Recognizing the #Magic in Preschool Black Girls

• In Event: Black Girls Empowered: Lifting, Loving, and Leading Research on Pre-K–12 Black Girls

Abstract

Using data from a larger study on how young children display civic action (author, 2017), we examine the agency and diverse strategies young Black girls enact to build community and turn individual endeavors into communal ones in three different preschool settings. Critical race theory (Ladson-Billings, 1998) informs our analysis of the often overlooked and disallowed capabilities young Black girls’ exhibit as they navigate racialized preschool environments (Heitzeg, 2016) . We find that when educators nurture the varied embodied behaviors young Black girls exhibit and value human difference (Robinson and Jones Diaz, 2006), schools become more socially equitable spaces where young Black girls can develop stronger self-concepts and challenge the negative societal images of Black womanhood (Hill Collins, 2000).

Authors

• Natacha Jones, The University of Texas - Austin

• Jennifer Keys Adair, The University of Texas at Austin