1st Edition

Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls

    324 Pages
    by Routledge

    324 Pages
    by Routledge

    “In the powerful essays that make up Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls, Black women and girls are listened to, appreciated and valued in recognition of the unrelenting challenges to our existence in a world that continues to be committed to stifling our voices. What these authors know intimately is that such stifling is not because what Black women and girls are saying isn’t important: It is precisely because it is. This book names the challenges Black women and girls continue to experience as we pursue our education and offers implications and recommendations for practitioners, teachers, administrators, and policymakers. [It] needs to be read widely and deeply studied as much for its formations and beautiful representations of Black women and girls as its recommendations. It is the truth-telling we need today and a groundbreaking resource we need today and beyond.”—Cynthia B. Dillard (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana), Athens, Georgia; and Cape Coast, Central Region, GhanaWhile figures on Black women and girls’ degree attainment suggest that as a group they are achieving in society, the reality is that their experiences are far from monolithic, that the educational system from early on and through college imposes barriers and inequities, pushing many out of school, criminalizing their behavior, and leading to a high rate of incarceration.The purpose of this book is to illuminate scholarship on Black women and girls throughout the educational pipeline. The contributors--all Black women educators, scholars, and advocates--name the challenges Black women and girls face while pursuing their education as well as offer implications and recommendations for practitioners, policymakers, teachers, and administrators to consider in ensuring the success of Black women and girls.This book is divided into four sections, each identifying the barriers Black girls and women encounter at the stages of their education and offering strategies to promote their success and agency within and beyond educational contexts.In Part One, the contributors explore the importance of mattering for Black girls in terms of redefining success and joy; centering Black girl literacy pedagogies that encourage them to thrive; examining how to make STEM more accessible to them; and recounting how Black girls’ emotions and emotional literacy can either disempower them or promote their sense of agency to navigate educational contexts.Part Two uncovers the violence directed toward and the criminalization of Black women and girls, and how they are situated in educational and justice systems that collude to fail them. The contributors address incarceration and the process of rehabilitation and reentry; the outcomes of disciplinary action in schools on women who pursue college; and describe how the erasure and disregard of Black women and girls leaves them absent from the educational policies that deeply affect their lives and wellbeing.Part Three focuses on how Black women are left to navigate without resources that could make their collegiate pathways smoother; covers how hair politics impact their acceptance in college leadership roles, particularly at HBCUs; illuminates the importance of social/emotional and mental health for Black undergraduate women and the lack of adequate resources; and explores how women with disabilities navigate higher education.The final part of this book describes transformative approaches to supporting the educational needs of Black women and girls, including the use of a politicized ethic of care, intergenerational love and dialogue, and constructing communities, including digital environments, to ensure they thrive through their education and beyond.

    ForewordCynthia B. Dillard Introduction. Establishing a Context for Centering Black Women and Girls in Education Part One. Mattering for Black Women and Girls in Schooling Contexts 1)Mid-Twerk and Mid-Laugh— Ruth Nicole Brown and Aria Halliday 2. Black Girl Literacies—Gholdy Muhammad 3. Institutionalized Efforts to Increase the Participation of Black Women and Girls in STEM— Nicole M. Joseph 4. Resistance, Silence, and Armoring. Black Girls' Navigation of the Intersections of Schools, Emotions, and Emotional Literacy—Charlotte E. Jacobs Part Two. Naming and Challenging the Violence and Criminalization of Black Women and Girls 5. The Miseducation of Our Sisters—Erin Corbett 6. Unprotected and Left for Dead. Educational Policy and the "Nobodyness" of Black Girls Disciplined Through Suspension and School-Related Arrests—Venus Evans-Winters and Dorothy Hines 7. "Staying Out the Way". Connecting Black Girls' Experiences With School Discipline to Collegiate Experiences—Tiffany L. Steele 8. Reimagining Title IX for Black Girls—LaWanda W.M. Ward, Ayana T. Hardaway, and Nadrea R. Njoku Part Three. Navigating Politics and the Politicization of Black Women and Girls in Higher Education 9. Black Women Undergraduates' Reflections on the Pathway to College. Naming and Challenging Structural Disinvestments— Lori D. Patton, Keeley Copridge, and Sacha Sharp 10. Kinks, Curls, and Braids. Untangling the Hidden Hair Politics of Undergraduate Black Women Student Leaders at HBCUs—Jamila Lee-Johnson 11. Black Undergraduate Women Navigating (Mis)Representation, Strength, and Strategies. An Analysis of Influences on Their Mental Wellness—Janice Byrd and Christa Porter 12. Black Women's Transitions and Educational (My. Intersections of Race, Dis/Ability, and Ableism—Mercedes Cannon 13. The Mistress and the Master's House. Revisiting Lorde's Speech to the New York University Institute for the Humanities—Mildred Boveda Part Four. Still We Rise. Black Women and Girls Lifting and Loving Black Women and Girls 14. Paradigm Shifting for Black Girls. A Restorative and Transformative Mindset—Maisha Winn 15. Toward a Politicized Ethic of Care About Black Girls and Women in Education—Monique Lane 16. Still Retaining Each Other. Black Women Building Community Through Social Media and Other Digital Platforms—Tykeia Robinson and Brittany Williams 17. Intergenerational Love and Commitment Between Black Women and Girls—Toby Jenkins and Vivian Anderson

    Biography

    Lori D. Patton, Ph.D. is Department Chair of Educational Studies and Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University. Patton is known for scholarship on critical race theory, diversity initiatives on college campuses, Black women and girls in educational and social contexts, and college student development. The author of over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications, she has received national awards for her scholarship including being ranked among the top 200 educators in the US. She is frequently sought for expertise on education topics. Venus E. Evans-Winters, Ph.D. is Senior Researcher at the African American Policy Forum. Her interests are educational policy analysis, Black girls’ and women’s psychosocial and education development, and critical race methodologies. She is the author of Black Feminism in Qualitative Inquiry: A Mosaic for Writing Our Daughter’s Body and Teaching Black Girls: Resilience in Urban Schools. She is coeditor of the books, Black Feminism in Education: Black Women Speak Up, Back, & Out and Celebrating Twenty Years of Black Girlhood: The Lauryn Hill Reader. Dr. Evans-Winters is also a clinical psychotherapist in private practice and founder of Planet Venus Institute. Charlotte E. Jacobs, Ph.D. (she/her), is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Her research interests focus on issues of identity development, race, and gender in education concerning adolescent girls of color, teacher education and diversity, and youth participatory action research (YPAR), which led her to recently co-found the EnGenderED Research Collaborative. Currently, Charlotte is the Co-Director of the Independent School Teaching Residency program at Penn GSE. Additionally, blending her work with independent schools and YPAR, Charlotte is the research director of the School Participat

    "Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls demonstrates, from our own lived experiences, the multifaceted and continued need to look critically at the historically and present day exclusionary policies, practices and structure of US education that serve to predetermine our success. This anthology pushes us all to dig deeper into the organizational intent of learning as a transformational and liberatory practice, and to cast aside its role as indoctrination."

    Clarice Bailey

    Faculty, Organizational Development and Leadership, Saint Joseph's University

    "What an amazing collection of essays! What a profound acknowledgement and powerful testament of the lives, histories, brilliance, beauty, and perseverance of Black women and girls. For too long, others have tried silencing, dis-empowering, and erasing Black women and girls within inequitable educational systems. This collection brings to light these realities while placing needed attention on mattering for Black women and girls who will never stop working for our liberation, freedom, justice, and wellbeing."

    Valerie Kinloch, PhD

    Renée and Richard Goldman Dean & Professor, School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh

    "Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls centers the significant challenges Black girls and women face in schools and society while simultaneously bringing forth the beauty in them being their "full selves." It is a timely book that provides educators, leaders, and policymakers -- across the educational pipeline -- yet another chance to provide schooling experiences worthy of Black girls, their magic, and their brilliance. Perhaps someday soon they will get it right"

    Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, PhD

    Associate Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

    “This book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding race, gender, and equity in education. The text pushes our understanding of Black women and girls beyond the stereotypical model minority myths of magic. The authors unpack the complexities of experiences that includes injustice and resilience within education and across intersecting systems. This critical resource positions Black women and girls at the center, which is where they belong, in postsecondary research and beyond.”

    Tiffany Jones, PhD

    Deputy Director of Measurement Learning and Evaluation for Postsecondary Success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

    “In the powerful essays that make up Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls, Black women and girls are listened to, appreciated and valued in recognition of the unrelenting challenges to our existence in a world that continues to be committed to stifling our voices. What these authors know intimately is that such stifling is not because what Black women and girls are saying isn’t important: It is precisely because it is.

    This book names the challenges Black women and girls continue to experience as we pursue our education and offers implications and recommendations for practitioners, teachers, administrators, and policymakers. [It] needs to be read widely and deeply studied as much for its formations and beautiful representations of Black women and girls as its recommendations. It is the truth-telling we need today and a groundbreaking resource we need today and beyond.”

    from the foreword by Cynthia B. Dillard

    (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana), Athens, Georgia; and Cape Coast, Central Region, Ghana