“Everywhere You Go, There’s Stereotypes”: Adolescent Girls of Color and Intersectional Understandings About Identity

• In Event: Race, Social Class, and Social Justice

Abstract

This paper examines how adolescent girls of color understand their identities and plans for the future given societal, school, and classroom messages about race, gender, and class. Using a framework of intersectionality and ethnographic research methods, the author explores these issues in a Midwestern high school. Findings suggest that girls of color were aware of the complex ways that categories of difference intersected in their social experiences, but had trouble extending their understandings to others’ experiences, articulating the impact of systematic inequality, or seeing potential for collective action. This study suggests that policy and classroom practice could be improved to better support young people who experience multiple dimensions of oppression in developing social critiques and transforming them into action.

Author

• Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong, University of Wisconsin - Madison