Complicated contradictions amid Black feminism and millennial Black women teachers creating curriculum for Black girls

Abstract

ABSTRACTMillennial Black women teachers wrestle with two simultaneous burdens: disrupting the racist and sexist status quo of schooling through curriculum, and employing tactics to survive school politics among their majority White women colleagues. This article describes how the Sisters of Promise (SOP) curriculum aligned with Black feminism and Black feminist pedagogy, and how it did not. This curriculum was created for Black girls within the margins of school by a millennial Black woman teacher and other Black women teachers. Analysis of the SOP curriculum revealed that even with the best of intentions, and even for relatively self-aware millennial Black women teachers, it is possible to present Black girl students with contradictory messages, due to a lack of exposure to Black feminism, Black feminist pedagogy, and the work of Black women educational scholars, in their curriculum studies. Included are implications and recommendations for millennial Black women teachers creating curriculum for Black girls.