Black Joy in Educational Justice Knowledge Co-Creation

• In Event: The Unapologetic Love of Nuanced Black Joy: Our Relationships Sustain Us

Abstract

This comrade/co-presenter is an unapologetically Black-focused educational justice researcher and former Detroit middle school teacher. His work explores Black, justice-oriented, and K-12 educators’ unique roles as policy activists and Black student agency shepherds. He positions his scholarship, guided by critical quantification, anti-colonial epistemologies, and Black Critical Theory to bolster the political and pedagogical activities of Black educators, school leaders, and their allies. It was his dissertation that convened the symposium panelists and Black educator activists to co-create knowledge about our dual politically activity. His contribution to the symposium is to offer Black joy perspectives from his role as a critical educational policy researcher. When the educator activist was invited to turn their attention toward transforming anti-Black policy systems, Black joy surfaced as a healing knowledge co-creation consideration. This comrade will orient the audience to our discussion, facilitate collective connections between knowledge creation and practice, and engage the audience in exploring what an unapologetic love of nuanced Black joy means in their contexts.

Author

• Nathaniel D. Stewart, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author