conduct research in ethical ways that honor Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in research with/in Indigenous communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Toward culturally sustaining/revitalizing Indigenous family-school-community leadership

  Frontiers in Education · 2023-07-03 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  2022 was a year of ongoing struggle for families and communities worldwide with social inequalities, colonial legacies, educational setbacks, and health crises perpetuated by the persistent COVID-19 pandemic and White rage and violence toward People of the Global Majority (PGM). Indigenous communities in particular have been disproportionately affected by long standing structural inequalities and systemic racism. How educational institutions engage with Indigenous families during and beyond these challenging times can either support self-determination, cultural revitalization, and sustenance, or contribute to ongoing legacies of colonization, racism, and cultural erasure. This article provides a review of the literature on family-school-community leadership models and asks: How have conceptions of family-school-community leadership evolved over time and become more culturally responsive, sustaining and/or revitalizing? How might more culturally sustaining/revitalizing models of family and community engagement take seriously the historical legacies of colonization and family leadership in Indigenous communities? Key terms such as involvement, engagement, partnership, and activism are defined and a continuum of family-school-community leadership frameworks is presented which move from traditional paradigms to more culturally sustaining and revitalizing practices. Relevant literature is reviewed for each of these evolving models.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An Indigenous Community’s Fight for Cultural Continuity and Educational Equity With/In and Against a New England School District

  Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education · 2021 · 8 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Social Science

  Background/Context: Indigenous communities of the “Americas” have a long history of exercising sovereignty over and self-determination in the education of their children that predates colonial invasion. This was disrupted by the advent of colonial education and its assimilationist aims, and Indigenous communities have been in an ongoing battle to reclaim and recenter Indigenous knowledge, culture, and values in teaching and learning. This research describes one community’s fight for cultural revitalization and educational equity in the schools their children attend. Focus of Study/Research Questions: This study explored Indigenous parents’ and community leaders’ engagement within, against, and beyond the public schools their children attend, centering their perspectives, priorities, and practices. It explored the questions: What are Indigenous parents’ and community leaders’ engagement practices? Are their engagement practices culturally sustaining/revitalizing? How so, and/or why not? Setting: The research site was a small New England school district and town that is home to a Wampanoag tribe that has inhabited the area for 12,000 years and whose children represent the largest group of students of color in the local public schools. Research Design: This qualitative, exploratory case study foregrounded, privileged, and normalized Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in research using Indigenous protocols, such as relationality and relational accountability, and Indigenous methodologies that included semi-structured conversations and talking circles. Findings/Results: Together, Native parents, through their focus on inequitable and exclusionary practices, and Native community leaders, through their mission to expand language and culture-centric curricula and programming, are challenging and fighting to change the overall objectives of colonial education in the schools their children attend. Separately, Native parents are experiencing more resistance from educators for their failure to comply with racialized and classist rules and expectations of engagement. Moreover, the advocacy efforts of Native leaders may be hampered by a lack of parent and student voice and contributions. Conclusions/Recommendations: We learned from the participants in this study that merging efforts and collectively holding schools accountable may be an essential move in creating and sustaining an education system that meets all their wishes and needs. This includes viewing parents and students as valuable knowledge holders who should be consulted and listened to in matters that concern and impact them. In addition, local school districts must do more than just respond affirmatively to and support community members’ initiative(s); they must also be the initiators and funders of changes that dismantle policies, practices, curricula, programming, and instruction that uphold a colonized school system.

  PublisherDOI

• Sustaining Indigenous students' and families' well-being and culture in an Ontario school board

  Journal of Professional Capital and Community · 2020 · 7 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Pedagogy

  Purpose This paper describes how an Ontario school board's majority First Nation, Metís and Inuit (FNMI) student population influenced the direction and priorities of the board toward culturally responsive and well-being focused initiatives. Using culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) as a conceptual framework, it explores the board's efforts to meet the socioemotional and identity needs of its FNMI students (and families) through investments in professional learning communities (PLCs) and targeted programming and technologies. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents findings from one case in a larger multi-year (2015–2017), multiple-case (10 school boards) study by a university research team that included the author. Thematic analysis was used to code interviews and focus groups conducted with over 40 administrators, educators and community partners in the board featured in this paper. Findings The board's culturally responsive and well-being focused initiatives, while intended to support FNMI students' socioemotional success and sense of inclusiveness in schools, was inadequate at fostering and sustaining students' (and families') cultural survival and communal well-being. Practical implications Findings offer practical ways that schools serving large populations of FNMI students might support students' identity development and self-regulation skills in schools while also serving as a cautionary example of strategies that do not sufficiently address student challenges that are the result of ongoing legacies of colonization. Originality/value This study provides a distinctive example of a predominantly FNMI school board that, in recent years, has prioritized student well-being and identity development over achievement. It provides insight into the transformative possibilities and constraints of trying to support FNMI students' socioemotional healing and cultural sustenance in a colonized system.

  PublisherDOI

• Collaborative Professionalism Across Cultures and Contexts: Cases of Professional Learning Networks Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Canada and Colombia

  Emerald Publishing Limited eBooks · 2020 · 9 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Pedagogy
  • Sociology

  Abstract Educational inequities that are often systemic and the result of structural oppression persist in schools under/serving minoritized youth and communities. This chapter illustrates how professional learning networks (PLNs) and the practice of collaborative professionalism within them have served to support educators, positioned at multiple levels, in their effort to serve all children well, and especially those who are most marginalized. Collaborative professionalism emphasizes collective responsibility and student and teacher empowerment through PLNs. Further, the collaborative professionalism model incorporates elements of culture and context to ensure that collaborative efforts are responsive to the students and communities educators are purposed to partner with and serve. In this chapter, the authors highlight two such cases of collaborative professionalism through PLNs in Colombia and Ontario, Canada. These cases provide a model for how collaborative professionalism within PLNs can be utilized to enhance teaching and learning for all teachers and students across cultures and contexts, while attending explicitly to educational inequities.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael T. O’Connor

  2 shared

• Kayla Mendoza Chui

  University of Washington

  2 shared

• Lauri Johnson

  Boston College

  2 shared

• Jessica I. Ramirez

  Portland State University

  1 shared

• Kaleb Germinaro

  University of Illinois Chicago

  1 shared

• Andy Hargreaves

  1 shared

Labs

• Shaneé A. Washington LabPI

Awards & honors

• Outstanding Reviewer: Honorable Mention, AERA Division K (20…
• Outstanding Dissertation Award, AERA Leadership for Social J…
• Outstanding Dissertation Award, AERA Family-School-Community…
• Martin Howell Outstanding Advisor Award, University of Washi…
• Donald J. White Teaching Excellence Award, Boston College (2…