From Dreaming of Freedom to Freedom Dreaming: Developing Students' Abolitionist Praxis Through Interdisciplinary Literacy Instruction

Abstract

This qualitative study examines how elementary students of Color develop and enact an abolitionist praxis as part of a Freedom Dreaming literacy unit. The analysis of focus-group interviews elucidates how, after learning about freedom dreaming and the abolition of prisons and police, students positioned historical anti-carceral activism as something occurring in the present and students leveraged their historical and contemporary understanding of anti-carceral activism to enact their own freedom dreaming toward abolishing carcerality within their school. Our findings reveal the transformative potential of centering freedom dreaming and the abolition of prisons and police in elementary literacy instruction.