Dismantling Carceral Logics in Teacher Education: Tensions, Challenges, and Possibilities for Prison Industrial Complex Abolition

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research-in-Progress Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Ethnic Studies Education: Teacher Pedagogy, Student Learning Experiences, and Institutionalization (Table 3)

Abstract

This study supports ethnic studies teachers with cultivating prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition pedagogies to upend carceral logics through a community-engaged approach to teacher education. Teacher (un)learning will be explored through PIC abolition pedagogies, a flexible framework that conceptualizes PIC abolition as a pedagogy and tool for understanding learning, rooted in PIC abolition and pedagogies of joint activity. Ethnic studies teachers and community members will participate in PIC abolition focused workshops throughout the 2023-2024 school year. Data includes interviews, questionnaires, video recordings of PIC abolition workshops, field notes from classroom observations, and workshop and teaching artifacts. This study holds promise for moving us closer to liberatory horizons by expanding possibilities for situating learning within community-engaged teacher education.

Author

• Christina Hewko, University of California - Santa Cruz