A Qualitative Study of Black College Women’s Experiences of Misogynoir and Anti-Racism with High School Educators

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.

School Discrimination, Discipline Inequities, and Adjustment Among Black Adolescent Girls and Boys: An Intersectionality‐Informed Approach

“…Black adolescents are often embedded in racialized school contexts, which devalue their existence and undermine their well-being. These school experiences can adversely impact self-perceptions, identity development, psychological adjustment, and a number of academic-related outcomes (i.e., academic achievement, academic motivation and persistence, goal orientation) (Banerjee, Byrd, & Rowley, 2018;Butler-Barnes, Estrada-Martinez, Colin, & Jones, 2015;Leath et al, 2021;Mims & Williams, 2020;Morris, Seaton, Iida, & Lindstrom Johnson, 2020;Singh, Chang, & Dika, 2010). A focal point of the existing literature has been the contextualization of academic-related outcomes of Black youth, including highlighting systemic structures and oppressive practices that influence the academic trajectories of Black youth.…”

“…Recent scholarship has contributed greatly to our understanding of disproportionate school discipline policies and discrimination at the intersection of race and gender for Black youth and has provided a more comprehensive illustration of the ways, in which Black girls are impacted (Butler- Barnes & Inniss-Thompson, 2020;Hines-Datiri & Carter Andrews, 2020;Leath et al, 2021;Mims & Williams, 2020;Morris & Perry, 2017;Young & Butler, 2018). For instance, Morris and Perry (2017) analysis of disciplinary infractions of a Midwestern school district found that across middle schools and high schools, Black boys were two times as likely to receive a disciplinary referral compared with White boys, while Black girls were three times as likely to receive a disciplinary referral compared with White girls.…”

Like our foremothers survived: Self-education, direct confrontation, and humor as resistance coping in Black womxn and femme college student being

“…The Strong Black Woman is personified in response to racially gendered microaggressions to avoid embodying the Angry Black Woman archetype. Adopting the Strong Black Woman archetype to fight gendered racism, or misogynoir (Bailey and Trudy, 2018;Leath et al, 2021) in this case, may have negative impacts on Black womxn's wellbeing such as racial battle fatigue, where constant exposure to gendered anti-Blackness elicits emotional, psychosocial, and physiological stress responses (Smith et al, 2007;Smith, 2014;Corbin et al, 2018;Quaye et al, 2019;Rollock, 2021). Another result of coping with the Strong Black Woman identity is a potential increase in perceived racial tension on campus that causes stress but does not prevent it because the cause of this stress is administrators' failure to improve race and gender relations on campus (Shahid et al, 2018).…”

#SayHerName: Addressing Anti‐Blackness and Patriarchy in Language and Literacy Curricula

“…As hooks (2014) observes, Black women’s language and literacy practices face criticism, get ignored, or are appropriated and tokenized, oftentimes by white women who are overrepresented in the teaching profession, particularly in ELA instruction. For example, oral Black language from Black women speakers is often characterized as loud and disrespectful (Leath et al, 2021), despite white speakers’ ability to actively appropriate Black language for social or financial gain (Baker‐Bell, 2020b). Black language, in writing, is also commodified (Smitherman, 2000) in ways that degrade the powerful language practices and nuance of Black women writers.…”

“…Similar to what #SayHerName has done in social media spaces, this article is an act of “interruption,” calling attention to racism and inequity at individual and systemic levels (Price‐Dennis & Sealey‐Ruiz, 2021, p. 24) across language and literacy learning spaces. We bring awareness to ways Black women, in ELA and WL curricula, have been and continue to be objectified and mistrusted to voice our/their own realities, and pushed to the margins (Haynes et al, 2016; Leath et al, 2021), yet expected to lead and contribute our/their lives and labor (Boss et al, 2021; Porter, 2019). Here, we advocate for a coming together to center Black women’s voices and perspectives in ways that affirm our/their humanity within and across all language and literature classrooms.…”