Having Our Say: Black Girls Speaking Back to Their Teachers

• In Event: Centering the Voices of Black Women and Girls in English Education

Abstract

This study sought to understand how Black girls described experiences in English classrooms in which they are underrepresented and how they presented their experiences to their own English teachers.

Prior research has documented the ways that Black students, and Black girls in particular, experience harm and suffering within school contexts (Dumas, 2014; Dumas and Ross, 2016; Annamma, 2017; Epstein et al. 2017; Couvson, 2016). Teachers of black girls (who are predominantly white (Schaeffer, 2021), lack a familiarity with and knowledge of Black girls’ literacies. Understanding Black girls' literacies would allow teachers to support the girls’ development while also directly addressing misogynoir (Bailey, 2021) in the classroom. This lack of transfer may be a result of their professors’ own lack of knowledge of Black girls. Thus, even though research exists that speaks to how teachers can combat the ways that schools harm Black girls, the research is not transferring to in-service teachers’ practice, thereby failing to support Black girls’ literacy development.

However, Black women scholars studying Black girlhood have demonstrated that schools can indeed be spaces of affirmation and uplift for Black girls. Collectively, their work pushes back against deficit narratives about Black identities and Black girls (Brown, 2009; Haddix et al., 2015; Muhammad, 2023; Baker-Bell, 2020; Price-Dennis, 2016).

Data from this study included interviews, participant observations, and transcribed book club meetings occurring during 2024-2025 school year. During book club sessions, the Black girls met to read and discuss young adult literature featuring Black girls in school settings. These texts served as launching points for discussions about their schooling experiences. At the end of the year, the girls reviewed the data (transcribed recordings of each session) to identify themes that best represented the group and would provide teachers insights into how these girls would like instruction to occur. Girls were interviewed about how they felt before and after the presentation.

Girls participating in this study repeatedly expressed their dismay for how they were treated in their English classes, in ways that spoke directly to their identities as Black girls (lack of culturally relevant instruction, ex. Lack of novels with Black characters and Black History Month over-focus on Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks) and as students in general (not being allowed to go to the bathroom and teachers who was less specific than in the book club, the girls maintained these key points Teachers who attended the presentation expressed gratitude to the girls, while also noting that they also felt the girls were more restrained in the presentation.

These findings speak to the necessity of teachers engaging in meaningful dialogue with minoritized students in their classrooms/schools as a means of continuing their development as culturally responsive and capable teachers. These findings also show that, when asked, Black girls are very motivated to share their insights into what makes a meaningful learning environment. This format of involving Black girls in data analysis and presentation to their teachers speaks to the possibilities for classrooms to be spaces where Black girls’ voices are welcomed and elevated.

Author

• Stephanie Robillard, St. Mary's College of California