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

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium presents empirical and reflection data from Black Girls Becoming Summer Research Institute, a two-week residential program, for rising seventh and eighth grade Black girls, at a selective university in the southern part of the US. The program was intentionally designed with Black girlhood celebration and joy as its centripetal force—all instructors, chaperones, volunteers, and even the photographer were Black women. The girls spent two weeks engaging workshops that supported their socio-emotional development while also developing somatic and academic literacies. Using Black girlhood, intersectionality, and Black feminist epistemologies as lenes for understanding the various learning experiences of different institute personnel, we present narratives that reclaim educational spaces in Black Girls’ own images.

Sub Unit

• Division C - Learning and Instruction / Division C - Section 3a: Learning Environments

Chair

• Nauff Zakaria, Vanderbilt University

Papers

• Which One Is My Kid? Parental Evaluation of an Identity-Centered STEM Curriculum for Black Girls - Kimberlyn Alexis Ellis, Vanderbilt University

• Black Girls Can Be Anything: Misalignment Between Black Girls' Perceptions and Manifestations of Respect - Christy L. Erving, University of Texas at Austin

• "We Are Becoming Too": Black Girls Becoming Practitioners' Teaching and Learning Experiences - Renã A. S. Robinson, Vanderbilt University; ReAnna S. Roby, Vanderbilt University; Letimicia Fears, Vanderbilt University; Chesley Rose Ekelem, Vanderbilt University; Alexandria Robinson; Ebony Pearson, Vanderbilt University; Amina S. McIntyre, Vanderbilt University; Shanta Pressley; Dena Lane-Bonds, Vanderbilt University; Bethanie Stauffer, Vanderbilt University

Discussant

• Venus E. Evans-Winters, The Ohio State University