The Amplifying of Black Girls’ Voices: Applying Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and BlackCrit to Challenge STEM Bias

• In Event: We Gon' Be Alright: Teaching, Healing, and Resisting with Black Youth

Abstract

This study explains how anti-Blackness operates in secondary STEM classrooms through teacher bias and instructional practices that limit Black girls’ access and belonging. Drawing on semi-biographical vignettes and our lived experiences as Black women in STEM education, we apply Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) and Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit) as guiding frameworks. The vignettes show how Black girls are framed by deficit narratives that limit their participation in advanced STEM coursework. Even equity efforts reinforce exclusion without accompanying ideological change. Our analysis reveals missed opportunities to affirm the brilliance and aspirations of Black girls. We argue that CRP must be enacted through relational practice and that BlackCrit is essential to naming and disrupting the structural nature of anti-Blackness in education.

Authors

• Uchenna Emenaha Miles, University of Texas - San Antonio

• Raketa Ouedraogo-Thomas, University of North Carolina - Charlotte