“Ladies” or “Loudies”?

The African American Policy Forum and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies states, ''The risks that Black and other girls of color confront rarely receive the full attention of researchers, advocates, policymakers, and funders.'' The limited awareness of the challenges that Black girls face perpetuates the mischaracterization of their attitudes, abilities, and achievement. Thus, school becomes an inhospitable place where Black girls receive mixed messages about femininity and goodness and are held to unreasonable standards. This study explores how Black girls describe and understand their school experiences as racialized and gendered and the ways a conversation space allows Black girls' meaning making about and critical examination of individual and collective schooling experiences.

The recent death of Amy Joyner, a promising Wilmington, Delaware, high school sophomore demonstrates very clearly the ways in which Black girls are made vulnerable in urban schools. Joyner, an honor roll student, was jumped by a group of girls in the bathroom just before classes began. The alleged cause of the fight was jealousy over a boy. Black girls are bombarded with popular culture messages defining Black femininity along narrow notions of sex appeal, maintaining romantic relationships, and having the ability to fight. Black girls are neither invited in the process of critically examining their popular representation nor supported in thinking through its impact in their own lives. This aspect of the null curriculum, coupled with Black girls' persistent criminalization, makes schools risky places for Black girls. They are left to navigate a society which misunderstands their gender performance without the support or opportunities they need to develop authentic definitions of self, all the while being held subject to beliefs, policies, and practices which surveil and contain them. Despite the neoliberal assault urban educators face, this article argues that urban educators have an epistemic responsibility to critically examine the denigration of Black womanhood in society, incorporate critical media

2014

The needs of Black girls are often overlooked by teachers, administrators, and policy makers. This oversight has contributed to a lack of educational programming and policies that address the impact of the intersection of racism and sexism on the educational experiences of Black girls, with some attention to the achievement gap. Policies simply focusing on race or gender ignore the unique positionality in which Black girls live and learn. Compounding this discussion is the recent focus on postracialism in America. This article addresses this neglect, and suggests a framework to assist teachers and administrators in bridging this gap in educational programming and policies.

In the last decade there has been a surge in research centered on Black girls’ schooling experiences. Few studies, however, employ a culturally relevant framework to unpack the distinct realities Black girls encounter based on the intersection of race and gender. In this study the tenets of Black Feminist Theory are operationalized to examine the perceptions and experiences of Black girls who attend City High School. Recommendations are offered to school leaders who seek to improve the schooling experiences of Black girls.

Historically, middle grade schools doled out the harshest and most exclusionary discipline to adolescent African American males. African American males were routed along school to prison pathways at rates higher than African American females and their peers from other racial backgrounds. National conversations about exclusionary discipline practices and the school-to-prison pipeline have focused primarily on African American males. More recently, however, African American girls experience exclusionary discipline practices and school-to-prison pathways at rates that, in some cases, exceed African American males. Consequently, national conversations can no longer be single-gendered. African American girls must also be central to dialogues on school discipline and the school-to-prison pipeline. This paper shines klieg lights on middle grade African American girls' subjection to exclusionary school discipline, school-to-prison pipelines, and negative and stereotypical perceptions. Lastly, this author draws from the literature and her experiences working with middle grade African American girls with multiple school suspensions. She concludes the discussion with culturally responsive recommendations for equitable school discipline practices. Keywords: African American girls, school arrests, school discipline, school to prison pipeline, urban loud, displaying exaggerated bravado, and enjoying both their physical altercations and the ensuing crowds of real and virtual onlookers. Those sentiments were summed up by Ms. Justyce, a middle level teacher, who stated quite emphatically that African American girls are " … too loud, proud, and love a crowd!"

Occasional Paper Series

Previous scholarship has found that African American adolescent girls and young women experience isolation, exclusion in the classroom and are assumed to be “deviant” in some research. Such research on Black girls does not include a Black cultural perspective. Nevertheless, Black young women develop methods of resilience throughout their girlhood to overcome these challenges often using these methods into adulthood. Through semi-structured interviews and participant observation of four African American teenagers, this qualitative study investigated participants’ lives in an urban community center (“Bridges”) on the East Coast of the United States. Employing the use of grounded theory, the study found four themes. The first theme was that education was important and central to all participants. The young women found teachers’ accessibility, expectations, and curricula to influence their experiences in the classroom. An appreciation of gender-specific programming was the second theme. The programming helped develop self esteem, positive relationships, and community involvement. A key to this programming was the racial makeup of staff at Bridges, in which Black women were the majority. Third, all participants discussed sexual harassment in their schools, neighborhoods and communities, and emphasized the importance of educating younger peers about topics important in their community including sexual harassment. Finally, all four participants were applying to and getting accepted by colleges. Implications of these themes for the lives of young African American girls are discussed.

2020

Within independent private schools specifically, Black women and girls endure feelings of rejection, isolation, and inadequacy all whilst trying to maintain their academic or career success and a positive self-perception. Through the lenses of Black Feminist Thought and Critical Race Theory, this dissertation presents Black women and girls’ true experiences in PWIS which defy dominant deficit beliefs. Participants detailed the racism, erasure, and trauma they endured and the detrimental effects these experiences caused in their lives. They also expressed the importance and value of their relationships with one another. These relationships provided them with the affirmation and confidence they needed to believe in and stand up for themselves. Black women and girls engage in various resistance strategies through living authentically, challenging dominant norms, and advocating for themselves and others in the school community

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education , 2020

This article demonstrates how (bad) girl performances rupture the inherently violent logic undergirding exclusionary discipline through the schooling experiences of five Black girls on probation. In so doing, it reveals a clear need for the abolition of suspension, expulsion and school-based arrest and relays a new focus on freedom dreaming for harmonious, womanist, healing-informed school climates. In so doing, it calls educators to nurture the liberatory promise in Black girls who experience school conflict by affirming their resistance, rejection, or indifference to white femininity and Black respectability. Such a move takes us away from perceptions, policies, and practices reinscribing Black girlhood as problematic and brings us toward schooling experiences that invite and honor the fullness of their being.