Remembering and (Re)Reading Black Girl-Oriented Programs for Multiple Girlhoods and Futures (Poster 25)

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

This poster session will show the impact of programs oriented toward Black girls from the perspectives of young adults who participated as youth over a decade ago to understand the impact and possible areas for growth in programs for Black girls, towards their futures, and in approaches to addressing Black girls in education. The following research questions guide this qualitative study: (1) How do former participants remember the program?; (2) What are their (re)readings of program curriculum?; (3) How do they articulate Black girlhood and success?; (4) How, if at all, was/is the program responsive and relevant to who they were, became, and hope to become? The answers to these questions yielded significant data to inform guidelines for (re)designing Black girl-oriented programs in ways that welcome all types of Black girls and girlhoods, engage truth-telling, offer holistic care, and provide exposure to vital information around future planning, while also allowing them to just be children. This research will make possible Black girl futures where wellness and joys are not constantly sacrificed to navigate oppression and accomplish goals, existing is enough, and traditional pathways to “success” are taken up agentically, resisted, dismantled, and/or reconstructed.

Author

• Tiffany M Nyachae, Pennsylvania State University