Learning While Black and Queer: Understanding the Educational Experiences of Black LGBTQ+ Youth

• In Event: Interrogating Queer and Trans Studies in Education: Inquiries, Interruptions, Innovations

Abstract

This paper outlines obstacles to educational equity for Black youth in the LGBTQ+ community, and advances a queerly responsive pedagogy which addresses queer learning experiences that other assets-based approaches, including culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies, do not. It draws on empirical studies of urban Black youth who identify as LGBTQ+ as well as personal accounts of Black queer educators. It also provides evidence-based recommendations for creating educational spaces and school cultures that promote safety and belonging, including the adoption of a queer-inclusive curriculum that covers health and sexuality, queer-affirming classrooms, and access to peer and intergenerational kinship networks for Black queer students. It shows how Black queer resistant capital can be used to confront systemic oppressions such as anti-Blackness, anti-queerness, and cisheteronormativity in educational environments.

Author

• Ed Brockenbrough, University of Pennsylvania