'The Good Cops, Bad Cops, Bullets, and Wounds': Toward Culturally Sustaining 'Prison Abolition Literacies' in Early Childhood Education
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| Title: | 'The Good Cops, Bad Cops, Bullets, and Wounds': Toward Culturally Sustaining 'Prison Abolition Literacies' in Early Childhood Education |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Rachel McMillan, Nathaniel Bryan |
| Source: | Reading Research Quarterly. 2025 60(1). |
| Availability: | Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 11 |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | Early Childhood Education |
| Descriptors: | Early Childhood Education, Early Childhood Teachers, African American Students, Culturally Relevant Education, Correctional Institutions, Criminals, Social Justice, Social Action, Social Change, Family Influence, Parent Influence, Early Experience, Emergent Literacy, Change Strategies, Teaching Methods, Curriculum Development |
| DOI: | 10.1002/rrq.586 |
| ISSN: | 0034-0553 1936-2722 |
| Abstract: | Dominant discourses on the prison industrial complex/ mass incarceration tend to prioritize the experiences of Black adults. However, Black children are dual victims of the prison industrial complex. By that, we mean that they are subjected to incarceration in and beyond early childhood education, and the negative impact of the incarceration of parents/caregivers and other family members. With such considerations in mind, early childhood teachers should teach young Black children to become aware of the injustices of the prison industrial complex. To that end, we ask the following question: How can teachers raise Black children's consciousness of the prison industrial complex and encourage them to build a longstanding commitment to dismantle it through early literacy practices? In this conceptual article, we draw on culturally sustaining pedagogy, the imprisoned Black radical tradition, and abolitionist teaching to introduce and explain the utility of culturally sustaining "prison abolition literacies"--a literacy practice that acknowledges the pervasive injustices of the carceral state and action-oriented ways to combat them to protect Black children and other minoritized children--in early childhood teaching and curriculum. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2025 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1458562 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwFt8t6qZNRMEk-3GxHAgQ4iAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDCcwc1wmRjaeXhOqkQIBEICBm9-ngTEomvfdE66hgcV2pvq0y9t44dieXfkCoAuRwFNaPzXv1vo0TqRd-qngCmXh-bzosSkz1LzVEZghX5rHV0G2v8v_zcKqcSnM3MN9V8ayXJAHAojVm9cMUN5jmd4pt_XyyJStUFflffKcZlXVSYVyfB_PFOCcyFfwQ7I2_H8aVbs_2b-1u2tPdiMmoqxhKgvTkASW1IE4EEV5 Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0183756686;[nrnu]01jan.25;2025Apr04.08:23;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0183756686-1">The Good Cops, Bad Cops, Bullets, and Wounds: Toward Culturally Sustaining Prison Abolition Literacies in Early Childhood Education </title> <p>Dominant discourses on the prison industrial complex/ mass incarceration tend to prioritize the experiences of Black adults. However, Black children are dual victims of the prison industrial complex. By that, we mean that they are subjected to incarceration in and beyond early childhood education, and the negative impact of the incarceration of parents/caregivers and other family members. With such considerations in mind, early childhood teachers should teach young Black children to become aware of the injustices of the prison industrial complex. To that end, we ask the following question: How can teachers raise Black children's consciousness of the prison industrial complex and encourage them to build a longstanding commitment to dismantle it through early literacy practices? In this conceptual article, we draw on culturally sustaining pedagogy, the imprisoned Black radical tradition, and abolitionist teaching to introduce and explain the utility of culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies—a literacy practice that acknowledges the pervasive injustices of the carceral state and action‐oriented ways to combat them to protect Black children and other minoritized children—in early childhood teaching and curriculum.</p> <p>Dominant discourses on the prison industrial complex/mass incarceration tend to prioritize the experiences of Black adults. However, Black children are dual victims of the prison industrial complex. By that, we mean that they are subjected to incarceration in and beyond early childhood education, and the negative impact of the incarceration of parents/caregivers and other family members.</p> <p>Keywords: Black children; early literacy; prison abolition</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-2">Situating Black Children as Dual Victims of the Prison Industrial Complex</hd> <p>Dominant discourses on the prison industrial complex/ mass incarceration tend to prioritize the experiences of Black adults (Alexander, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>]). However, Black children are dual victims of the prison industrial complex. By that, we mean that Black children are both subjected to incarceration in and beyond early childhood education in schools that perpetuate anti‐Black violence (ECE, henceforth; PreK‐3), upon which they are dependent (Milner, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref2">37</reflink>]), <emph>and</emph> the negative impact of the incarceration of parents/caregivers and other family members. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world which means that although the United States is roughly 4.2% of the world's population, it incarcerates 20% of it (Alexander, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref3">1</reflink>]; Federal Bureau of Prisons, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref4">14</reflink>]). Whereas Black adults make up approximately 39 percent of those who are incarcerated, Black children are three to five times more likely to be criminalized in early childhood education (Wright &amp; Ford, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref5">62</reflink>]). Such criminalization is often referred to as the preschool‐to‐prison pipeline[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref6">1</reflink>] or the funneling of young Black children from classrooms into the juvenile/criminal justice system (Gilliam et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref7">17</reflink>]). It comes as no surprise that those individuals who are criminalized as adults are also criminalized as children.</p> <p>Witnessing and being subjected to the prison industrial complex is an act of spirit murder, or the physical and psychological trauma Black children face and endure in a White supremacist, imperialistic, capitalistic society (Love, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref8">32</reflink>]; Williams, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref9">59</reflink>]). Furthermore, the spirit murder of Black children is a quintessential example of what it means to exacerbate the conditions of the afterlife of slavery, defined by Hartman ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref10">20</reflink>]) as the ongoing dehumanization and degradation of Black life. In other words, Hartman argues that although systems of White supremacy and anti‐Blackness have been introduced centuries ago, there are still racialized conditions and realities that negatively impact Black people.</p> <p>An act of White supremacist/anti‐Black violence that raises its ugly head in early childhood classrooms is the topic of community helpers, prevalent in early childhood teaching and curriculum (Kolluri &amp; Young, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref11">24</reflink>]; Wright, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref12">60</reflink>]). The police, among other helping professions, are socially constructed as well‐meaning individuals who engage in good deeds to serve and protect communities. Despite their complicity in the state‐sanctioned violence against Black people, police officers are heralded as <emph>good cops</emph>, who are working hard to provide safety and protection to "all" citizens. We argue that the promulgation of "the good cop narrative" overshadows the problematic nature of policing—namely, the historical and contemporary acts of spirit murder in the form of physical and spiritual <emph>bullets</emph> and <emph>wounds</emph> against Black children (and adults).</p> <p>When unprepared in teacher preparation programs to counteract the bullets and the wounds and address the dual prison industrial complex dilemma in classrooms, early childhood teachers contribute to or even exacerbate the conditions of the afterlife of slavery and the spirit murder of Black children. Early childhood teachers can play an instrumental role in helping young Black children deepen their critical consciousness about prisons and can prevent Black children from leaving ECE without reading and learning about the dangers of the prison industrial complex and how to work toward abolishing it. In a previous article, we introduced what we term prison abolition literacies as a Pro‐Black pedagogy, "literacy practices that bring awareness to the injustices of the carceral state and encourage young children to become prison abolitionists" (Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref13">11</reflink>], p. 383). However, much like Pro‐Blackness, conversations about prison abolition must be painstakingly intentional and ongoing in order to be sustained in early childhood classrooms. As such, we draw on culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris &amp; Alim, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref14">43</reflink>]) as applied to early childhood contexts (Nash et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref15">39</reflink>]) to illustrate strategies to sustain the praxes of prison abolition in the early years.</p> <p> <emph>Culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies</emph> can be an effective pedagogical tool early childhood teachers use to teach and sustain conversations with young children about prisons, the prison industrial complex, and the need for prison abolition (Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref16">11</reflink>]). It can also help young Black children sustain conversations about and "learn <emph>how to see the world [and the prison system]</emph>, by necessity, from a distinctly Black perspective" (Givens, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref17">18</reflink>], p. 20). To that end, we ask the following question: How can teachers raise Black children's consciousness of the prison industrial complex and encourage them to build a longstanding commitment to dismantle it through early literacy practices?</p> <p>In this conceptual article, we explain why we need culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies in early childhood education. Following this brief introduction, we develop a review of literature detailing Black children's academic and social experiences, the preschool‐to‐prison pipeline, and early literacy. Finally, we draw theoretically from culturally sustaining pedagogies, the Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition, and abolitionist teaching to introduce and explain the utility of <emph>culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies</emph>—a literacy practice that acknowledges the pervasive injustices of the carceral state and action‐oriented ways to combat them to protect Black children and other minoritized children—in early childhood teaching and curriculum.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-3">The Need for Culturally Sustaining Prison Abolition Literacies in the Early Literacy Curricul...</hd> <p>There are several reasons we believe our conceptualization of culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies is a much needed addition to the early literacy curriculum. These reasons include but are not limited to the egregious impact of prisons on Black children, families, and communities, the dire need to interrupt young children's deficit views of the incarcerated, and the limited amount of children's literature that addresses mass incarceration.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-4">The Egregious Impact of Mass Incarceration on Black Children, Families, and Communities</hd> <p>Despite the pervasive preschool‐to‐prison pipeline, many early childhood educators are oblivious of the ways in which Black children are victims of the prison industrial complex at young ages (Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref18">11</reflink>]; Cabral et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref19">12</reflink>]). These experiences include but are not limited to the incarceration of a family member or the growing number of incidents during which young children are placed in handcuffs in early learning spaces (Gilliam et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref20">17</reflink>]; Lenthang, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref21">30</reflink>]). To that end, Black children are victims of what Alexander ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref22">1</reflink>]) refers to as the <emph>New Jim Crow</emph>. Alexander ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref23">1</reflink>]) argues that the New Jim Crow serves as Black people's punishment for progressive reform such as the civil right legislation.</p> <p>Scholars have long argued that for Black children, and boys in particular, early childhood education is a bastion of "hubs where the focus is extensively about maintaining [discipline] and order" (Wright &amp; Ford, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref24">62</reflink>], p. 28). Several examples of the criminalization of Black children abound in the media and popular press. Take for example, in 2015, Kaia Rolle, a 6‐year‐old Black girl, was handcuffed, arrested, placed in a police cruiser, and booked into a local jail for having a tantrum in an early childhood classroom in Florida (Sonnenberg, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref25">52</reflink>]). Countless other Black children have also been similarly arrested by police officers for minor infractions in schools and early childhood classrooms (see Ball et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref26">4</reflink>]).</p> <p>Similarly, body camera footage exposed an officer who attacked an 8‐year‐old Black boy with disabilities in the school principal's office (Lenthang, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref27">31</reflink>]). Such incidents are indicative of what it means for Black children to live in the afterlife of slavery (the historical and ongoing dehumanization of Black life) and are reasons early childhood educators must infuse culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies into the early literacy curriculum to raise Black children's sociopolitical consciousness about the prison industrial complex and how it deeply impacts their lives and those of their families and members of their communities. We believe that working work Black children to develop critical consciousness about mass incarceration can encourage them to see the importance of joining efforts to overhaul systems of mass incarceration.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-5">Children's Deficit Views of the Incarcerated</hd> <p>MacNaughton et al. ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref28">33</reflink>]) suggest that young children are not innocent; they also internalize ideologies and beliefs of larger systems of oppression. Given their socialization into broader systems of oppression, young Black children, much like adults, internalize deficit beliefs about individuals who are imprisoned. To that end, young children are carefully taught to perceive those who are incarcerated as "bad" people (e.g., thieves, criminals, absent fathers) because early childhood curriculum leave such views of the incarcerated intact. Teaching resources including children's books are complicit in promulgating such view of incarcerated individuals. For example, a critical content analysis of children's books that address the incarcerated feature Black characters, especially Black men who have committed violent crimes, discounting how Black men are also wrongfully incarcerated (Bryan, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref29">9</reflink>]). They ignore the anti‐Black, injustice system that is complicit in the mass incarceration of Black people. Early childhood teachers' curricular and pedagogical practices, especially the infusion of children's literature, can interrupt young Black children's deficit view of the incarcerated (Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref30">11</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-6">Interrupting Deficit Views Through Children's Literature</hd> <p>Children's literature can play a role in young children's socialization (Sims‐Bishop, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref31">49</reflink>]). Sims‐Bishops contends that children's literature not only provides young children mirrors in which to see themselves, but also windows through which they can see the world. As such, children's literature can enable young children to see how they are deeply impacted by mass incarceration and understand their role in creating a world of prison abolition that is yet to exist. More pointedly, children's literature can be an instrumental tool in interrupting children's deficit views of individuals who are incarcerated and developing, expanding, and sustaining young children's sociopolitical consciousness toward prison abolition (Baines et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref32">3</reflink>]; Sims‐Bishop, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref33">49</reflink>]). Scholars suggest that deepening, expanding, and sustaining children's critical consciousness in such a way may be a challenge, because early childhood education classrooms are replete with books and other texts that uphold and socialize children into White cultural ways of knowing and beings. Given the centrality of whiteness in children's literature (Ford &amp; Tyson, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref34">15</reflink>]; Sims‐Bishop, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref35">49</reflink>]), children's literature that reflect Black cultural ways of knowing and being, and books and other texts that address prisons, mass incarceration, and how they deeply and negatively impact the lives of Black people who are incarcerated are not included in early childhood curricula. With such considerations in mind, culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies can be used as an effective curricular tool to inspire children to not only "read the word" (literature pertaining incarceration), but also "read the world" (be critically aware of societal injustices) (Freire, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref36">16</reflink>]) of mass incarceration. In the next section of this article, we highlight scholarship addressing the academic and social landscape, preschool‐to‐prison pipeline, and offer the concept of educational enclosures of Black children experiences in early childhood classrooms. We also challenge the community helper curriculum in early childhood education that situate police officers as "good cops," who are working laboriously to provide safety and protection to "all" citizens.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-7">Black Children's Academic and Social Landscape in Early Childhood Education</hd> <p>Although early childhood education plays an essential and foundational role in the academic and social development and preparation of all children, Black children's academic and social needs are far too often neglected in early childhood education, which is an egregious violation of their civil rights (Baines et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref37">3</reflink>]; Boutte, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref38">6</reflink>]). Public PreK‐12 schools are responsible for providing a free and appropriate education to all children, and early childhood educators are first sworn to do no harm (Boutte, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref39">6</reflink>]). Yet, in comparison to their White counterparts, and despite educational policies designed to "leave no child behind," Black children leave early childhood education without the requisite academic skills in early literacy (and math) that exacerbate future academic issues in secondary grades (Boutte, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref40">6</reflink>]; Boutte et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref41">7</reflink>]). According to Bryan ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref42">10</reflink>]), early literacy "entails young children's acquisition of basic skills as consumers and producers of written and spoken language, developing joy and purpose in using a range of literacies, ... and the abilities to use literacy to understand and critically examine the world around them" (p. 36). Tatum ([<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref43">56</reflink>]) proposes that for Black children, and boys in particular, early literacy is a gateway subject that provides children with more rigorous opportunities (e.g., gifted education, Advanced Placement courses) in their schooling experiences. However, when Black children leave early childhood education with gateways that are blocked, their future academic and professional life outcomes are truncated. For these reasons and others, critical early childhood scholars (Baines et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref44">3</reflink>]; Boutte, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref45">6</reflink>]; Johnson &amp; Nicol, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref46">22</reflink>]; Wright &amp; Ford, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref47">62</reflink>]) suggest that the pervasive neglect of Black children in early learning spaces is symptomatic of broader systems of anti‐Blackness that are sustained and interwoven throughout their schooling lives.</p> <p>Similarly, much like their academic experiences, Black children's social experiences are deeply and negatively impacted in early childhood classrooms. They are disproportionately funneled from classrooms into a preschool‐to‐prison pipeline. Bryan ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref48">8</reflink>]) contends that because of cultural conflicts between White teachers and Black children, White female teachers—who disproportionately lead early childhood classrooms—are complicit in building and sustaining the preschool‐to‐prison pipeline. As such, White teachers become "the classroom‐level police officers" who usher Black children into the preschool‐to‐prison pipeline.</p> <p>Research studies have long illuminated how such a nexus not only truncates Black children's academic brilliance but also their future life outcomes. At the root of the preschool‐to‐prison pipeline are zero tolerance policies that penalize and criminalize young children for minor behavioral infractions (e.g., crying, having tantrums) in and beyond early childhood education (Wesley &amp; Ellis, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref49">58</reflink>]). For example, Bryce Lindsey, a young Black boy, was suspended and expelled from schools, and criminal charges were later brought against for inadvertently hitting a White boy classmate (Morgan‐Smith, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref50">38</reflink>]). With such a case in mind, it is without a doubt that zero tolerance policies have placed school discipline in the hands of police officers rather than teachers and school administrators who are first sworn to do no harm to young children (Goings et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref51">19</reflink>]).</p> <p>Although the preschool‐school‐to‐prison pipeline language has taken center stage and has become normalized and sustained in early childhood education research and practice, we are critical of the use of such a term. For this reason, we use the term "nexus" rather than "pipeline" throughout the paper. Additionally, much like Damien Sojoyner ([<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref52">51</reflink>]), we use the term educational enclosure to underscore the symbiotic relationship between schools and prisons and, coupled with schools, how societal conditions are complicit in the continued criminalization of Black children. Sojoyner ([<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref53">50</reflink>]) contends that the preschool‐to‐prison pipeline is often constructed ahistorically, missing the "critical racial, class, gendered, and sexed analyses that are needed to understand the root causes [of]... the development of education malaise and subsequent expansion of prisons within the United States" (Sojoyner, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref54">50</reflink>], p. 243).</p> <p>Furthermore, the term—preschool‐to‐prison pipeline—often ignores public schooling and discipline policies (over policing, expulsions, etc.) are designed against the minds, bodies, and actions of Black students who are socially constructed and positioned in schools as threatening the status quo (Sojoyner, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref55">50</reflink>]). Sojoyner further argues that over time, the term and idea of a preschool‐to‐prison pipeline has become increasingly narrow and has been "repackaged as a non‐threatening, ubiquitous, rhetorical device" (Sojoyner, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref56">50</reflink>], p. 244); thus, "doing nothing to address school or prison abolition." As such, Sojoyner suggests that</p> <p>[The] term enclosure encapsulates the multifaceted processes that have brought us to this current moment of mass incarceration, intense racialized policing, and a full‐on assault upon public education. Enclosure most readily signifies a physical barrier such as a wall, a fence, or anything that is meant to limit the freedom of movement. Yet, enclosure also refers to the unseen forces that are just as powerful as the physical manifestations. In this sense, enclosure is representative of social mechanisms that construct notions of race, gender, class, and sexuality; and just as important as the imposition of the physical and unseen, enclosure embodies the removal/withdrawal/denial of services and programs that are key to the stability and long‐term well‐being of communities. (p. 119)</p> <p>Sojoyner's definition is a constant reminder of the historical and contemporary collusion of state‐sanctioned antagonisms that negatively impact the lives of Black people, children in this case, in and beyond schools. When Black children are subjected to such enclosures by teachers and school administrators (Boutte, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref57">6</reflink>], p. 5), they have no choice but to engage in childhood "disobedience" (Leafgren, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref58">27</reflink>]), during which young children challenge "the context, complexity, constraints, and freedoms of the [early childhood] classroom" (p. 19). We suggest that in the same manner young Black children rebel against the inequities of the early childhood classroom, they can engage in sustained rebellion that overhaul prisons that dehumanize Black people and children who are victims of mass incarceration. Much like the infusion of children's literature we discussed earlier, we believe that early childhood teachers can insist upon using early literacy practices that foster and sustain young children's critical consciousness of the prison industrial complex.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-8">Early Literacy Practices</hd> <p>For Black children, early literacy practices remain anti‐Black. Rather than infusing culturally relevant and sustaining literacy practices, early childhood teachers depend on those literacy practices that are divorced from the everyday lived realities of Black children (Baines et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref59">3</reflink>]; Boutte, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref60">6</reflink>]; Souto‐Manning &amp; Martell, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref61">53</reflink>]; Wright &amp; Counsell, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref62">61</reflink>]). According to Bryan ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref63">10</reflink>]) and other scholars (Souto‐Manning &amp; Martell, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref64">53</reflink>]; Wynter‐Hoyte et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref65">63</reflink>]), in most early childhood classrooms, teachers continue to prioritize "phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and grammar (which has also been promoted as the hallmark of early childhood education) in isolation from meaningful texts that reflect students' cultures and identities" (Bryan, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref66">10</reflink>], p. 106). Additionally, much like most teachers' tendency to exclude children's books that center Black cultural ways of knowing and being in the early literacy curriculum (Boutte et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref67">7</reflink>]), they often ban books that address discussions about the prison industrial complex. These literacy practices lead to educational enclosures that are oppressive, culturally unresponsive, assaultive, and dehumanizing to Black children, and impede the infusion of critical racial literacies, defined as a practice of understanding the way racial categories, symbols, discourses, and historical trauma and oppression fuel ongoing dehumanization and oppression of racialized others (Nash et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref68">39</reflink>]). Critical racial literacies—which includes what we term culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies—in the early literacy curriculum (Nash et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref69">39</reflink>]; Vasquez, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref70">57</reflink>]). Critical racial literacies build from critical literacies which addresses sociohistorical and sociopolitical issues including mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex that are crucial for the critical consciousness development of young children (Vasquez, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref71">57</reflink>]). As such, young Black children can envision and re‐envision through culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies what it means to live in a world without prisons and grow to become community helpers who are committed to prison abolition.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-9">Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies</hd> <p>Culturally sustaining prison abolition is rooted firmly in culturally sustaining pedagogies. Extending the scholarship on and proposing a "loving critique" (Paris, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref72">41</reflink>]) of culturally relevant pedagogy, Paris ([<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref73">41</reflink>]) introduced the notion of culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs, henceforth). CSPs are designed to "support young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competence of their communities while simultaneously offering access to dominant cultural competence" (Paris, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref74">41</reflink>], p. 95). In other words, Paris ([<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref75">41</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref76">42</reflink>]) and Paris and Alim ([<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref77">43</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref78">44</reflink>]) assert that while teachers ensure that school curricula, pedagogies, practices, and students' cultural and linguistic ways of knowing and being are relevant, they must also ensure that such relevancy is sustained to challenge White supremacy inherent in PreK‐12 schools. Such "cultural dominance" was brought to a head during the global pandemic and ongoing racial uprisings where the realities of deep and disproportionate structural inequities and police violence could not be ignored (Ladson‐Billings, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref79">26</reflink>]). As Paris ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref80">42</reflink>]) indicates, the future of CSPs involves moving beyond "access to the system as it is" to "thinking about the fundamental relationships between nation‐state education and the ongoing violence of racial settler capitalism... because ... there is no ultimate vision of racial justice or liberation (educational or otherwise) within capitalism and ongoing settler colonialism" (p. 372). Given the negative impact of mass incarceration in many communities of Color and early childhood classrooms (Alexander, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref81">1</reflink>]; Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref82">11</reflink>]), conversations about the prison industrial complex and prison abolition, much like cultural and linguistic practices, are relevant to Black children and must be sustained in early childhood classrooms and beyond. To that end, teachers can draw on CSPs "abolitionist visions and enactments of a world (including an educational world) centered on community care" (Paris, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref83">42</reflink>], p. 372) to make relevant the oppressive conditions of the incarcerated, discuss the historical and contemporary Black cultural practice of abolition, and sustain conversations with young Black children about the prison industrial complex and the importance of prison abolition. For example, early childhood educators can draw on CSPs to help young Black children understand how culturally unsustaining early childhood classrooms are and have been structured like prisons. Table 1 provides a brief overview of characteristics of prisons and early childhood classrooms that teachers can share with young children to sustain conversations about the carceral state of early childhood classrooms. More detailed explanations of how teachers might engage such conversations will be provided later in the article.</p> <p>1 TABLE Characteristics of Prisons and Culturally Unsustaining Early Childhood Classrooms</p> <p> <ephtml> &lt;table&gt;&lt;thead&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;th align="left"&gt;Characteristics of prisons&lt;/th&gt;&lt;th align="center"&gt;Characteristics of culturally unsustaining early childhood classrooms&lt;/th&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/thead&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Incarcerated people are asked to stand in single&amp;#8208;filed lines to control their bodies and movements through prisons&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Young children are asked to stand in single&amp;#8208;filed lines and hands by their sides to control their bodies and movements in early childhood spaces (Leafgren, &lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr28"&gt;2011&lt;/xref&gt;; Wright,&amp;#160;&lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr60"&gt;2021&lt;/xref&gt;)&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Incarcerated people are asked to be silent during movements throughout the prisons&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Young children are asked to be silent during movements through the classroom and school; some are even forced to endure silent lunches as discipline (Wright &amp; Ford, &lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr62"&gt;2016&lt;/xref&gt;)&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Incarcerated people are allocated limited time for play and recreation that is often highly surveilled by prison guards&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Young children are allocated limited time for play and recreation that is highly regulated and surveilled by early childhood teachers and other staff (Leafgren, &lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr28"&gt;2011&lt;/xref&gt;)&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Incarcerated people are subjected to disciplinary policies and other systems of rewards and punishment (e.g., solidary confinement policies; limited/unlimited access to canteen for good/bad behaviors) that strip them of their humanity in prisons&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Young children are subjected to strict disciplinary policies (e.g., zero tolerance policies) and systems of rewards and punishment (behavior charts that rewards and punish for good and bad behaviors; limited/unlimited to play and recreation for good and bad behaviors) (Wright &amp; Ford, &lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr62"&gt;2016&lt;/xref&gt;)&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Incarcerated people are often denied access to books and other educational materials that can be used to self&amp;#8208;educate about the injustices of the prison industrial complex&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align="left"&gt;Young children are denied opportunities to read books that address the prison industrial complex in classrooms&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt; </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0183756686-10">The Theoretical Roots of Prison Abolition Literacies</hd> <p>While there are several theories which frame our conceptualization of prison abolition literacies (Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref84">11</reflink>]), for the purposes of this article, which moves toward culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies, we forefront the Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition and abolitionist teaching.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-11">The Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition</hd> <p>The Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition grew from American enslavement and "spans the centuries from the first kidnapping/purchase of Black Africans to the present moment of mass protests" (James, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref85">21</reflink>], para. 8). Its theoretically rich legacy includes centuries of first‐hand narratives of chattel slavery, abolitionist speeches, prison letters, and even zines that are not necessarily tethered to academia (Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref86">11</reflink>]; James, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref87">21</reflink>]; McMillian &amp; Bryan, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref88">35</reflink>]). As Joy James ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref89">21</reflink>]) asserts, "[These] narratives are not pretty or reassuring. They are powerful, disturbing, and disquieting. Neither pessimistic nor optimistic, their realism dominates. The Incarcerated Black Radical Tradition's past manifests in the present" (para. 16).</p> <p>Critical prision studies (Rodríguez, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref90">46</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref91">47</reflink>]) address issues of mass incarceration, critical resistance, prison abolition, and abolition as praxis. While most critical prison studies scholarship originates from those who have never experienced incarceration, we understand that "those impacted by prison are a socially constructed minority group" (Sanchez, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref92">48</reflink>], p. 1654) and that their narratives are fundamental in understanding the anti‐Black foundations of the United States. Therefore, the Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition causes us to look to the texts and epistemologies that are produced by those who are incarcerated. More importantly, however, the Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition requires educators and researchers to not only read the literature that arises from carceral sites, but to constantly "engage in painstaking dialogue with those who have experienced incarceration" (Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref93">11</reflink>]; McMillian &amp; Bryan, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref94">35</reflink>]). The insight of those who have experienced incarceration, as James ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref95">21</reflink>]) argues, is key to understanding the United States' symbiotic relationship with policing and imprisonment as the continuation of chattel slavery. Such insights point to the anti‐Black/death‐dealing nature of prisons, but also to the urgent necessity of abolition—the need to imagine and then create a world without prisons. Since most young Black children are public early childhood education dependent (Milner, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref96">37</reflink>]), the field of early childhood education has a unique opportunity to lead the charge of culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies by helping children and teachers understand the carceral tendencies of early childhood education in which Black children are disproportionately funneled into the preschool‐to‐prison pipeline (e.g., Table 1). Additionally, culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies generated from the Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition could look like engaging young children in painstaking dialogues with those who have experienced incarceration. For example, given that in the 1960's the Black Panther Party developed an out‐of‐school literacy program by creating a penpal program where young Black children wrote letters to the incarcerated who shared their experiences about prison (Benjamin, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref97">5</reflink>]), early childhood teachers can engage Black children in a similar initiative that enable them to engage in ongoing dialogue with the incarcerated. We wholeheartedly believe this is the way to honor the Imprisoned Black Radical Tradition through abolitionist teaching in early childhood curricula and pedagogies.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-12">Abolitionist Teaching</hd> <p>As Mariame Kaba and Royal ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref98">23</reflink>]) states, abolition should always begin with the question, "What can we imagine for ourselves and the world" (p. 3)? The spirit of this question undergirds our framing of prison abolition literacies; pushing educators to both imagine and work alongside those who have experienced incarceration in both school and prison abolition. We fundamentally understand schools and prisons to be inseparable sites of anti‐Black violence. For schools have historically and contemporarily failed Black children through dehumanizing disciplinary practices, curricular violence, and what is known as the pre‐school‐to‐prison pipeline or the school‐prison nexus (Meiners &amp; Winn, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref99">36</reflink>]; Stovall, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref100">54</reflink>])—in which Black children are victims of such disproportionate discipline and policing that it is clear that they are seen as disposable. Thus, abolitionist teaching—with its roots in the project of prison abolition—"seek[s] to end the conditions that sustain and support White supremacy through an endemic system of training rooted in dehumanization and White supremacy" (Stovall, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref101">54</reflink>], p. 57).</p> <p>Abolition pushes us to consider increasingly urgent questions such as: Is prison necessary? What does a world without prisons look like? How do we collectively create a world without anti‐Black carceral state violence? Such questions are action‐oriented; pointing to the need for both educators and students to be creative, imaginative, and speculative in efforts to eliminate all forms of terror that are implemented through carceral state violence including—but not limited to—schools and prisons. Abolitionist teaching, therefore, calls for centering the humanity of all children and a pursuit of educational freedom (Love, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref102">32</reflink>]). Abolitionist teaching is also, given its terminology, located within the long political genealogy of the Black freedom struggle which "positioned the abolition of 'slavery' as the condition of possibility for Black—hence 'human'—freedom" (Rodríguez, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref103">46</reflink>], p. 15).</p> <p>While there are some who understand abolition as simply a project of tearing down prisons, Bettina Love ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref104">32</reflink>]) reminds us that "[abolition] is as much about tearing down old structures and ways of thinking as it is about forming new ideas, new forms or social interactions, new ways to be inclusive... and new ways to establish an educational system that works for everyone, especially those who are put at the edges of the classroom and society" (p. 88). More pointedly, as Ruth Wilson Gilmore states, "Abolition is about presence, not absence. It's about building life‐affirming institutions" (p. x). Critiquing social and emotional learning in education, Camangian and Cariaga ([<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref105">13</reflink>]) contend that educational institutions can become life‐affirming institutions for children of color by overhauling systemic oppression to center humanization, knowledge of self, solidarity, and self‐determination in the hegemonic dominance of social and emotional miseducation in PreK‐12 schools. The need for culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies in the early literacy curriculum and classrooms is one way early childhood teachers can teach young children and themselves to be fully present in abolition movements and committed to being a part of and building life‐affirming educational institutions that work for everyone.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-13">Toward Culturally Sustaining Prison Abolition Literacies</hd> <p>Since prison systems are working and have worked relentlessly to sustain anti‐Blackness in the form of silencing the voices and experiences of victims of mass incarceration, ignoring children's experiences with the prisons, and banning discussions of the American carceral crisis in early childhood classrooms (McMillian &amp; Bryan, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref106">35</reflink>]), we wholeheartedly believe that much like Black linguistic and cultural practices, early childhood teachers must work to sustain conversations about mass incarceration in Black communities and its negative impact on Black children and families, especially during a time of a global pandemic and ongoing racial uprisings and justice movements. To that end, we propose culturally sustaining <emph>prison abolition literacies</emph>—a literacy practice that acknowledges the pervasive injustices of the carceral state and action‐oriented ways to combat them to protect Black children and other minoritized children—in early childhood teaching and curriculum.</p> <p>Elsewhere (see Bryan et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref107">11</reflink>]), we introduced three guiding principles that inform our conceptualization of culturally sustaining prison literacies that teachers can sustain in the early literacy curriculum to build on Black children's critical consciousness and to inspire them to become prison abolitionists. However, consistent with a collective of people who have been reading the reality of structural inequities and racial injustices brought to the surface by the pandemic and racial uprisings, and thinking toward a future of culturally sustaining pedagogies that moves toward abolitionism (Paris, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref108">42</reflink>]), we have been thinking about culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies. Below we discuss the three guiding principles followed by brief explanations and classroom examples of each:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> foregrounding and sustaining the voices of those who have experienced incarceration in the ECE curriculum;</item> <p></p> <item> centering and sustaining the realities young children have within the prison industrial complex; and</item> <p></p> <item> encouraging young children to build a longstanding commitment to dismantling the prison industrial complex.</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0183756686-14">Foregrounding and Sustaining the Voices of the Incarcerated</hd> <p>The first guiding principle for culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies in ECE prioritizes the growing body of work on both school and prison abolition. It also foregrounds what Sutcliff ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref109">55</reflink>]) argues as a "voices‐out" orientation which requires the voices of individuals who are incarcerated to be center stage. As such, these voices are brought out from behind prison walls and are sustained in classrooms to contest dominant voices, stories, and narratives that maintain and sustain the prison‐industrial complex. We firmly believe that the "voices‐out" orientation is crucial to infusing culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies in early childhood classrooms. We also believe that the personal narratives, stories, artwork, and other literacies that develop from inside the prisons should be part and parcel of the early literacy and early childhood classrooms. These literacies "shed light on the inhumanity that goes on inside of prison, the social [and systemic] problems that lead to prison, and the humanity of those impacted by prison" (Sanchez, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref110">48</reflink>], p. 1654). We further suggest that these literacies should be explicitly mobilized for prison abolition. As such, we contend that it is crucial that ECE educators contest the silencing and invisibility effects of prison by prioritizing personal voices and acts of storytelling that emerge from sites of incarceration within the early literacy curriculum and their classrooms. For example, teachers can invite guests who are and have been incarcerated to share their experiences from behind the prison walls, or they can create pen pal opportunities with those who are and have been incarcerated. These guests can also share their experiences from behind bars during a global pandemic and ongoing racial uprisings. For example, as a former social studies teacher, the first author of this article has invited guests who have been incarcerated to her classroom so that they could share their experiences in the American carceral state. Similarly, she curated a book club during which her students could read Black literature about mass incarceration. For instance, Mr. Keith Lamar—a Black man on death row in Ohio—volunteered his time from behind prison walls to share his experiences and to read Black literature with students. In so doing, alongside voices of the incarcerated, early childhood educators can incorporate children's literature that illuminate the far‐reaching impacts of incarceration (as we discuss later in this article) and to forefront the painstaking dialogue with those who have experienced firsthand incarceration. This is a quintessential example of abolition; forging bidirectional relationships, community, and connectedness to each other as Black people even across prison walls. It is also an example of the culturally sustaining practice Lee and McCarty ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref111">29</reflink>]) term community accountability, "where [the incarcerated], families, elders, and students are understood as central collaborators in learning settings, offering invitations, consultations, approvals, and input" (Paris, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref112">42</reflink>], p. 367).</p> <p>Even so, with respect to the global pandemic that has disproportionately and negatively impacted Black communities and the subsequent ongoing racial justice movements (Ladson‐Billings, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref113">26</reflink>]), we believe the "voice‐out" orientation should include the ways that incarcerated Black individuals spoke out about prison conditions during the pandemic, and the role prison officers/guards and correctional staff played in exacerbating such conditions (McMillian &amp; Bryan, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref114">35</reflink>]). For example, several personal accounts and narratives documented how COVID‐19 was rapidly spreading behind bars and how prison guards failed to minimize the spread by adhering to pre‐COVID prison regulations. To that end, it is documented in the research literature that incarcerated people were five and a half times more likely to contract COVID‐19 (Arscott et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref115">2</reflink>]). When race is added with a specific focus on Black incarcerated people, the percentages are higher (Arscott et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref116">2</reflink>]). With such considerations in mind, the ever present community helper curriculum unit that is prevalent within ECE curricula can be used to illuminate the ways in which prison guards and the adherence to pre‐COVID policies contributed to the death and dehumanization of Black incarcerated individuals during COVID‐19.</p> <p>Given that the necessary futures of culturally sustaining pedagogy requires global collaborative efforts (Paris, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref117">42</reflink>]), young Black children should also listen to, hear, and understand the voices of non‐Black incarcerated peoples. For example, they can put Black incarceration in conversation with that of Incarcerated Indigenous people who have been arrested for "fighting for [their] lives, lifeways, and land" during the Standing Rock movement (p. 371), while at the same time centering and sustaining not only their carceral realities, but also those of Indigenous and other groups.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-15">Centering and Sustaining Young Children's Carceral Realities</hd> <p>The second guiding principle involves centering and sustaining the carceral realities that children in the U.S. face. In comparison to other countries, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world (Alexander, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref118">1</reflink>]). Currently, Black adults make up approximately 39% of those who are incarcerated (Federal Bureau of Prisons, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref119">14</reflink>]). Further, Black children are three to five times more likely to be criminalized in early childhood education (Wright &amp; Ford, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref120">62</reflink>]). As such, we note that millions of children are negatively impacted by mass incarceration. This number is steadily increasing! Despite these increasing numbers, little discussion about the prison industrial complex and its negative impact exists in ECE literature. For this reason and others, we believe that culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies guided by this principle can be beneficial to the literacy experiences of young Black children in early learning space. Infusing culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies could enable educators to build on young children's critical consciousness and to discuss their realities and those of their family members within the prison‐industrial complex. For example, teachers can seize curricular and pedagogical moments and opportunities such as Morning Meeting, to allow children to share their personal experiences with the prison industrial complex. Morning Meeting—a curricular opportunity during which young learners build relationships and share life experience with their peers (Kriete &amp; Davis, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref121">25</reflink>])—is prevalent in early childhood education. As such, early childhood teachers can work with young learners to share their school‐like prison experiences (e.g., Table 1) and experiences with the prison industrial complex. However, before teachers, especially those who are racialized as White, engage in this practice, they may need to engage in additional training that require them to self‐reflect and think about their ideologies and beliefs about prisons and their relationship with the incarcerated.</p> <p>Teachers can hold space during literacy lessons to allow Black children to engage in explicit conversations about their experiences in the prison industrial complex. Early childhood teachers can infuse children's literature and other texts to help build on young children's consciousness about the American carceral crisis. There is a growing body of resources that address the prison industrial complex, but they are rarely found in classroom libraries. The following resources can be added to early childhood's bookshelves and classroom libraries: (a) Kaba and Royal ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref122">23</reflink>]) <emph>Missing Daddy</emph>; (b) Sesame Street's <emph>Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration‐ Nylo's story</emph>; and (c) Sesame Street's <emph>Little Children, Big Challenges‐Visiting Dad in Prison</emph>. Furthermore, young children are also authors (Baines et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref123">3</reflink>]); they can be encouraged to write children's books about their experiences with incarceration. Moreover, young Black children can use meetings and other spaces to focus on and address their realities and those of their loved ones regarding how they were brutally victimized during racial uprisings in responses to the death of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, and others.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-16">Encouraging Children's Longstanding Commitment to Become Prison Abolitionists</hd> <p>Although few scholars have documented children's roles in abolition movements, Black children have always been abolitionists. Several examples can be found in historical and contemporary literature. During enslavement, enslaved African parents encouraged their children to play with White children to learn English. The purpose of strategically encouraging Black children to play with White children served the larger project of fugitivity (Perry et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref124">45</reflink>]). Similarly, young Black children were also abolitionists during the civil rights movement, often protesting on the front lines of movements such as the Birmingham Children's March of 1963 (Mayer, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref125">34</reflink>]). A more contemporary example of Black children's abolition is a video of a young Black girl—Wynta Amor‐Rogers—proudly chanting during a Black Lives Matter Movement protest, "No justice, no peace" (National Broadcasting Company, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref126">40</reflink>]). Black children were also visibly present during protests that took place during COVID‐19. Teachers can infuse these examples, stories, and narratives about these courageous hidden figures to inspire young Black children to think about how they can carry on that tradition of abolition to encourage and inspire young Black children to engage in prison abolition movements and commit long term to speaking up and out against mass incarceration, especially during the global pandemic and ongoing racial uprisings. Furthermore, early childhood teachers can be intentional about showing young children the outcomes of abolitionist efforts to encourage their long term commitment to become prison abolitionists. For example, they can illuminate how abolition movements like the Birmingham Children's March led to significant efforts to overhaul Jim Crow segregation in the South, which means that the abolition efforts of the children who participated in the movement were not futile. Furthermore, because culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies require students to engage in critical praxis (Stovall, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref127">54</reflink>]) or the on‐the‐groundwork to dismantle prisons, young Black children can write letters to governors, mayors, and other elected officials about the horrors of mass incarceration and how it deeply and negatively impacts their lives.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-17">Conclusion</hd> <p>As the number of Black adults who are incarcerated and the children who are victims of the preschool/school‐to‐prison pipeline increases, there is a need to find ways to address the realities of the American carceral crisis. To that end, we invite early childhood teachers to consider culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies as one approach to foregrounding the voices of the incarcerated in ECE curriculum, centering and sustaining young children's carceral realities, and encouraging children's longstanding commitment to prison abolition. By using all of the potentially powerful strategies aligned to the principles of culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies we have discussed throughout the article and those we hope teachers will adopt on their own, we hope teachers will collaborate with young children to move beyond the egregious impact of mass incarceration on Black children, families, and communities toward abolitionism. As such, we firmly believe the field of early literacy can move beyond <emph>the good cops, bad cops, bullets, and wounds</emph> toward culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies in early childhood classrooms.</p> <hd id="AN0183756686-18">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>We would like to acknowledge the special editors and reviewers for the wonderful feedback they provided to improve this article.</p> <ref id="AN0183756686-19"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Throughout the article, we use the metaphor "preschool‐to‐prison" pipeline to describe the criminalization of young children because we understand how pervasive it is in the early childhood literature. However, in a later section of the article, we critique the preschool‐to‐prison metaphor. 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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: 'The Good Cops, Bad Cops, Bullets, and Wounds': Toward Culturally Sustaining 'Prison Abolition Literacies' in Early Childhood Education – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Rachel+McMillan%22">Rachel McMillan</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Nathaniel+Bryan%22">Nathaniel Bryan</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Reading+Research+Quarterly%22"><i>Reading Research Quarterly</i></searchLink>. 2025 60(1). – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 11 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research – Name: Audience Label: Education Level Group: Audnce Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink> – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Early+Childhood+Teachers%22">Early Childhood Teachers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22African+American+Students%22">African American Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Culturally+Relevant+Education%22">Culturally Relevant Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Correctional+Institutions%22">Correctional Institutions</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Criminals%22">Criminals</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Justice%22">Social Justice</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Action%22">Social Action</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Change%22">Social Change</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Family+Influence%22">Family Influence</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Parent+Influence%22">Parent Influence</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Early+Experience%22">Early Experience</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Emergent+Literacy%22">Emergent Literacy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Change+Strategies%22">Change Strategies</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teaching+Methods%22">Teaching Methods</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Curriculum+Development%22">Curriculum Development</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1002/rrq.586 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0034-0553<br />1936-2722 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: Dominant discourses on the prison industrial complex/ mass incarceration tend to prioritize the experiences of Black adults. However, Black children are dual victims of the prison industrial complex. By that, we mean that they are subjected to incarceration in and beyond early childhood education, and the negative impact of the incarceration of parents/caregivers and other family members. With such considerations in mind, early childhood teachers should teach young Black children to become aware of the injustices of the prison industrial complex. To that end, we ask the following question: How can teachers raise Black children's consciousness of the prison industrial complex and encourage them to build a longstanding commitment to dismantle it through early literacy practices? In this conceptual article, we draw on culturally sustaining pedagogy, the imprisoned Black radical tradition, and abolitionist teaching to introduce and explain the utility of culturally sustaining "prison abolition literacies"--a literacy practice that acknowledges the pervasive injustices of the carceral state and action-oriented ways to combat them to protect Black children and other minoritized children--in early childhood teaching and curriculum. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1458562 |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1002/rrq.586 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 11 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Early Childhood Education Type: general – SubjectFull: Early Childhood Teachers Type: general – SubjectFull: African American Students Type: general – SubjectFull: Culturally Relevant Education Type: general – SubjectFull: Correctional Institutions Type: general – SubjectFull: Criminals Type: general – SubjectFull: Social Justice Type: general – SubjectFull: Social Action Type: general – SubjectFull: Social Change Type: general – SubjectFull: Family Influence Type: general – SubjectFull: Parent Influence Type: general – SubjectFull: Early Experience Type: general – SubjectFull: Emergent Literacy Type: general – SubjectFull: Change Strategies Type: general – SubjectFull: Teaching Methods Type: general – SubjectFull: Curriculum Development Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: 'The Good Cops, Bad Cops, Bullets, and Wounds': Toward Culturally Sustaining 'Prison Abolition Literacies' in Early Childhood Education Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Rachel McMillan – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Nathaniel Bryan IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2025 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0034-0553 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1936-2722 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 60 – Type: issue Value: 1 Titles: – TitleFull: Reading Research Quarterly Type: main |
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