Living Through Each Other: Exploring Endarkened Girl Consciousness and Reciprocal Mentoring as Research

• In Event: When Mentoring Is Method: Exploring Spirituality, Black/Endarkened Feminisms, and Relationship in Black Girls Lives

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore three second grade Black girls’ perspectives of their experiences with their peers within the classroom contexts and extend Endarkened/Black feminist perspectives and research with Black girls. This study drew from a larger six month ethnographic study in a Midwestern school district. The study revealed Black girls engaged in an Endarkened Girl Consciousness, as they grappled with race, class, and gender issues that were distinct and yet similar to adult Black women. This study revealed that reciprocal mentoring was inherent in my role as a Black woman engaging in research with Black girls. In this study I positioned myself in Black feminist theory and in particular employ an Endarkened feminist epistemological perspective (Dillard, 2006). Endarkened feminism centers Black women’s self-definition (hooks, 1981; Collins, 2000; Dillard, 2006). It situated research as a personal, intellectual, spiritual, and political endeavor, with the assumption that the researcher is very much a part of the research endeavor (Williams, 1998; Collins, 2000; Dillard, 2006).
This study drew mainly from ethnographic methods (Erickson, 1985; Jacob, 1987), where I took the role of a participant-observer within the classroom context. Instead of striving for the role of a distanced or removed observer, I was able to put my experiences as a Black woman in concert with the participants as co-researchers, in order to help question observations and push emerging themes. Data were collected from multiple sources: 1) observational field notes of children playing, talking, and interacting with peers; 2) student interviews (individual and group); 3) teacher interviews; 4) audio and video recordings of children’s actions, play, and talk; 5) research journal (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). The findings of this study reveal that the Black girls were engaging in an Endarkened Girl Consciousness, one that that was distinct yet overlapping with Endarkened Feminist perspectives (Collins, 2000; Dillard, 2006). The participants were not simply taking up an Endarkened feminist consciousness as it has been explicated in the lives of adult Black women, but instead engaged in the patterns and processes that eventually lead to a mature Endarkened feminist consciousness. The similarity of experiences and growing consciousness allowed for an inherent reciprocal mentoring where the participants and I drew from our perspectives and experiences as Black females to learn from each other. Themes of self definition, self-determination, and talkin’ back through action not only became evidence of an Endarkened girl consciousness, but further connected to my lived experiences as a Black female researcher. Tracing the threads of a Black/Endarkened feminist consciousness through the lives of young girls demonstrates the complexity in the ways that race, class, and gender influence the construction of childhood identity as one that is similar and distinct from adults. Showing the reciprocal relationship between Black girl participants and myself helps transform research with children as well as reconceptualizes the function and use of mentoring for Black girls.

Author

• Samatha Wahome, Kent State University