DANCin', STEAMin', and DREAMin': How Black Girls Negotiate Identity and Future Selves in a Dance-Infused STEAM After-School Program

• In Event: Black Girls' Learning, Identity, and Engagement in STEM Through Dance

Abstract

Banks (2012) contends that it is imperative to unpack the entanglement of historical context, racial ideologies, and identity. We aspire to do this by reflecting on the ways in which the Black body is represented in order to frame our discussion regarding Black girls, dance, learning, and identity. The Black body literally and figuratively contains Black history, for “black people's entry into the symbolic order of Western culture hinged on the theft of their bodies, the severing of will from their bodies, and the reduction of their bodies to things” (Fusco, 2001, p. 7). Black bodies have been disenfranchised for centuries, and thus bearing on the identity formation of African Americans today. For example, Black female bodies have been objectified, oversexualized, and rendered invisible. Such racist troupes as “Jezebel,” “Mammy,” “Welfare Queen” and “Baby Mama” represent stereotypes that shape the way young Black girls are portrayed in the media, and in turn, how they see themselves. Meanwhile, it has been noted that African dance of the diaspora has been instrumental in bringing about healing and forging positive identity (Banks, 2012; West, 2005). Moreover, dance encourages the development of healthy perceptions of one’s own physical body and a respect and understanding of others bodies (National Dance Educators Organization, 2013). There is also a growing body of research that supports dance as a conduit for STEM learning (Daily, et al., 2014), and this presentation highlights an after school program for Black girls which integrates dance, design, and STEM to support their positive identity formation.

Recent research indicates that Black females are severely underrepresented in STEM fields across both educational and career continuums (Marra, et al., 2009; Pinkard, et al., 2017; Towns, 2010), and as aforementioned, dance has been and continues to be an integral aspect of Black life and culture. Unfortunately, dance education is often omitted from formal learning environments, which has contributed to the downward trending of dance education access for underrepresented students. For example, Parsad and Spiegelman (2012) noted that 95% of elementary schools and 77% of secondary schools where 75% or more of students receive free and reduced lunch do not have access to dance instruction. Our research asks , to what extent and how do African American girls develop positive identity through a dance infused STEM program? This transdisciplinary partnership between four African American professors in education, dance, product design, and computing includes a two-hour weekly program that engages girls in a one-hour Hip Hop dance class taught by Undergraduate Dance Majors, and the second hour integrates various elements of STEAM taught by the professors. Each week, girls rotate between our “making lab” where they design wearable technologies for their dance costumes and our coding lab where they develop the code to support the wearable technologies embedded within. These weekly activities draw inspiration from and bring inspiration to their dance instruction. In this presentation we will use multimedia platforms including to highlight how our program engages our community partners and supports positive identity formation for Black girls.

Authors

• Ayana Allen-Handy, Drexel University

• Valerie Ifill, Drexel University

• Raja Schaar, Drexel University

• Michelle Rogers, Drexel University