Lessons learned: Research within an urban, African American district (original) (raw)

Black Feminist-Womanist Research Paradigm: Toward a Culturally Relevant Research Model Focused on African American Girls

Black Feminist and Womanist theories are culturally based perspectives that take into consideration the contextual and interactive effects of herstory culture, race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression. These frameworks provide a contextualized understanding of African American girls' experiences and perspectives. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the current status of research about African American girls. In addition, this article demonstrates the need for a theoretical perspective that can be used to produce research that accurately examines the lives of African American girls. Major themes of Black Feminist Thought and Womanism will serve as a viable theoretical framework for studying this population. Last, principles of a Black Feminist-Womanist research model will be defined.

What ’s Race Got to Do With It? Critical Race Theory’s Conflicts With and Connections to Qualitative Research Methodology and Epistemology

Qualitative Inquiry, 2002

This article will provide the theoretical and conceptual grounding for forthcoming discussions regarding how critical race theory (CRT), as a discourse of liberation, can be used as a methodological and epistemological tool to expose the ways race and racism affect the education and lives of racial minorities in the United States. To that extent, the goal is threefold. First, the authors seek to adequately define CRT by situating it within a specific socio-historical context. Second, they seek to present an argument for why there is a need for CRT in educational and qualitative research. In doing so, they discuss the ways concerns regarding race and racism have or have not been addressed previously in educational research. Finally, they speculate about what lies ahead. In doing so, they fully assess the possible points of agreement and conflicts between CRT and qualitative research in education.

Critical Race Feminism, Health, and Restorative Practices in Critical Race Feminism, Health, and Restorative Practices in Schools: Centering the Experiences of Black and Latina Girls Schools: Centering the Experiences of Black and Latina Girls

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, 2023

Restorative practices (RP) in K-12 schools in the United States have grown exponentially since the early 1990s. Developing against a backdrop of systemic racism, RP has become embedded in educa- tion practice and policy to counteract the harmful and persistent patterns of disparities in school discipline experienced by students of color. Within this legal, social, and political context, the em- pirical evidence that has been gathered on school-based restora- tive justice has framed and named RP as a behavioral interven- tion aimed at reducing discipline incidents—that is, an “alternative” to punitive and exclusionary practices. While this view of RP is central to dismantling discriminatory systems, we argue it reflects an unnecessarily limited understanding of its po- tential and has generated unintended consequences in the field of RP research. First, the reactive RP model of analysis focuses more exclusively on behavioral change, rather than systemic improve- ment, to address discipline disparities. Second, RP research has insufficiently examined the potential role of RP in achieving health justice. Third, RP research too rarely engages in intersec- tional analyses that critically examine gendered racism. This study is intended as a course correction. Building on the work of legal scholars, public health researchers, sociologists, restorative justice practitioners, and our own prior work, this original study is the first to examine non-disciplinary RP through a critical race feminist lens, and—just as importantly—a public health praxis. Our findings reveal that the interplay between RP and adoles- cent health, race, and gender can no longer be overlooked. Proac- tive non-disciplinary RP was found to promote supportive school environments that enhance five key protective health factors for Black and Latina girls. Additionally, results indicate that RP improved the mental health and wellbeing of Black and Latina girls, building fundamental resilience skills that can help overcome

Black Women and the Intersectional Politics of Experience - Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. By bell hooks. New York: Routledge, [1984] 2015. 180 pp. 136.00(hardcover),136.00 (hardcover), 136.00(hardcover),23.96 (paperback)

Politics & Gender, 2019

Thirty-five years after the publication of bell hooks's Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, feminists continue to debate one of the book's core themes-namely, that foregrounding black women's voices in intersectional theorizing is a politically promising and perilous act. hooks's specific argument is that black women's location within the "prevailing classist, sexist, racist social structure" affords them a "unique" and "central role. .. in the making of feminist theory" ([1984] 2015, 16). hooks is equally adamant that women, including black women, mistakenly believe that "describing" or highlighting their particular "experience of oppression" is necessarily "synonymous with developing a critical political consciousness" (26). Many contemporary feminists similarly argue that although "reliance on black women's experiences" is often part of a well-intentioned effort "to underscore problems of exclusion within feminist and anti-racist theory," this phenomenon is problematic because it erroneously depicts black women as a "unitary and monolithic entity" unmarked by sexual, class, and other differences (Nash 2008, 8; see also Hancock 2007). A related argument is that intersectionality is an emancipatory analytical framework precisely because it seeks to deconstruct, rather than embrace, the flawed, "calcified" notion that "black woman" and other social groups are static entities (Dhamoon 2011, 239; see also McCall 2005). Other contemporary feminists conclude, in sharp contrast, that it is important to privilege black women's voices when contemplating the coconstitutive dimensions of race, gender, and other inequalities of power. Doing so, these feminists assert, provides black women with a "tool for analyzing and responding to the material realities" of their oppression (Jordan-Zachery 2014, 34-35; May 2015). Still other feminists contend that centering black women as intersectionality's principal research subjects undermines racist white women's ability to determine that "racialized women's structural experience cannot generate theory" (Bilge 2013, 412; see also Crenshaw 2016).

Critical Self-Reflection as Disruption: A Black Feminist Self-Study

Journal of Culture and Values in Education

As the PK-12 student population grows more diverse, the teaching population steadfastly continues to be white middle-class women (NCES, 2016). Critical teacher educators understand the importance of preparing pre-service teachers to become culturally responsive and sustaining (CR/S) practitioners by engaging in culturally relevant education (CRE). Critical teacher educators, particularly those of color from historically marginalized groups, can be important advocates in the struggle to strengthen the teaching candidate pool of CR/S practitioners. Building a cadre of teachers, who are poised to decolonize minds and spaces, sustains the work of many teacher educators of color. However, the acts of teaching and learning in most institutions of education are inundated with oppressive norms such as white privilege, xenophobia and anti-blackness. It is this reality in which I, a Black female junior teacher educator, attempt to disrupt normative teaching practices within a special educatio...

The Time is Now: (Re)visioning, (Re)assessing, and (Re)storing the State of Educational Research for African American Women and Girls

2021

We are in a time and place where the lives of Black women and girls have to do more than "matter" in education; they must be researched, understood, and enhanced through transformative educational praxis. The Journal of African American Women and Girls in Education (JAAWGE) issued a call for papers for its inaugural issue that sought to elucidate Black women and girls' educational experiences across a variety of disciplines, contexts, and geographic settings. Through this work, the constituency of JAAWGE aims to illuminate Black women and girls' brilliance and resilience by placing their voices at the forefront of educational research and discourse, while leading and creating pathways that are not only attainable, but sustainable. This inaugural issue highlights research from various fields that speak directly to the multiplicity of these women and girls' experiences in education across disciplines that utilize a vast array of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches that are humanizing and centered on Black women and girls.

Standpoints: Black Feminist Knowledges

2019

The editors of this text acknowledge the Black feminist scholars globally who have paved the way for Black feminisms to enter and be a force in challenging and shaping the academy. We acknowledge the courage of those who came before us and the blessing given by our ancestors to continue working in community. We acknowledge the hard work and dedication each graduate student put into the separate essays that make up this collection.