Illuminating the Nuances: Black Girls Complexify and Reimagine Inclusive Education

• In Event: Interrogating Inclusion to “Re-mediate” Unjust Educational Spaces

Abstract

Purpose
Resonating with this year’s call for learning and care grounded in community knowledge (Scott et al., 2025), this paper centers a youth participatory action research project (YPAR) led by two Black girls in high school. Broadly, the YPAR project concentrated on the schooling experiences and educational trajectories of Black girls. As such, their solutions for genuine educational remedy and repair are discussed.

Theoretical Framing
This paper is grounded in an intersectional sociospatial lens wherein we combine intersectionality as defined by Black feminism (Collins, 1998; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991) and critical spatial theory (Du Bois, 1903, 1989; Gilmore, 2007; Santos, 2021) to reveal the undertheorized complexities of Black girls’ school experiences socially and spatially. In our project, we centered Black girls across identity markers, including Black girls who (a) identify as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, (b) identify with a disability, mental health care need, and/or health care need, and/or (c) have foster care experiences, as ontological and epistemic agents (Edwards et al., 2016; hooks, 2000; Lorde, 1984; Author, 2024). An intersectional sociospatial lens supported the team in understanding the nuances of Black girls’ inclusionary and/or exclusionary educational experiences as well as the gifts, strengths, and solutions they bring with them individually and collectively across school contexts (hooks, 2015; Lane, 2017; Reynolds, 2021).

Methods
We focus this paper on a subset of data from our larger YPAR study situated in one high school in a big city (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Ozer & Douglas, 2015; Rodríguez & Brown, 2009). The larger project included 9th-12th graders. Here, we center Black girls in 11th and 12th grade (n = 37).

Data Sources
Data sources included audio/video recordings of 1 initial focus group and 5 Black Girl Care Sessions as well as 6 individual interviews all facilitated by the youth researchers. Visual data included 4 asset maps, 29 Education Journey Maps (adapted from Annamma, 2016), 1 Black Girl Magic brainstorming poster, 4 song playlists created by small groups, and 1 collaborative whole group playlist. Another audio data source was one collaborative whole group Spotify playlist embodying Black Girl Magic. Twenty-three girls, including the two youth researchers, provided demographic information.

Results
First, we emphasize the care and joy Black girls were receiving in school and for school from supportive teachers, family members, and friends as well as the care and joy they too were cultivating. Second, we outline the challenges the girls shared with us considering academic supports, bathroom and hallway policies, and inequities within extracurricular activities. Finally, we share solutions Black girls generated in group discussions and individual interviews.

Scholarly Significance
Black girls face numerous successes and challenges across their educational trajectories. However, around every corner, they have solutions for schools; not only for themselves but for everyone around them. This project builds on previous YPAR scholarship centering Black girls as youth researchers and project participants (Evans-Winters with Girls for Gender Equity, 2017) and expands that work with an explicit emphasis on how Black girls complicate and reimagine inclusive education for authentic, Black girl-informed remedy and repair.

Authors

• Amanda L. Miller, Wayne State University

• Ajya Wilson, Wayne County Community College

• Aja Reynolds, Wayne State University

• Erica B. Edwards, Wayne State University