ABOUT IMJF
Imagining More Just Futures (IMJF) is a social justice education project for children and their grown-ups. We offer programming including workshops, book clubs, Critical Participatory Action Research projects, and trainings for educators. We are available for collaborations or consulting, and we look forward to connecting with you!
Our Approach
Our approach is grounded in critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is an educational framework based on the idea that education should play a role in re-imagining and transforming the unfair and unequal parts of our world. Critical pedagogy highlights that right now, people with certain social identities are treated more fairly, and have more power, than others. But critical pedagogy doesn't only point out things that are wrong. It also teaches us that students and teachers (or kids and grown-ups) can form powerful relationships that allow them to work together to imagine and create change.
We believe that kids have a unique ability to see unfairness and a motivation to change it. Our programming is designed to help kids learn the words, ideas, and skills they need to: describe their own and others' social identities, understand the systems that contribute to fairness and unfairness in the world around them, imagine more socially just futures, and take steps toward creating those futures. While all of our programming involves some adult-led elements, it is also designed to give kids the tools and support they need to guide their own learning and organizing for social justice.
Throughout our programming, we use tools like art, storytelling, play, movement, and research (i.e., asking and working to answer questions) to help kids understand the world and express themselves and their ideas in a variety of ways. We also use them to have fun!
A Brief History
IMJF started in the summer of 2020 when a cohort of nine children joined our first virtual Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) project. We are so grateful for these families and everything we learned from and with them! Since then, IMJF has expanded to offer additional programming. We collaborated with Harvard University's Graduate Commons Program and a Boston-based anti-racist education organization, Little Uprisings, to create an Intergenerational Book Club for kids and families; we started offering workshops; and we are currently creating a children's magazine series about injustices families have told us they want to learn more about.
Why We Collaborate
We know we can't do this work alone. We hope to partner with groups and organizations serving elementary school students and their families. We hope that by explicitly building organizational and cross-community partnerships through our programming, we can be part of a network of educators and community members who can carry this work forward together.
If you are interested in collaborating with us to support social justice programming for children or families, we'd love to connect with you!
ABOUT US
Hania Mariën (PhD)
she/her/hers
Hania is an artist, and curriculum and program developer, and education researcher. She moves through the world in a cis, White, able-body, and identifies as neurodivergent. As co-founder of Imagining More Just Futures, she collaborates and creates with children and their adults to work towards social justice. Her research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education focuses on Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) with elementary schoolers, and how adults can help children develop power analysis (the ability to engage with power and how it shapes our lives and societies). She is also the owner of, and artist at, Wombat Wisdoms.
Hania has worked in various out-of-school-time settings since 2013, and thrives with children and youth who need to move, play, and spend time outdoors. She received a BA in Anthropology from Willamette University, and an EdM in Arts and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
You can read more about her here.
Anna Deloia (PhD)
she/her/hers
Anna is a student, writer, and curriculum designer interested in how families and communities work toward social justice together. As a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), she studies sociopolitical development and socialization within adult-child relationships. She is the co-creator of Imagining More Just Futures.
Anna received her BA in music and psychology from Williams College and her EdM in Human Development and Psychology from HGSE. During her time at Harvard, she has served as the Family Program Manager with the Harvard University Graduate Commons Program (2019-2023) and as an editor for the Harvard Educational Review (2020-2022). She is a frequent reader and writer of poems, stories, and non-fiction for kids and grown-ups.
You can find more about her here.