Overrepresented and Under Discussed: From Conceptual Analysis to Practical Implications for Crossover among Black Girls

In light of the current assaults on Black girls and misaligned instructional practices in and outside of schools across the nation, English educators need to understand a more complete vision of the identities girls create for themselves, and the literacies and practices needed to best teach them. This article provides a review of literature of Black girl literacies by examining historical, theoretical, and empirical research conducted across the past several decades. These literatures are organized into themes and threads that help to illustrate the pedagogies for English educators of Black girls. The authors provide implications for literacy practice, policy, and research that center Black girls’ ways of knowing and suggest a Black girls’ literacies framework as an impetus for English teaching and teacher education.

Black girls’ engagement in out-of-school mathematics learning ecosystems has historically empowered Black girls to see themselves as doers of mathematics. Drawing on critical race theory’s tenets of valuing the experiential knowledge of people of Color and centering of intersectionality, this chapter illuminates the counternarratives of Black girls’ navigation of racism and sexism in middle and secondary learning spaces. Specifically, we juxtapose the experiences of Black girls’ success in middle and secondary learning mathematics spaces that center the Black girl gaze (BGG) with those that center the white gaze to highlight practices supportive of Black girl mathematical genius. We present implications for teacher practices that challenge the structural invisibility of Black girls within middle and secondary learning spaces.

This article amplifies the untold narratives of Black women STEM educators and highlights their valuable wisdom in teaching. The study examined the unique experiences of Black women while teaching at a STEM summer camp. The purpose of this research is to reveal the pedagogical choices that Black women utilized while teaching STEM with Black girls. Using phenomenological case study methodology, the study investigated Black women’s pedagogical praxis, nurturing relationships, and innovative strategies employed to inspire and empower Black girls in STEM. The case is bound by the demographic surveys, responses from Black women’s journals, and follow-up interviews. The following research question guided this study: how do Black women educators describe their experiences teaching Black girls in STEM? The findings focus on three Black women educators in an informal STEM environment. Utilizing a phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST), the study analyses their experiences at micro and meso levels, which demonstrated how the environment shaped their experiences and relationships. Findings show Black women’s pedagogical praxis within informal STEM environments fosters participation and affirms the intersecting identities of Black girls, including their gender, racial, and STEM identities. This article contributes to existing knowledge of educational STEM research by emphasizing the critical role of the microsystem and mesosystem in encouraging positive connections for Black women STEM educators. The evidence from this study suggests that there are implications for practice in educational spaces that encourage Black girls to pursue STEM fields. Citation: Williams, Michele, ‘We Built This Too: Amplifying Black Women Educators’ Innovations and Contributions to STEM Education (24 Feb. 2026), in Nadia E Brown, Meena Dhanda, Kouslaa Kessler-Mata (eds), The Sciences, Medicine, and Technology in Meena Dhanda (ed.), Oxford Intersections: Racism by Context (Oxford, online edn, Oxford Academic, 20 Mar. 2025 -), https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198945246.003.0175, accessed [date].

Black girls are more likely to receive in-school suspension (ISS) in comparison to their non-Black peers. However, research on the effect of in-school suspension on students’ academic achievement, specifically math achievement of Black girls, is still very limited. Mathematics is an important foundational component of science, technology, and engineering fields, which are domains in which Black girls are underrepresented. Using the nationally representative Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), this study explores the relationship between in-school suspension and the highest math course completed in a multi-level analysis of 860 Black female participants from 320 high schools. Our findings revealed that in-school suspension was associated with lower mathematics course-taking. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed.

There has been a marked rise in U.S. clubs and television programs promoting coding for young girls. These clubs and television shows position girls as either benefiting economically through the figure of the “can-do girl” or potentially failing as an “at-risk girl.” This article looks at two iterations of the girl coder – in Nickelodeon’s 2015 sitcom Game Shakers and in the rhetoric of Black Girl CODE and Girls Who Code – placing them within broader understandings of girlhood, economics, race, and labor. This analysis reveals the ways in which girl programmers become attached to racialized economic imaginings in these two instances either as idealized white child workers in the case of Game Shakers or future Black computer scientists within coding clubs. This positioning intimately ties girl programmers to economics, labor, and neoliberal ideals; however, this paper proposes that we need to imagine other possible goals for the girl programmer, particularly for Black and Brown girls. IMPACT SUMMARY a. Prior State of Knowledge: Since 2010 there has been a push to get girls into computer coding with particular attention paid to the pipeline problem. This rhetoric has been both touted and questioned. b. Novel Contributions: This article adds a critical look at how Black and Brown girls are positioned within computer programming initiatives and discourses using two primary case studies. It then offers a non-future oriented way of considering computer coding for girls. c. Practical Implications: This project suggests that researchers must continue to pay attention to the nuances of raced neoliberal capitalism in studies on girl’s media even as initiatives are widely considered positive.

Critical thinking skills are invaluable for the process of asking reasonable questions and making rational decisions. Science classrooms are an excellent place to develop critical thinking skills for all students. Unfortunately, Black girls are often left out from opportunities to be in good science classrooms and/or exposed to effective science instruction. This marginalization diminishes their access to critical thinking skill development. Because Black girls, for a variety of reasons are not participating in science education they are missing the opportunity to develop, exercise and enhance their critical thinking skills. One approach that has shown promising effectiveness in developing critical thinking skills is the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH). The SWH approach helps students develop skills in the process of asking questions, making claims, and providing evidence through argument-based inquiry. The current study examines the impact of the SWH on critical thinking skills growth of 5th grade Black girls in a midwestern state. Results suggest practical implications for using the SWH to develop critical thinking skills for Black girls over the course of a school year. Statistical significance was found within the treatment group in two to subtest of the critical thinking measure when comparing pre- and post-test results. Practical analysis via effect size statistics is also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to proffer the idea to “gaze” past gender and racial achievement gaps by providing a growth-based assessment of the achievement of Black girls. The study aims to elucidate how alternatives to traditional achievement gap analyses can yield information relevant to addressing classroom challenges. This exploratory analysis utilized effect sizes and confidence intervals to summarize the achievement of Black girls in mathematics across fourth and eighth grade NAEP assessments. This approach was selected because it supports meta-analytic thinking, which is important for comparison and generalization across studies. The results of this quantitative single-group summary of NAEP data indicated that Black female students demonstrated performance contrary to popular results for female students in general. Fourth grade Black girls demonstrated growth in Number and Operations and Algebra and solid performance in Measurement across time. While statistically significant growth across all mathematics subject matter was observed for eighth grade Black girls. This study contributes to the literature on intersectionality and achievement by extending both lines of inquiry. Intersectional research rarely investigates student achievement with a quantitative lens, while achievement research traditionally utilizes a between group comparative approach. The practical and empirical implications of these research extensions are provided in the discussion.

Within this multiple-case study, we explored the experiences of Black women in senior student affairs officer (SSAO) positions at four-year historically white institutions (HWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States. We used Black feminist thought and representational bureaucracy to theoretically frame the study. Participants included SSAOs representing three HWIs and two HBCUs. Four central themes—often expressed within experiences of marginalization—emerged across the cases: 1) I Have a Right to Be Here; 2) Creating Networks; 3) No Straight Line to the Top; and 4) I’m Thinking about the Black Girls Coming Behind Me. We conclude the study with a discussion, implications for practice, and recommendations for ongoing research.

Black adolescents in the foster care system are at risk for a wide variety of negative outcomes. However, little is known about the role of multilevel promotive factors, particularly relational permanence, in promoting resilience in regards to race and gender for Black adolescents in foster care. This longitudinal study examines whether gender impacts the association between multilevel promotive factors and psychological well-being among Black adolescents in foster care. Participants were 489 Black adolescents who completed the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths assessment between 2007 and 2012. It was hypothesized that promotive factors would play a different role for Black boys and girls. Findings indicate that relational permanence was positively associated with psychological well-being for Black boys, but not for Black girls. Additionally, maltreatment type and number of placements also significantly predicted relational permanence at Time 2 for boys, but not girls. Taken together, these findings suggest that more attention needs to focus on promotive factors that predict positive outcomes for Black girls in the foster care system. Implications for practice and policy related to the gendered needs of Black adolescents in foster care are discussed.

The educational experiences of Black immigrant women in P-16 education are often understudied in critical scholarship about race, ethnicity, and gender. The existing literature on Black students in US higher education tends to overlook within-group diversity, oftentimes highlighting the experience of domestically born African Americans and neglecting the experiences of Black people born outside of the country. To address this gap in the education discourse, we examined the experiences of Black, African immigrant girls and women who have experienced all or part of their P-16 education in the United States. Using a combination of Critical Race Feminism (CRF) and transnationalism as our theoretical frameworks, we sought to answer two research questions: (1) How do Black immigrant women in the film describe their process of racial, ethnic, and gender identity formation? and (2) What are the literacy practices and educational experiences of Black African girls and women? Methodologically, we drew from Saldaña's (2009) model of film-based qualitative inquiry to analyze the documentary Am I: Too African to be American or Too American to be African? (directed by Dr Nadia Sasso). In our analysis, we foreground the lived experiences of eight women from three African countries: Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. Major findings from this qualitative analysis include: (1) the importance of cultural negotiation for immigrant girls and women, (2) the presence of dualities in language and ways of speaking in education, (3) a tumultuous racial identity formation process, and (4) the linked perceptions of students' gender identity and beauty. Finally, we present implications for immigration policy, inclusive research, and equitable practice across P-16 education.

Research suggests that Restorative Justice approaches have shown promise in terms of their impact on school climate, student behavior, and relationships. The purpose of this study is to explore Black female students’ perceptions of Restorative Practice (RP) talking circles at an alternative school. The study examined literature on Zero Tolerance, School Discipline Disparities, African American Female students, Intersectionality, Restorative Justice, and Alternative Schools. A qualitative case study method was used for this study, drawing from two sources: (a) face-to-face interviews and (b) observations of the Black female students who attend the alternative school and participate in the talking circles. Analyses of the transcripts and observations of student experiences in the RP talking circles helped to paint a picture of the many emergent themes and individual stories. From these analyses, seven themes emerged: talking circle procedures and elements, single-gender circles, the circle keeper, self-awareness, helpful circle topics, letting things out, and relationships. The study concludes by providing implications for policy, practice, and future research studies.

In this article, we contextualize Black racial identity in the current sociopolitical context, and present and discuss a group counseling intervention using poetry as the medium to explore issues that foster a positive sense of racial identity in Black girls. We used the phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory as a framework to unpack the group counseling lessons, which are presented in detail. We also discuss implications for school counselor practice, preparation, and research.

ABSTRACTAfrican American social work scholars recommend rigorous research and evaluation of Africentric interventions as one approach to building culturally appropriate, evidence-based treatments for the Black community. Following this approach, this pilot study evaluates the Imani Rites of Passage program, a 15-week Africentric curriculum with 10 Black adolescent females (mean age = 12.40), comparing their pre- and post-intervention data to that of a no-intervention group of 13 Black males (mean age = 12.08). The program evaluation is based on the degree of correspondence between theory and the measurement model spelled out by the cognitive-cultural view of African-American identity. The findings for Black females were consistent with the cognitive-cultural model in some ways but not in others, and they were more complex than the predictions. Future Africentric interventions guided by the cognitive-cultural model must consider gender differences in the outcomes. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.

Research suggests police stops are associated with delinquency and arrest in adolescence, but limited research has examined the extent to which these associations vary by intersectional identities. The labeling and life-course perspectives argue police stops may increase later delinquency/arrest and that these relationships may vary according to when an individual is first stopped. Critical race feminist perspectives suggest Black girls may be especially likely to experience negative consequences following a police stop. The goal of the current study was to examine the relationships between police stops in childhood and adolescence and delinquency and arrest in adolescence, as well as identify how these relationships vary by gender and race. Results suggest the relationships between police stops and subsequent delinquency and arrest differ across gender and race. Further, Black girls experience the greatest increase in probability of arrest following a stop in adolescence. Findings have important implications for research, policy, and practice.

Drawing from an arts-based research and humanizing methodologies, Dywanna Smith documents transformative and liberatory spaces in ELA middle level classrooms, where students address and counteract discrimination, colorism, sizism, and body shaming. Grounded in an original qualitative study of adolescent Black girls, this book examines how such "truth spaces" serve as a medium for adolescents to self-examine their intersectional identities and give voice to their resilience in the face of marginalization. Incorporating original narratives, including the author’s self-actualizing verse novel and the voices of Black female students, Smith shines a light on new culturally sustaining pedagogies and offers much-needed implications for practice. Smith expertly weaves together poetry, research, and empathy; the result is a pioneering text that urges readers to understand the impact of anti-Black violence and the important role literacy sanctuaries can play in supporting Black girls’ resilience and development. The novel in verse at the heart of the volume is not only a provocative and necessary call for transformative change, but also a window into a courageous lived experience. This book is essential reading for pre-service teachers, scholars, and students in literacy education, inclusive education, and teacher education.