Collective Dreaming

Speculative Youth Action: Imagining Educational Futures Through Participatory Social Dreaming by Ricardo Martinez and Ezequiel Aleman (eds.)
Bank Street Occasional Paper Series #53, Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, April 15, 2025

Introducing the power of a tool that positions youth as researchers, storytellers and changemakers, Ricardo Martinez and Ezequiel Aleman (eds.) explore Speculative Youth Action as a pathway for students to imagine futures beyond existing educational structures. Collective dreaming of systems that break with the traditional ways of schooling can engage students in creating “productive ruptures” that challenge the dominant narratives and may enable constructive change. This form of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) centers the imagination and youth voice in reshaping educational practice. The papers in this issue highlight methods that draw out and champion not only critique but also possibility. What is particularly unique about these papers is that many are co-authored by youth and academic researchers in partnership. Engaging with this text, therefore, allows us to do more than read about change; we also experience it as embodied in the act of writing and publishing. Youth-led efforts for social justice are at the core of these reports, showing the way dreaming and speculation are, after all, what give social and educational change its heart and its purpose.