Which One Is My Kid? Parental Evaluation of an Identity-Centered STEM Curriculum for Black Girls

• In Event: Black Girls Becoming: A Consequential Space for Interrogating Truth About Black Girlhood

Abstract

“…When we talk about this program, we talk about being in a space where you are free to be yourself. Living in [redacted location], you are the one. You are the only female. You are the only Black person… and you carry that in everything you do. To be free of that creates a sense of self and growth… just to be able to see who [my daughter] is at her core without having to be “the Black girl.” There were times I couldn’t even tell which one she was… You just see the sea of braids and googles, and that was beautiful. As a parent, …for the first time in my life, I was glad not to be able to say, “that’s my kid,” because I couldn’t pick her out of a group, and that was phenomenal.”
- Parent of Black Girls Becoming Participant

Despite 36% of Black girls desiring careers in science, Black women hold only 2.9% of STEM degrees. (NAEP 2015; NCES 2015). This results from an interplay of discriminatory practices (e.g., lack of representation, policing and adultification of Black girls, centering of white narratives) that uphold white supremacist patriarchy in the classroom. The pushout of Black girls in STEM often leads to the hypervisibility of Black girls who continue to engage in STEM, further exacerbating disparities by marginalizing Black girls from engagement (Lewis and Lewis, 2017). Many Black girls in STEM identify with being “the one,” either the singular or one of few, Black girl(s) in the classroom. Directly opposing scholarly definitions of classroom equity, being “the one” is a reflective product of inequitable and uninviting classroom environments (Gutiérrez, 2002).
We utilize parental perspectives to evaluate Black Girls Becoming (BGB), a two-week STEM living-and-learning model for adolescent Black girls. Drawing from prior research suggesting that classroom representation has a particularly strong impact on Black girls, all instructors, chaperones, volunteers, and staff at Black Girls Becoming identified as Black women (Gershenson et. al, 2018). Curriculum was inspired by concepts from Black feminist thought leaders, notably bell hooks’ theory of Teaching to Transgress, which was utilized to equip students to work against discrimination and dismantle oppressive systems within the scientific sphere and beyond.
After the conclusion of BGB, parents were paired for a one-hour virtual focus group. As BGB’s curriculum interrupts outdated and ineffective learning and classroom norms, parents evaluated the affect that inclusive and innovative pedagogy, particularly centering Black girl narratives and Black girlhood, had on their daughters. Parents had an overwhelmingly positive response to BGB’s ideology and curriculum, many stating that it was the first time their child engaged in STEM in a majority-Black women environment. Overall, parents found BGB to be refreshingly disruptive for their daughters by dismantling teaching styles that uphold white supremacy and silence Black girls in the classroom, providing the freedom for parents and daughters alike to question who they are free to become if they are relieved of the assigned identity of being “the one” and can instead just be themselves.

Author

• Kimberlyn Alexis Ellis, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author