Picturing college access providers in

Geographic Information Sy convey complex social, demographic the social and physical sciences. However, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers may not be aware of or sensitive to the complex issues of power, exclusion, meaning agenda-setting embedded in an apparently self they likely to be aware of the ongoing debate between cartographers and GIS technicia the responsibility of map makers to anticipate representation. This paper is based on the authors ’ process of encountering, employing, and reflecting upon GIS mapping during a state and target populations of college access provider organizations. Categories of representational, and interpretational issues arose, requiring the researchers to mapping efforts might be used in an educational policy arena to misrepresent, oversimplify, or exclude some constituents from policy formation and resource allocation processes. In turn, educational researchers considering GIS mapping are challenged to do so fully aware of the methodological and epistemological challenge