"They Don't Want to See Us Succeed": How Micro-Interactions Produce Problematic Identities for Black Girls in US Public Secondary Schools

Abstract

Current discussions about inequity within US public schools are centered on a singular narrative of the Black male crisis. Though warranted, this focus on Black boys has inadvertently left Black girls, and their struggles, in the shadows. To date, a primary focus of scholarly inquiry has been on examining the identities these young women bring into schools with them, as shaped by familial and community forces, and how schools react and respond to them via their institutional practices and policies. What has remained under analyzed is how schools actively construct Black feminine identities and what these constructions mean for the young women’s academic opportunities, present and future. In light of this extant gap, drawing upon socio-cultural theory and Black feminist thought, my dissertation project provided a 1-year critical ethnographic investigation of an urban high school to examine: (a) how schools actively construct Black feminine identities through their policies, practices, and norms of interactions; (b) what these constructions mean for Black girls’ academic opportunities and orientations toward school; and (c) how Black girls interpret and respond to school based constructions of their identities. The analysis of teachers’ discourse revealed that both Black girls’ socio-emotional and academic identities were imagined to consist of pejorative traits. When characterizing Black girls’ socio-emotional identities, teachers described the young women as emotionally volatile in their demeanors and interactions. Using bomb-related imagery, they suggested that Black girls unpredictably erupted into aggressive, abusive, and confrontational behavior. In addition, teachers characterized Black girls as rebellious and intentionally acting in ways that were difficult, combative, and manipulative in order to undermine the existing power structure within the school. Much like the way their dispositions and inclinations in the social realm were imagined, teachers characterized Black girls’ academic identities as rooted in an intersecting web of problematic dispositions. They suggested that Black girls lacked the necessary attitudes, behaviors, and demeanors that were foundational to academic success. However, a closer look at the interactions between Black girls and their teachers revealed that the negative qualities that teachers imagined to be inherent traits of the young women, in fact, were produced during their micro-interactions. Said another way, the teachers’ own dispositions and behaviors called forth the problematic manner in which Black girls sometimes enacted their identities. While the school officials imagined Black girls’ identities in ways that were static and one-dimensional, my participant observation revealed that the young women’s enactment of their identities was tied to the contexts they were in and the opportunities the varied contexts afforded them to bring forth productive selves. More specifically, when Black girls were in contexts that supported and affirmed their socio-emotional and academic identities they enacted them in productive and positive ways. When they were in contexts (i.e. their classrooms) where they felt attacked and unsupported, they enacted their identities in the ways the teachers described. The teachers, in solely constructing Black girls as problems were unable to identify their role in producing the problematic behavior. This led to unproductive relationships, inequitable discipline referrals, and systematic denial of access to academic resources. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that schools differentially shape the opportunities and educational outcomes of Black girls through the identities they construct for them and calls for teachers to reimagine their role as teaching professionals.