Stopping the STOPP: An Urgent Call to Critical Educators to Interrupt the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

The goal of this symposium is to increase our understanding of how and why increasing numbers of students, disproportionately youth of color, are flowing out of our schools and into our prisons. Many schools in the United States now rely on harsh disciplinary policies and high stakes testing to foster educational achievement among youth of color. These policies have funneled hundreds of thousands of children down life paths that lead to arrest, conviction, and incarceration: the school-to-prison pipeline. In this symposium several educators will offer their research-based perspectives and invite discussion on the ways in which schooling as well as other literacy opportunities might be restructured to interrupt the seemingly pre-determined flow of young people from school to prison.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Educators for Social Justice

Chairs

• Ernest D. Morrell, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Deborah A. Appleman, Carleton College

Papers

• Our Side of the Story”: Privileging Incarcerated Youth Voices - Maisha T. Winn, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Building Abolition Futures Through Restorative and Transformative Justice Practices - Erica R. Meiners, Northeastern Illinois University; Crystal T. Laura, Chicago State University; Karen Reyes, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Inciting the Incarcerated Imagination: The Promise and Pedagogy of Creative Writing in Prison - Deborah A. Appleman, Carleton College

• Our Lyrics Will Not Be on Lockdown: An Arts Collective’s Response to an Incarceration Nation - Keisha L. Green, Rutgers University - New Brunswick/Piscataway