Roses in the Educational Margins: Analyzing the Perceptions and Impact of Unmet Education Needs on School Pushout and Sense of Safety for Black and Latine Girls (Poster 15)

• In Event: AERA Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Engagement and belonging in educational settings are known protective factors for children and adolescents; yet girls, particularly Black and Latina girls, experience school pushout at disproportionately high rates compared to their white and/or male counterparts. In my proposed dissertation, I examine the subjective perceptions and attributions that key power holders (system stakeholders) hold regarding system-impacted girls' lives and their pathways to school pushout (study 1). Using content and thematic analysis, data was sourced from 25 system actors in a large Northeastern city and results from open thematic coding suggest that system actors can identify critical contextual and ecological influences on girls’ lives; yet the logic of the systems’ responses to girls continues to focus on changing (and blaming) girls themselves. Themes further expand upon girls’ entrapment in the legal system, girls’ disconnection is both adaptive and legally risky, and poverty creates informal economies that endangers girls. Next, I examine the association between individual trauma, discrimination and unmet needs on girls’ sense of physical and psychological. Next, I examine how school climate moderates this relationship (study 2). These data will be informed by ~250 system-impacted adolescent girls and gender-expansive youth and analyzed cross-sectionally using structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine hypothesized direct and indirect associations. Finally, I examine the impact of a trauma-informed, gender responsive, advocacy intervention (called ROSES) on school and safety outcomes using an experimental design (study 3). Data will come from the same sample as study 2 and include follow up time points to allow for the analysis of program impact on the outcomes indicated in study 2. Based on previous literature, I expect that system stakeholders will identify academic contexts as a potential ‘pipeline’ through which girls enter the court or legal system but will also focus their attributions on individual girls’ behaviors (e.g., poor choices) instead of on structural barriers (such as a multitude of unmet resource needs; racism). Additionally, I predict that, controlling for individual experiences of trauma, youth who report higher levels structural trauma, unmet school resource needs, and school pushout via exclusionary discipline will report decreased sense of both psychological and school safety. Finally, I predict that involvement in ROSES advocacy will promote psychological and school safety, potentially through enhancing resource access and reducing unmet needs. Taken together, the studies in this dissertation aim to highlight the need to center girl’s voices, promote collaboration with key stakeholders and decision makers in girl’s legal/educational contexts, and promote youth-centered programming to address excessively punitive and ineffective responses in schools. This is important because, despite the recognition of persistent inequity in educational contexts, girls of color are frequently underserved and their needs unaddressed through programmatic and structural solutions.

Author

• Raquel E. Rose, New York University