Reparative Educational Futures: Reimagining Futures through Historical Consciousness and Anti-Colonial Praxis

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium explores reparative educational futures by confronting the colonial and racial legacies embedded in educational systems. Drawing on historical and structural consciousness, the three papers examine how education can move from sustaining injustice to enabling repair. The first paper presents a theoretical model of structural racism and the role of education in its reproduction and dismantling. The second investigates slavery heritage sites in Ghana as epistemic and affective resources for fostering reparative identity and justice-oriented learning. The third reimagines improvement science as decolonizing praxis through a community-based case in Northern Ghana. Together, the papers offer theoretical frameworks and practical approaches to rethinking education as a vehicle for repair, justice, and human dignity across global contexts.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 5: Inquiry, Transformation, and Communities

Chair

• Mama Adobea Nii Owoo, McGill University

Papers

• Interrogating, Disrupting, and Dismantling the Cycle of Racism: The Importance of Historical and Structural Consciousness/Thinking - Osly J. Flores, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• The Reparative Materials and Possibilities Embedded within Slavery Heritage Sites - Eric Kyere, Indiana University

• Improvement Science as Decolonizing Praxis: Shifting Decolonization from Discourse to Action - Edwin Nii Bonney, Clemson University

Session Organizer

• Edwin Nii Bonney, Clemson University

Discussant

• Mama Adobea Nii Owoo, McGill University