Mapping the Boundaries of Race Talk: Examining the Experiences of Black Girls in Independent Schools

• In Event: A Black Girl Like Me: Unpacking Complexities and Counternarratives

Abstract

This study draws on Love’s notion of ‘Educational Survival Complex” to explore Black girls experiences in single-gender independent schools. In-person and virtual focus group interviews with 42 Black middle and high school students were facilitated to understand how they perceived themselves as mapped into or left out of geopolitical contexts of schooling. Preliminary findings show participants locate themselves in a world where white people are centered. Implications explore the ways in which all girls' independent schools overlook Black girls' unique geographic, psychological, and social locations and psychological wellbeing in schools and society, and need to take responsibility for creating initiatives that actively interrupt naturalized patterns in repression, detachment, decontextualization as requisite for academic survival.

Authors

• Heather Hill, Cleveland State University

• Charlotte E Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania

• Markita C Warren, Cleveland State University