Twitter as a Counterstorytelling Site for Students of Color Working to Abolish the Police

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: Storytelling: Narrative Analysis of the Experiences of Students of Color and Critical Exploration of Postmodern Picture Books (Table 16)

Abstract

Given the historical legacy of policing Black bodies, this research focuses on the structures of anti-blackness within school policing and the strategies student of Color activists use as they work to defund or abolish police departments in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Specifically, this study looks to Twitter as a counterstorytelling space for student of Color activists to organize and build movements to end anti-Black school policing. Through the frameworks of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), this research applies inductive coding to analyze 42 Twitter posts from three student of Color-led organizations based in Los Angeles. This document analysis presents four themes, which describe four dominant strategies student of Color activists use in their campaigns to defund or abolish school police in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD): 1) centering Blackness and Black student experiences, 2) making demands for the elimination of funding and support for school police, 3) calling for a shift in funding to support Black students, and 4) employing multiple tactics concurrently. These findings demonstrate the importance of developing and centering a critical understanding of anti-blackness to achieve racial and educational justice within social movements. Moreover, the demands of student of Color activists reflect visions of public schools free from anti-Black school policing.

Author

• Re'Nyqua Farrington, University of California - Riverside
  Presenting Author