Unforgetting and Reimagining: Fugitive Literacies in a Youth Social Justice Collective

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:45 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Mentorship, Antiracism, and Fugitive Literacies in Youth Justice Work

Abstract

Amid rising censorship and curriculum restrictions, this qualitative case study examines the fugitive literacies enacted by Black and Latinx fifth graders in a school-based social justice club. Drawing on Ohito’s (2020) framework, the study explores how students navigate, resist, and transcend systemic injustice through multimodal literacy practices. Findings reveal that youth engaged in strategic silence, counterstorytelling, and imaginative world-building to unforget racialized histories and envision liberatory futures. Positioned as theorists and futurists, students used literacy as a form of political agency and collective healing. This research contributes to ongoing conversations about critical literacy, youth resistance, and the urgent need to sustain spaces for justice-centered meaning-making in K-12 education.

Author

• Christina Salazar, Texas Woman's University