Content area
This dissertation explores Black futures thinking within the context of a redesigned future educator technology course at a Primarily White Institution (PWI) that brings together Sociocultural theories of learning with Afrofuturist principles of learning and design. As a Design-Based Research (Campanella & Penuel, 2021) inspired collective case study (Merriam, 1998), my overarching question for this dissertation work is: How can future educator environments be designed to support the development of pedagogical theories and practices oriented toward just Black futures?. To address this larger question, I answer two sub questions: 1) What kinds of thinking around justice, futures, technology, and the collective emerge within this Black future oriented learning ecology?; 2) How did different task and participant structures mediate this thinking?. Using thematic (Braun and Clarke, 2006) and interaction (Jordan and Henderson, 1995) data analysis approaches, findings from this study illustrate Black futures educator thinking and practice around four central guides: justice-centered, future-oriented, tech-mediated, and collective. This study also illustrates three main task and participant structures, The Mothership Connection, side quests, and discussion ignitions, that afford Black futures thinking around all four or a specific Afrofuturist learning guide. This dissertation contributes new insights to the learning sciences around the design of learning environments for Black futures, to Afrofuturist scholarship as a framework for learning and learning design, and finally, to justice-centered future educator learning at a PWI.
