Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls

"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

Foreword— Cynthia 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

Lori D. Patton

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 Evans-Winters

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 Jacobs

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 Participatory Action Research Collaborative at the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives (SPARC-CSBGL).

Book Launch Webinar - Chat Dialogue

Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls - Book Launch webinar