Dreaming beyond the Classroom: Exploring Youth Imagination, Civic Praxis, and Relational Pedagogy in Schools

Lauren Leigh Kelly Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights ; Semaj Eric Skillings Quinnipiac University ; Abigail Osorio Seton Hall University

Abstract

Drawing from theories of youth speculative civic literacies and freedom dreaming, this article explores how youth imagine the future of education and what roles schools and teachers play in fostering students’ dreaming. In this research study, the three co-authors—a literacy professor, an undergraduate English major, and a graduating high school student/future teacher—engage in intergenerational qualitative data analysis to discover how youth cultivate the capacities and imagination to engage in speculative educational dreaming. Through analysis of student interviews and youth counternarratives, we found that the types of interactions students have with their teachers as well as the availability of authentic opportunities for youth to engage in civic thought and action in schools are instrumental in the shaping of youth imagination and agency. For many students, school is something that is happening to them rather than for them. However, when their ideas and voices are heard within schools, it compels students to think about the world outside of school and their place in it. Conceptualizing student dreaming as acts of discovering and moving toward one’s purpose, we posit that engagement in critical civic praxis and relational encounters in learning environments are instrumental factors in the cultivation of youth agency and capacities for freedom dreaming.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2025-11-01
DOI
10.58680/rte2025602213
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (31) · 3 in this index

  1. Participatory design research and educational justice: Studying learning and relations wi…
    Cognition and Instruction  
  2. Imagination: A manifesto
  3. Protests in the United States on Palestine and Israel, 2023-2024
    Social Movement Studies  
  4. Other suns: Designing for racial equity through speculative education
    Journal of the Learning Sciences  
  5. Futures bound: Re-designing literacy research as a conduit for healing and civic dreaming
    International Studies in Sociology of Education  
Show all 31 →
  1. Youth activism in the urban community: Learning critical civic praxis within community or…
    International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education  
  2. To build a Black future: The radical politics of joy, pain, and care
  3. Montage of a dream deferred
  4. Research in the Teaching of English
  5. Traversing the gaps: An Afrofuturist approach to social change through dreaming in scienc…
    Journal of Futures Studies
  6. Freedom dreams: The black radical imagination
  7. A snapchat story: How black girls develop strategies for critical resistance in school
    Learning, Media and Technology  
  8. Speculative pedagogies: Designing equitable educational futures
  9. Introduction to the special issue of “TikTok and social movements.”
    Social Media + Society  
  10. Dreaming of a better world: Student rebellion in 1960s Regina
    Past Imperfect
  11. Punished for dreaming: How school reform harms Black children and how we heal
  12. “I hesitate but I do have hope”: Youth speculative civic literacies for troubled times
    Harvard Educational Review  
  13. Pushout: The criminalization of Black girls in schools
  14. Campus protest
    Women’s History Review  
  15. No study without struggle: Confronting settler colonialism in higher education
  16. Reclaiming relationality in education policy: Towards a more authentic relational pedagogy
    Critical Studies in Education  
  17. Critical listening and storying: Fostering respect for difference and action within and b…
    Urban Education  
  18. Schooling for critical consciousness: Engaging Black and Latinx youth in analyzing, navig…
  19. Critical race methodology: Counterstorytelling as an analytical framework for education r…
    Qualitative Inquiry  
  20. Restorying the self: Bending toward textual justice
    Harvard Educational Review  
  21. Research in the Teaching of English
  22. Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact
  23. Radical flexibility and relationality as responses to education in times of crisis
    Postdigital Science and Education  
  24. Youth perspectives on three speculative futures for higher education
    Journal of Open, Distance, and Digital Education
  25. Research in the Teaching of English
  26. New threats to campus protest
    First Amendment Law Review