Drawn, Filmed, and Heard: Youth Participatory Research With Gifted Black Girls in White Spaces

• In Event: Studying Black Students in Context

Abstract

This youth participatory action research (YPAR) study explores the schooling experiences of ten gifted Black girls attending predominantly White schools in the southeastern U.S. Drawing from Critical Race Theory, Black Feminist Thought, and arts-based narrative inquiry, the study centers participants’ counter-stories, artistic artifacts, and documentary film reflections. Findings reveal how girls construct and affirm their identities through cultural creativity, familial advocacy, and resistance to dominant narratives of giftedness. By positioning youth as co-constructors of knowledge, this work disrupts normative assumptions about who is seen, heard, and celebrated in gifted education. This study contributes to scholarship on identity, race, and educational equity while modeling methodological possibilities for arts-based, collaborative, and justice-oriented research in school contexts.

Author

• Oriana T. Leach, Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago