Black and brown girls remain too often at the margins not only in society at large and in our schools but also in our research and writing about schools.  Herein we argue for careful consideration of the specific ways that their raced and gendered identities render these girls vulnerable and put them in jeopardy so that educators and scholars do not become complicit in their marginalization. We focus on dynamics of invisibility and hypervisibility. While these dynamics may seem to be diametrically opposite, both involve the process of what scholar Nancy Fraser (2000) calls “misrecognition” (p. 113)

Lewis, Amanda E.

Lewis, Deana G.

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Occasional Paper Series Volume 2017 Number 38 #SayHerName: Making Visible the t/Terrors Experienced by Black and Brown Girls and Women in Schools Article 9 October 2017 Where our Girls at? The Misrecognition of Black and Brown girls in schools Amanda E. Lewis University of Illinois at Chicago Deana G. Lewis University of Illinois at Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series  Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Educational Sociology Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Lewis, A. E., & Lewis, D. G. (2017). Where our Girls at? The Misrecognition of Black and Brown girls in schools. Occasional Paper Series, 2017 (38). Retrieved from https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/vol2017/iss38/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Educate. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occasional Paper Series by an authorized editor of Educate. For more information, please contact kfreda@bankstreet.edu.  Occasional Paper Series | 1Where Our Girls At?The Misrecognition of  Black and Brown Girls in SchoolsAmanda E. Lewis and Deana G. LewisBlack and Brown girls are often marginalized, not only in society and in schools, but in research about schools; their experiences and needs are relegated to the sidelines or disregarded entirely.1 In this essay we argue for careful consideration of  the specific ways that Black and Brown raced and gendered identities render these girls vulnerable and put them in jeopardy. Dangers abound, not only from approaches that focus exclusively on gender or exclusively on race/ethnicity, but from colorblind or other supposedly race-neutral approaches that render these girls more rather than less vulnerable (O’Connor, Lewis, & Mueller, 2007), and make educators and scholars more likely to be complicit in their marginalization.We focus on just a few of  the many ways that this marginalization happens. We provide two classroom vignettes that capture dynamics of  invisibility and hypervisibility. While these dynamics may seem to be diametrically opposite, both involve the process of  what Fraser (2000) called misrecognition: “To be misrecognized… is to be denied the status of  a full partner in social interaction, as a consequence of  institutionalized patterns of  cultural value that constitute one as comparatively unworthy of  respect or esteem” (p. 113). 1 Here we are focused primarily on cisgender (non-trans) girls’ experiences. We recognize that these experiences of mar-ginality become even more intensified for trans youth, non-binary youth, and queer youth.2 | Bank Street College of EducationInvisibilityIn one study of  race making, the first author spent a year doing daily participant observation in two urban schools in a West Coast city—a Spanish immersion school that was predominantly Latinx2 and White, and a multiracial neighborhood school (Lewis, 2003). While reading through her fieldnotes for emerging patterns, she discovered a critical absence: despite the fact that they were represented in high numbers in both schools, Latinx students were largely missing from the fieldnotes. And this was in a school where most of  the students were first- or second-generation Chicanas. In each school’s hectic classrooms, her notes documented action, vocal exchanges, tensions, lesson plans, and who was getting called on and how. But she had not “taken note of ” those whose hands weren’t going up, those who weren’t asking for help, those who were never out of  their seats.  After that discovery, she spent the next few weeks closely watching Latinxs in these classrooms and discovered that their lack of  visibility was not confined to fieldnotes, but to classroom processes more generally. Fieldnotes thereafter captured moments when these girls were placed in reading groups not because of  their reading level but because of  their “flexibility” in peer group dynamics; moments when they sat quietly at their desks, confused about the assignment, not asking for help, not causing any disruption; and entire math periods with classwork left undone and no one taking notice. These girls moved through the school day largely staying under the radar, ignored by teachers and not asking for assistance. Socially and academically,  their needs remained firmly on the margins. Far from idiosyncratic, this echoes similar work that has found that students of  color often feel less connected to teachers who lack the will or the ability to fully engage them (Voight, Hanson, O’Malley, & Adekanye, 2015).  What would be possible if  Black and Latinx girls’ educational experiences were centered in schools and classrooms?3 HypervisibilityIn a recent book, the first author described life at Riverview High School, a well-resourced suburban school in the Midwest with a very diverse study body (Lewis & Diamond, 2015). While the study focused on understanding the racial achievement gap at the school, one of  the key sets of  findings focused on subtle daily disciplinary practices. These disciplinary routines were recognized by almost everyone in the school to be racially inflected (at minimum). 2  Latinx is a gender-neutral term that takes the place of Latina and Latino to refer to people of Latin American descent.3 As Carter (2005, 2012) has discussed, negative racial climates in schools have multiple consequences for students who have to contend with institutional messages that negatively characterize their identities and cultural repertoires. Occasional Paper Series | 3Lewis and Diamond (2015), like other researchers, found that Black boys were subject to high levels of  monitoring and discipline. But they also found that Black girls were subject to unfair treatment related to a quite different set of  stereotypes or, as Collins (2000) describes, controlling images.  Black girls’ bodies were understood differently, rendered problematic, and “adultified” in distinct but still problematic ways (Ferguson, 2000).  A key example was how the school “policed” violations of  school dress codes. The rules, as described in the school handbook, read:Brief  and revealing clothing are not appropriate in school. Examples include tank or halter tops, garments with spaghetti straps or strapless garments; clothing that is “see-through,” cut low, or exposes one’s midriff; or skirts that are shorter than 3-inches above the knee.An internet search revealed similar language in school discipline codes from around the country.  These seem to be common expectations in many high schools. However, as one teacher explained, girls were being assessed through adults’ racialized lenses that perceived only some of  them to be in violation: We had a policy that the girls couldn’t have their belly showing. All you saw walking in the hall [was] girls with their white bellies out. Black girls sent home.  They [Black girls] were pissed off.  [One Black student] said, “Well, why are you saying something to me. I’m sitting up in a room with six white girls with their stomach out and you pick me out of  the group.”As this teacher described, girls are not always passive recipients of  such differential discipline. Tiffany, a junior at the school noted, “They tried to get me one year but I wasn’t havin’ it. I put up a fight. I said, ‘You know, that’s not fair.” And girls like Tiffany regularly resist being framed as a problem. Yet even as they resist, they learn important lessons about how their raced and gendered identities subject them to scrutiny.  All the Girls are White, All the Blacks are Boys…In cases of  both invisibility and hypervisibility, these girls are experiencing the full brunt of  misrecognition—having a wide range of  raced and gendered tropes projected onto their bodies as they are simultaneously denied access to the kinds of  educational experiences they need and deserve. Misrecognition is a problem not only in schools, but in research about schools. When attention is called to the needs of  girls or the crisis around Black and Brown children, familiar patterns emerge where a focus on girls’ experiences is about mostly White girls and a focus on Black or Latinx students’ 4 | Bank Street College of Educationexperiences centers on boys (Hull, Scott, & Smith, 1982). In research about gender or girls’ performance in the classroom, White, middle-class girls are considered the norm (Evans-Winters, 2011; Morris, 2007; Morris 2012, 2016). In educational research on disproportionality in school discipline, Black girls’ experiences are on the sidelines (Morris, 2012; Noguera, 2003, 2008). These girls are not only misrecognized in schools but also marginalized in research on student experiences in schools.  Schools should strive to be places of  sanctuary where students’ full humanity is acknowledged, their developmentally appropriate struggles are recognized—places where we help them figure out who they want to be in the world, and we help them to gain the skills they need to realize their aspirations. We can only know whether schools are falling short if  educational leaders, scholars, and policymakers put Black and Brown girls at the center of  our attention with a keen eye to the multiple ways they are often misrecognized. It is our responsibility as educators and researchers to ensure that these young women are written into schooling and educational narratives to underscore the importance of  their experiences and contributions to the world.Occasional Paper Series | 5ReferencesCarter, P. L. (2005). Keepin’ it real: School success beyond black and white. New York, NY: Oxford    University Press.Carter, P. L. (2012). Stubborn roots: Race, culture, and inequality in U.S. and South African schools.    Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of      empowerment (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.Evans-Winters, V. E. (2011). Teaching Black girls: Resiliency in urban classrooms (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Peter Lang.Ferguson, A. A. (2000). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of  Black masculinity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of  Michigan Press.Fraser, N. (2000). Rethinking recognition. New Left Review, 3, 107–120.Hull, G., Scott, P. B., & Smith, B. (1982). All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of  Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. New York: Feminist Press.Lewis, A. E. (2003). Race in the schoolyard: Negotiating the color line in classrooms and communities. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Lewis, A. E., & Diamond, J. B. (2015). Despite the best intentions: How racial inequality thrives in    good schools. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Morris, E. W. (2007). “Ladies” or “Loudies”?  Perceptions and experiences of  Black girls in classrooms. Youth & Society, 38(4), 490–515.Morris, M. W. (2012). Race, gender and the school-to-prison pipeline: Expanding our discussion to inclusion. New York, NY: African American Policy Forum. Morris, M. W. (2016). Pushout: The criminalization of  Black girls in schools. New York, NY: The New Press.Noguera, P. A. (2003). Schools, prisons, and social implications of  punishment: Rethinking disciplinary practices. Theory Into Practice, 42(4), 341–350.Noguera, P. A. (2008). The trouble with Black boys… And other reflections on race, equity, and the    future of  public education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.O’Connor, C., Lewis, A. E., & Mueller, J.  (2007). Researching African-American’s educational    experiences: Theoretical and practical considerations. Educational Researcher 36, 541-552.Voight, A., Hanson, T., O’Malley, M., & Adekanye, L. (2015). The racial school climate gap: Within-school disparities in students’ experiences of  safety, support, and connectedness.    American Journal of  Community Psychology, 56(3–4), 252–267.6 | Bank Street College of EducationAmanda E. Lewis is Professor of  Sociology and African American Studies and Director of  the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of  Illinois at Chicago. She is a white anti-racist scholar who has been studying racial dynamics in schools for over two decades. She regularly works with educators to advance racial justice in schools.Deana G. Lewis is a graduate student in educational policy studies and a research assistant at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of  Illinois at Chicago. She is a black feminist as well as a prison abolitionist scholar-activist who supports those of  marginalized genders who have defended themselves against intimate partner violence/domestic violence only to be jailed by the state.

Where our Girls at?  The Misrecognition of Black and Brown girls in schools

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Where our Girls at? The Misrecognition of Black and Brown girls in schools

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