Cultivating Change through Critical Imagination and Collective Liberation in Childhood

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

This Presidential Session explores critical imagination as a transformative framework for understanding childhood experiences, development, and early learning across diverse educational contexts. Drawing from Robin D.G. Kelley's work on "freedom dreams" and the "Black radical imagination," alongside recent scholarship on transformative agency, the session examines how children's natural capacity for imagination serves as a tool for resistance, healing, and collective knowledge production. Presentations demonstrate how children use critical imagination through storytelling, speculative thinking, and creative expression to navigate complex realities while envisioning possibilities for transformation. The session positions children's imaginative practices as legitimate forms of cultural knowledge that can inform educational research methodologies and pedagogical approaches, challenging traditional frameworks that may suppress rather than cultivate children's capacity for envisioning liberatory futures. Implications for teacher knowledge are discussed throughout, emphasizing how educators can integrate these frameworks into practice.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chairs

• Nicol R. Howard, Chapman University

• Kira J. Carbonneau, Washington State University

Papers

• Beyond Disimagination: Critical Imagination as Framework for Liberatory Childhood Education - Betzabe Torres Olave, University of Leeds

• Critical Imagination as Cultural Practice: Children's Storytelling and Meaning-Making Across Educational Contexts - Belinda Mendelowitz, University of the Witwatersrand

• Transformative Agency in Early Learning: Children's Critical Imagination Across Educational Contexts - Marilyn Fleer, Monash University

• Joy as Liberation: Critical Imagination and Youth-Led Participatory Research in Urban Education - Ayana Allen-Handy, Drexel University

• Decolonizing Imagination: Critical Ethnic Studies and Children's Agency in Elementary Classrooms - Carolina Valdez, California State University - Fullerton

Discussant

• Stephanie R. Toliver, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign