Engineering Hair: Unveiling STEM Through Critical Experiential Learning with Elementary Black Girls, Their Families, and Educators

• In Event: Purpose and Power: Black Women Educators' Legacies, Resistance, and Futures

Abstract

This study examines how Black women educators participating in the Teachers as Talent Catalysts (TATC) program co-construct culturally grounded STEM learning experiences for Black girls in grades K–5. Informed by Critical Race Feminism Theory and Critical and Culturally Relevant Experiential Learning, the project centers the cultural significance of African American hair care as an entry point into STEM identity development, exploration, and discovery. Through experiential sessions such as the “Hair STEM Games,” modeled after the Bronner Brothers Hair Show, participants engaged with engineering concepts through braiding, hair grids, and cosmetic science. The findings of the study focus on ways to reframe engineering concepts, mathematical expressions, and hair science through varying challenges for Black girls, their caregivers, and Black women educators.

Authors

• Brittany Nicole Anderson, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Ginaya Littlejohn, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Sydney Carroll, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Tierra M. Parsons, University of North Carolina - Charlotte