Pandemic Portals and Radical Imaginations: Employing Critical Arts-Based Pedagogies Toward Racial Justice with Secondary Preservice English Teachers

In the wake of COVID-19 and protests against racial violence, scholars of education, alongside educational organizations, called for innovative responses to address racial injustice, but one solution was consistently mentioned across educational spaces: the need for educators to reimagine education in a postpandemic/endemic world. And yet, even though the importance of (re)imagination in deterring educational issues was greatly emphasized in academia and popular culture, scholarship detailing ways to activate teachers’ imaginations was limited. Considering the role of imagination and creativity in the fight for racial justice, the purpose of this article is to examine how arts-based pedagogies in the teacher education classroom might provide space for preservice teachers to cultivate their imaginative proclivities toward racial justice. To engage in this analysis, the author employs a thematic analytic process undergirded by the concept of activist art pedagogy and supported by a conceptual framework that bridges abolitionist teaching and the Archaeology of Self. The combination of the framework and analytic method was used to analyze visual artifacts and meta-reflections created by preservice teachers who constructed multiple aesthetic responses to class readings. Findings suggest that critical arts-based inquiries helped preservice teachers to personally connect to and question the historical roots of racial justice. Further, findings indicate that arts-based inquiries can engage preservice teachers’ creative proclivities toward a reimagination of their roles and responsibilities as racial justice–informed teachers.