Decarceral, Disabled, and Reparative Futures in Higher Education

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

People with disabilities and those who are formerly/presently incarcerated are often perceived as an “allowable” loss in higher education: Regularly framed as a liability, threat, or detriment to the purported rigor and meritocratic elitism of post-secondary life. While eugenic and carceral logics endeavor to extinguish such bodies and minds from existing, long-standing practices of collective refusal, cross-movement solidarity, and coalition building have persisted despite the aims of K-20 educational spaces to resist otherwise. The proposed session presents papers and discussion that represent critical analyses examining how researchers and participants in an academic re-entry and higher education in prison program and a department of urban education created life-affirming post-secondary opportunities rooted in decarceration, disability justice, and reparative futures.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Educators for Social Justice

Papers

• Unshackling Futures: Abolitionist Teaching and Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline - Christopher A. Charriez, Rutgers University - Newark

• Finding Our Families: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Incarceration for the Blameless - Samuel David Quiles, Rutgers University

• Educating for Disabled Futures: The Role of Disability Studies in Decarcerating Higher Education - Lauren Shallish, Rutgers University - Newark; LaChan V Hannon, Rutgers University - Newark