Oh, Those Loud Black Girls: A Study of Black Girls Talking With an Attitude

• In Event: Constructing Knowledge and Promoting Social Change: Cutting Edge Issues in Social Justice

Abstract

Current research suggests that it is imperative for researchers and educators to pay more attention to the needs of African American adolescent girls and how their race and gender affect schooling (Fordham, 1993; Morris, 2007). The purpose of this study was to highlight the lived experiences of two African American adolescent girls when they used the African American women’s speech practice, “Talking with an Attitude” (TWA), with their teachers. Using phenomenology and Afrocentric feminist epistemology as methodological and theoretical approaches, I used interviews to collect and analyze data that revealed the nature of their lived experiences.

Author

• Jacqueline B. Koonce, Michigan State University