Well-being Supports and Threats During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Black Adolescent Girls’ Lived Experiences and Reflections

• In Event: Visibilizing Research About the Educational Experiences of Black Women and Girls

Abstract

Purpose
Black girls are disproportionately disciplined and underexposed to schools supporting their holistic well-being (Losen & Skiba, 2010; Neal-Jackson, 2018). COVID-19 brought uneven effects for well-being, with compounding impacts on Black youth (Gillispie, 2021). Guided by two questions, we qualitatively investigated Black adolescent girls’ experiences before, during, and after widespread school closures due to COVID-19:
(1) How do Black adolescent girls define well-being?
(2) What well-being supports and threats do Black adolescent girls identify before, during, and after widespread school closures due to COVID-19?

Theoretical Framework
We employ Garcia Coll et al.’s (1996) Integrative Model (IM). The IM highlights how structural ills such as racism permeate ecological contexts (school, neighborhood, health systems, etc.), uniquely impacting the lived experiences of minoritized youth. Therefore, we investigate Black girls’ pandemic experiences in multiple contexts and also consider how misogynoir (Bailey, 2008) bears on the lives of Black adolescent girls.

Data Source and Methods
Data are from a larger study on Black girls’ schooling experiences in California. Participants were 24 self-identified Black adolescent girls recruited through a community-university partnership in Sacramento. Four semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted by research assistants (3 Black females, 1 Latina). Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically coded by the authors and three research assistants using the Rigorous and Accelerated Data Reduction (RaDaR) approach (Watkins, 2017).

Findings
Participants primarily defined well-being as: (1) confidence, peace, and comfort in your own skin; (2) state of mind, despite circumstances; and (3) having essential needs met including physical health, adequate food and water, social support, and population-level happiness.

Five well-being support themes were identified:
Environments (e.g., nature, people, social media)
“Resources to thrive and be the best version of yourself” (Jayla, 2022)
Supportive people; liking others and being liked
Alone time, fun, and personal outlets (e.g., reading)
Freedom to share without judgment (e.g., with a trusted adult)

We coded pre- and during-pandemic threats to well-being. Participants had the most to say particularly regarding schools as sites of threat to well-being.
Intrapersonal
having no outlets to decompress
internalized negativity about oneself
Interpersonal
people pleasing; lacking boundaries
being talked about negatively; “jokes” that harm
School
Curriculum lacks truth, critical perspectives, challenge/stimulation
Over-policing, hyper-surveillance, and control (e.g., dress, behavior)
Favoritism, bias, and disrespect from adults
Lack of empathy/basic care (e.g., restricted bathroom use and food, untended injuries)
Structural, Cultural, and Societal
lack of support for goal attainment
economic and political systems

Significance
Facilitated discussions (like focus groups) for Black adolescent girls have important implications for their well-being. Researchers and community leaders/advocates are charged with ensuring that Black girls’ perspectives are integrated into practices and policies that protect and promote thriving. There were no notable differences in well-being support/threat themes in participants’ pre- and during-pandemic reflections. Findings could be limited by recall bias (interviews occurred in 2022); however, many themes overlap existing literature (albeit limited), calling for greater attention to persistent threats Black girls encounter.

Authors

• Faheemah N. Mustafaa, University of California - Davis

• Ebony E. Lewis, University of California - Davis