Unsilencing the Past, Regifting the Present, and Manifesting Unforgettable Futures: Multiliteracies, Entertainment, and Popular Culture

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session explores how youth engage in futures-oriented learning through creative, multimodal, and culturally sustaining practices across diverse contexts. Grounded in critical race theory, design justice, and speculative inquiry, presenters share research from gaming ecologies, animation labs, undergraduate classrooms, and community AI workshops. Together, these studies challenge one-size-fits-all educational models and call for learning environments that honor, affirm, and sustain identity, imagination, and sociopolitical engagement. Whether designing futures scenarios, organizing digital protests, creating animated narratives, or queering AI systems, youth are co-constructing meaningful futures. This session is relevant to educators, designers, and institutions seeking to foster agency, equity, and belonging in a fractured and rapidly shifting world.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 1: Education and Place, Space, Time

Chair

• Darnel Degand, University of California - Davis

Papers

• Experiences with Futures Scenario Planning and Arts-Based Educational Approaches in an Undergraduate Education Course - Darnel Degand, University of California - Davis

• Ctrl+Alt+Resist: Digital protest and speculative activism in videogaming ecologies - Arturo Cortez, University of California - Davis

• Play, Narrative, and Belonging in STEM Media: Centering Black Boys’ Imaginations - Kareem Edouard, Drexel University

• Speculative Fabulation and Algorithmic Resistance in Queer and Latinx Community-based AI Workshops - José Ramón Lizárraga, University of Colorado - Boulder

Session Organizer

• Darnel Degand, University of California - Davis

Discussant

• Kris D. Gutiérrez, University of California - Berkeley