Educating Black Girls to Thrive

Catalog description

This seminar enacts a critical investigation of the social, political, cultural narrative and lived experiences of African American girls in the United States, utilizing Black Feminist and Womanist frameworks as a grounded approach to investigate, explore, and understand the experience of criminalization many Black girls are expected to survive in American schools. This seminar will include discourse that examines the relationship between narratives constructed around freedom and criminalization among Black girls in American schools. The purpose of this seminar is to engage students in reflective examination around the following broad themes related to the expectations and experiences of Black girls in American schools: gendered expectations; “adultification;” the policing of bodies; carceral treatment; internal wounding and healing; and empowerment. This seminar will also explore Black feminist pedagogical practices and Womanist ideals that promote an alternative to traditional methods for educating Black girls.