"Dreaming of Freedom”: How Interdisciplinary Literacy Instruction Empowered Elementary Students’ Enactment of Police and Prison Abolition (Poster 31)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Sunday 9:50 a.m.
  In Poster Session: Poster Session II for the Special Interest Group Research in Reading and Literacy (SIG 11)

Abstract

This paper presents findings from an empirical study that explores the learning experiences of elementary students of color during a “freedom dreaming” literacy unit. Specifically, this paper elucidates how elementary students of color learn about and enact freedom dreaming toward prison and police abolition. Analysis of focus-group interviews elucidates how students position historical anti-carceral activism as something occurring in the present, and how students leverage their historical and contemporary understanding of anti-carceral activism to enact their own freedom dreaming toward abolishing policing at their school site. The findings reveal the powerful potential of centering freedom dreaming, along with prison and police abolition, in literacy instruction for elementary students of color.

Authors

• Rubén A. González, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Brittany Jones, University at Buffalo - SUNY