Toward a Black Womanist Conception of Affirming (Third) Spaces for Black and Afro-Latina Girls

• In Event: Black Womanist Epistemology and Experience at the Nexus of Truth-Telling in Consequential Scholarship

Abstract

As two educators who identify as Black women, the authors situated themselves in the Black and Afro-Latina girlhood experience as both members of and witnesses to the pervasive nature of anti-blackness within society. Specific to Black girls, a 2017-2018 data snapshot revealed that they had the highest representation in every discipline category (out-of-school suspensions, risk of arrest, risk of expulsion, risk of restraint, and risk of transfers due to disciplinary reasons) (Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Equality, 2020). As such, there is a need to create spaces beyond the classroom wherein Black and Afro-Latina girls are affirmed in their numerous intersecting identities, but especially in their gender and ethnoracial identities. Thus, the purpose of our paper was to detail a Black Womanist Epistemological conceptualization of outside-of-school (i.e., third spaces) programming co-created by Black women and Black girls for Black and Afro-Latina adolescent girls that facilitated the development of empowered gender and ethnoracial identities.
Within the framework of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP), researchers have argued that classroom pedagogy needs to be more than relevant; it needs to embrace both the culture of dominant and marginalized groups deliberately and in the spirit of pluralism (Paris, 2012). We aimed to examine these third spaces, through the lens of CSP, to discern how they support Black and Afro-Latina girls in embracing Blackness as a salient aspect of their identity. Additionally, we consider these spaces through a Black womanist epistemological lens while drawing from work done in Black girlhood studies, to give insights as to how Black girls subvert and resist harmful experiences within schools while conceptualizing ways to construct external spaces that contribute to their positive racial identity development. These insights of Black girlhood proved critical to building spaces that are responsive to the needs and experiences which have been identified by girls themselves.
By examining the work of scholars such as Muhammad (2015) and Evans-Winters (2005) who’ve highlighted the invisibility of and inaccuracies in how Black girls have been portrayed, in addition to others who called out the misrepresentations and disconnections of Black girls in the school setting (Muhammad & McArthur, 2015; Jeffries & Jeffries, 2013), we identified specific pitfalls that must be avoided to ensure the creation of spaces which are affirming for Black girls–spaces that center the herstories of Black girls explicitly (Young et.al., 2021). Centering Black Women Epistemologies, we examined curricula, pedagogical strategies, and facilitation of programs that have seen success in creating affirming spaces for Black and Afro-Latina girls to explore their intersecting identities. We found that spaces that resulted in empowering experiences for Black girls incorporated facilitators who shared intersecting identities with Black girls, (re)membered the legacy of Black women who came before and recognized their roles as community workers and change agents (Dillard, 2021b; Nyachae, 2016; Pujols, 2022). Gleaned was a reimagined conceptualization of a co-created space for Black and Afro-Latina girls with Black women, grounded in an ethic of care, and with Black girls’ voices at the fore.

Authors

• Brittani Clark, North Carolina State University
  Presenting Author

• Kia Allah, North Carolina State University
  Presenting Author