This article explores how incarcerated young men talked about the future. I use theories of cultural capital and methods informed by critical discourse analysis to analyze interviews with 15 young men and a series of essays about the future written by 10 different young men. It suggests new directions for analysis and programmatic use of future talk by and for incarcerated or similarly marginalized young people, specifically moving beyond well-established binaries of “making it” or “not making it,” which characterize research into marginalized young people’s aspirations, to focus instead on quieter but readily apparent future talk about “giving back” and “help[ing] others.”
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