Fugitive Academic Initiatives for the Preparation of Radical Educators: An Undergraduate Social Justice Education Program

• In Event: (Re)Imagining Possibilities: Working to Create Change

Abstract

This paper argues for the necessity of fugitivity (Harney & Moten, 2013) in academic initiatives aimed at the preparation of teachers and youth workers as radical educators capable of interrupting the neoliberal regime in P-16 public education. Using a 5-year case study, we explore how an undergraduate academic minor in social justice education opened space for students to develop and implement a vision of teacher education and human services that wrestles with economic inequality, corporate and state power, settler colonialism, white supremacy, and struggles over place and territory. Implications for teacher education and human services programs in higher education that aim to critically prepare school-based professionals are discussed.

Authors

• Verónica Nelly Vélez, Western Washington University

• Anna Lees, Western Washington University