Cooperative Economics in Racially Marginalized Communities: Reframing Economics Education Through Racial Capitalism and Democratic Practices.

This article focuses on reimagining economics education through culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) and Ethnic Studies by centering cooperative economic practices rooted in racially marginalized urban communities as alternatives to dominant capitalist and racial capitalist systems. Grounded in a teacher practitioner inquiry within a twelfth-grade economics course at a small urban public school in Brooklyn, New York, the curriculum critiques racial capitalism and highlights cooperative economics as a democratic, community-based approach developed within Black and Latinx communities. The study emphasizes shifting economics education away from mainstream capitalist ideology by incorporating community-generated knowledge, linking economic practices to democratic principles, and fostering critical self-reflexivity in teaching. It also discusses pedagogical tensions, including balancing ideal cooperative models with material realities and navigating institutional constraints, while advocating for economics education frameworks that sustain and reflect the assets and experiences of racially marginalized students and their communities.