To Dream Together: Collective Future-Building in a West Bank Youth Program

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Three
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT054 (Friday)

Abstract

Amid ongoing occupation and uncertainty in the West Bank, educators and youth continue to envision futures rooted in collective hope. This research explores one community program whose motto—“to dream together, to decide together, to work together, to build a future together”—articulates a shared vision of transformation. Using interview and observation data, the study asks: (1) What motivated the creation of this program and its motto? (2) How do participants describe the ways its elements contribute to that mission? Preliminary findings suggest that the program mobilizes imagination, co-decision, and collective labor as intertwined pedagogies of endurance. The analysis extends theories of future-building under uncertainty by illuminating how Palestinian educators cultivate relational, place-based forms of collective futurity.

Author

• Catherine E. Pitcher, Harvard University