Radical Imagination, Transformative Teaching Practices, and BIPOC Communities: Multiply Marginalized Children as Participatory Action Researchers

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Much of the work concerning social justice education in school has been centered on access, relevance, and closing “achievement” gaps. This fifth grade student panel, however, would like to challenge the field by exploring the types of classrooms and schools necessary to support students in the process of studying in their own image, in their own interests, and in their own voice. The focal site of this research is an elementary school in East Oakland (CA), a community that has been devastated by gentrification and corporate chartering of schools. This session will present the research of three groups of 5th grade elementary school students trained as critical ethnographic researchers analyzing the quality of education in their city to improve it.

Sub Unit

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

Chair

• G.T. Reyes, California State University - East Bay

Papers

• Radical Imagination Beyond the Limits of Educational Equity: A Grounds Up Look at Social Justice Reform in Schools - Jazmine Fortes, Oakland Unified School District

• Young People as Agents of Change: Disrupting Dominant Institutes of Schooling with Student Voice - Laurence Tan, University of California - Los Angeles

• Towards Healing and Liberation: Co-conspiring with Children through Transformative Teaching Practices - Patrick Camangian, University of San Francisco

Discussant

• G.T. Reyes, California State University - East Bay