How Black Girls Develop Critical and Digital Literacy Practices as Resistance to Marginalization in School

• In Event: 45.092 - MTCC Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: 45.092-8 - Engaging Learners in Responsive Praxis

Abstract

Rooted in Black feminist theory, this paper discusses the narratives of 7 Black, female high school students who experience oppression within school structures and practices in a predominantly White school environment. Through individual and focus group interviews, this qualitative case study analyzes how Black, female students develop critical and digital literacies as a form of healing and resistance in response to the injustices they experience and witness both within and outside of school. For the participants, lacking a school curriculum or environment that was safe or supportive of their intersectional identities and critical development, their digital and critical literacy practices became essential to their survival and particular forms of Black girl activism.

Author

• Lauren Leigh Kelly, Rutgers University Graduate School of Education