The Impact of Colorism on Black Girls and Their Academic Success

• In Event: Taking Responsibility for Racial Justice in Educational Leadership Preparation: Antiracist Implications in Doctoral Student Work

Abstract

Purpose
Black girls are criminalized, adultified and disproportionately suspended from school (Crenshaw, 2014). The mistreatment they face entrenches the School/Prison Nexus. The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of colorism on Black girls and how it relates to their academic success.

Theoretical Perspective
This work was conceptualized through a Black feminist theoretical orientation (Collins, 2000). Black feminist theory operates in part on the assumption that the adverse experiences Black girls have emerge at multiple intersections of socio-political reality as determined by certain markers of social domination. Colorism, or the devaluation of human life based upon the lightness and darkness of ones’ skin, is one such form of oppression shaping Black girls’ schooling experiences (Blake et al., 2017). A Black feminist orientation to understanding colorism, then, allowed us to take a critical and culturally relevant approach to understanding Black girls’ experiences with colorism in schools.

Methods
A Black feminist approach to qualitative methods was used to carry out this study. Six adolescent Black girls were engaged in two “kitchen-table conversations” (Phillips, 2006). This informal and culturally-specific method allowed us to reveal how Black girls resist, negotiate, or embody colorism in their every-day schooling experiences.

Data Sources
The girls were members of a STEM after-school program sponsored by Wayne State University’s College of Nursing. The students meet Monday through Thursday for two and a half hours. Students in the program explore college and career options through the use of project-based learning. The girls were consistent participants of the program and were thus ideal candidates to participate in a “Black Girls Defined” session. The session was 90-minutes long and elicited audio recordings, journal entries, and a semi-structured transformative group-interview.

Results
The girls identified as having a medium or dark complexion. They discussed being aware of colorism, but felt that it had no significant impact on their lives. Black feminist analysis followed by follow-up interviews revealed that the girls exhibited cognitive dissonance between their perceptions of colorism and their experiences with it. In other words, the girls initially felt that they had not been affected by colorism, but when challenged to consider their experiences through a Black feminist orientation, some changed their perspective. The demographics of one’s environment often shapes their perceptions of the world (Shedd, 2015).

Scholarly Significance
In a contemporary moment marked by the imperative for anti-racist praxis and pedagogy, this work reveals how important it is to include the more subtle and nuanced experience of colorism in educational leaders’ work. Challenging the girls’ perceptions supported them in being able to name their experience in ways that lend critical insights for how school leaders can make Black girls’ experiences visible and valued in schools. Given the many ways in which Black girls historically and into the present moment have been devalued in our social institutions, hearing this particular experience will allow us to collaboratively envision new paradigms to treat Black girls in ways that are decidedly anti-racist.

Author

• DeJanae Douglas, Wayne State University