No abstract

A growing body of literature highlights how teachers and administrators influence Black girls’ academic and social experiences in school. Yet, less of this work explores how Black undergraduate women understand their earlier school experiences, particularly in relation to whether teachers advocated for their educational success or participated in discriminatory practices that hindered their potential. Using consensual qualitative research (CQR) methods, the present semi-structured interview study explored the narratives of 50 Black undergraduate women (mean age = 20 years) who reflected on their experiences with teachers and school administrators during high school. Five discriminatory themes emerged, including body and tone policing, exceptionalism, tokenization, cultural erasure in the curriculum, and gatekeeping grades and opportunities. Three anti-racist themes emerged, including communicating high expectations and recognizing potential, challenging discrimination in the moment, and instilling racial and cultural pride. Our findings highlight the higher prevalence of discriminatory events compared to anti-racist teacher practices, as well as how the women’s high school experiences occurred at the intersection of race and gender. The Authors discuss the need to incorporate gender and sexism into discussions of anti-racist teacher practices to address Black girls’ experiences of misogynoir. We hope our findings contribute to educational initiatives that transform the learning landscape for Black girls by demonstrating how educators can eliminate pedagogical practices that harm their development.

Black women have played an integral role in Black liberation struggles. Yet there is little psychological scholarship on Black women’s contribution to social justice movements, particularly beyond conventional forms of activism, such as protesting and voting. To address this gap, the current study draws on Black feminist epistemology to present a multidimensional framework of Black college women’s sociopolitical development. Using consensual qualitative research methods, we analyzed semistructured interview data from 65 Black college women (18-24 years) to explore their understandings of agency, civic engagement, and resistance. Eight themes emerged— gaining knowledge, self-advocacy, sisterhood, self-love, educating others, collective organizing and leadership, community care, and career aspirations. Our results situate Black college women’s activism within a sociohistorical framework of Black feminist organizing and underscore the overlapping roles of self-awareness, interpersonal relationships, and institutional knowledge. The authors discuss how the contemporary racial and sociopolitical climate in the United States informed the participants’ social justice orientation and how their involvement and investment in the Black community helped the participants reframe racial violence and oppression into narratives of resistance and healing.

No abstract

No abstract