Toward Black Gaze Theory: How Black Female Teachers Make Black Students Visible

• In Event: 15.026 - Division K Poster Session A

Abstract

Damage-centered research dehumanizes Black people by focusing on disparities rather than cultural capital. Moving away from theories that frame blackness as a deficit, we turn to Black Woman Teachers and their humanizing pedagogies as experts in cultivating cultural wealth of Black children, youth, and families. Building on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
and Community Cultural Wealth, we look towards Black Female Teachers and the ways that they mentor and humanize Black students to lay the foundation for Black Gaze Theory as a framework that 1) shifts conceptions of Black children away from a white gaze laden with “amused contempt and pity” (DuBois, 1903) to critical consciousness and 2) describes the cultural wealth of Black children and youth.

Authors

• Diamond Howell-Shields, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Aaminah Norris, California State University, Sacramento

• Krystal L. Williams, The University of Alabama