When Black Girls "Cool Pose": Black Masculinity as a Strategy for Marginal Participation in Middle School Algebra

• In Event: Narratives of Gender and Its Intersections as They Influence Identities and Participation in Mathematics

Abstract

While gender is often treated as well-defined and static identity, Judith Butler (1988) argues that “gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts precede; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time—an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” (p. 519). Said simply, gender is a performance. Butler goes on to describe gender as “instituted through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self” (Ibid).

This paper explores the particular stylization of gender, known as "cool pose," employed by a Black girl in a middle school algebra class. Cool pose was introduced by Majors and Billson (1992) to describe a performative stance of Black males. The term “cool” is used colloquially to index a deliberate smoothness or emotionless posture within social interactions. Majors and Billson describe it this way: “Cool pose is a ritualized form of masculinity that entails behaviors, scripts, physical posturing, impression management, and carefully crafted performances that deliver a single critical message: pride, strength, and control. Black males who use cool pose are often chameleon-like in their uncanny ability to change their performance to meet the expectations of a particular situation or audience. They manage the impression they communicate to others through the use of an imposing array of masks, acts, and facades" (p. 4). Behaviors and attitudes associated with cool pose are said to serve a protective function for Black boys and men. Yet, these same behaviors and attitudes are considered incongruent to educational contexts and learning environments and often only serve to position Black boys and men out of opportunities to learn. Although "cool pose" has been exclusively ascribed to males and associated with their physiology (or sex), this study disrupts this pattern and describes how an adolescent Black girl, Kameron (a pseudonym), enacts "cool pose" as a racialized and gendered performance to establish a protective identity within a mathematical context.

Drawing on classroom and interview video recordings, a set of scenes are deconstructed using embodied participation frameworks (Goodwin, 2007). Findings reveal how Kameron actively constructs a Black masculine facade during interviews and uses said facade to safely position herself at the periphery of her Algebra classroom. Analysis of Kameron’s embodied stances connects her performance of “cool pose” to a general participative resistance. Contrary to some prescriptions that suggest girls should modify their feminine behaviors in order to fit into male-identified contexts like mathematics classrooms, findings in this study importantly reveal that stereotypical masculine performances, such as "cool pose," do not necessarily create opportunities for full participation within classroom communities in a Black girl body, but can in fact be used as tools to resist participation. This study serves as a significant reminder that performances within mathematics classrooms are racialized, gendered, class-based, and-- above all-- embodied.

Author

• Maisie L. Gholson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor