Framing Black Girl Leadership Practices With Transgressive Leadership

• In Event: Accepting the Responsibility to Examine and Innovate With Frameworks Used in Education Research

Abstract

Studies have revealed that Black girls have unique experiences navigating K-12 schooling (Carter Andrews et al, 2019; Muhammad & Haddix, 2016; Watson, 2016). For many, schools are toxic, traumatizing places where they receive mixed messages about who and what is valued (Carter Andrews et al., 2019). Considering this, I sought to develop a framework that would counter these messages and instead, provide a more in depth picture of the everyday leadership practices of Black girls in PK-12 schools. This conceptual framework is informed by case study research documenting the leadership practices and positioning of elementary-aged Black girls. Currently, there are no frameworks that offer a seamless fit for situating young people as leaders, especially elementary-aged Black girls. I offer a youth leadership framework termed, transgressive leadership which supports the intersections of identity embodied by students of color navigating compulsory K-12 schooling. In the case of Black girls, transgressive leadership positions Black girls and their intimate knowledge (Bertrand, 2018; Muhammad & Haddix, 2016; Welton, Brock & Perry, 2014) at the forefront.
Current youth leadership frameworks such as Mitra and Serriere’s ABCDE (2012) framework for upper elementary youth focus on aspects of youth development while Welton and colleagues use Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 2009) and Hip Hop Feminism (Pough, 2002) to understand how high school young women of color engaged in leadership praxis and activism to push back against intersectional oppressions. These situate research on youth and Black girls in ways that are critical to understanding student leadership, yet maintain a focus on the developmental aspects of youth. To move beyond a youth development lens, I sought to document the material leadership practices of Black girls with a lens that affirms them as existing leaders and gatekeepers of knowledge. This required a youth-driven framework that centers their ways of knowing and being, therefore I crafted a framework informed by an interplay of theories like Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 2009), Black girlhood studies (Brown, 2013; Butler, 2018; Hill, 2011) and emerging literature on youth of color voices in educational leadership (Bertrand, 2014;Van Lac & Mansfield, 2018).
In the previously referenced case study, I utilize an arts-based approach focused on how youth of color are positioned to affect change in the elementary school context. Zooming in on the experiences of four 3rd grade Black girls, I conducted a thematic analysis of their visual artifacts created to respond to school, community and societal issues writ large. Here, transgressive leadership allowed me to see the ways that the social identities of the students informed their orientations towards school and community issues and the ways they were positioned to effectuate change that they saw as necessary. The findings from this study offer a way forward for how educational researchers situate their work with young people, particularly young people of color. This paper then offers a youth-driven framework for capturing the knowledges and leadership practices of Black girls in PK-12 schools.

Author

• Courtney C. Mauldin, Syracuse University