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Young, Black, and female: the education of Black female students and effects on identity development

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Young, Black, and female: the education of Black female students and effects on identity development

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Content Running head: BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 1
YOUNG, BLACK AND FEMALE: THE EDUCATION OF BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS
AND EFFECTS ON IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT

by

Khalisha Nicole Jefferson

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

August 2016

Copyright 2016 Khalisha Nicole Jefferson
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 2
Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to my daughters, Lola Leilani Jefferson and Sasha Sage Jefferson
for whom I seek to be the best mother. Over three years my time and energy has been split
between school and home, but I have worked to ensure that I know how to develop positive
African American daughters. Lola and Sasha this work I have done is for you and because of you.
I love you both unconditionally and I am so proud of what we have accomplished as a family.

To my dedicated husband, Royce, I love you for supporting me throughout this process. You
have been patient and understanding – I could not have done this without you. Thank you for
allowing me to take time away from us to pursue my dreams. Thank you for being my life
partner.

To my parents, Larry and Kathleen Wiggs, thank you for stepping in with Lola and Sasha. The
messages you sent me from a young child to now have been what I needed to propel to be where
I stand today. You never discouraged me from trying and you always supported my dreams.
Thank you for always investing in me!

To my brother Larry – I am so proud of you and you are up next!

Dr. Jefferson, Mrs. Jefferson, Shannon, Doug, Sandy and Michael thank you all for extending
yourselves to help with the girls. I could not have done this without any of you.

Marquetta and the Brown Team, thank you for being my cheering squad. Thank you for years of
love, friendship and fun – I am looking forward to many more years together.

My Spelman Sisters – thank you for being a source of motivation. You all are inspirations to me
to challenge myself. Doctors of Adinkra and JENGA – it has been an adventure with you all
from Los Angeles to Brazil, memories of our time together will be cherished.

To my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – thank you, you all inspire me to do more and
not to settle!

Thank you all for inspiring me – Dr. Sylvia Rousseau, Dr. Amy Mazur, Dr. Shaakira Akbar, Dr.
Flora Cordett, Dr. Rupi Boyd, Dr. Nisha Dugal, Dr. Laura Hernandez-Flores, and Dr. Sandra
Roussell
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 3
Table of Contents
Dedication 2

List of Tables 5

List of Figures 6

Abstract 7

Chapter One: Background to the Study 8

Statement of the Problem 13

Purpose of the Study 15

Theoretical Frames 15

Research Questions 19

Importance of the Study 19

Limitations and Delimitations 20

Definition of Terms 21

Organization of the Study 22

Chapter Two: Literature Review 24

Section I – Macrosystem: Multiple Oppressions 25

Racism 27

Sexism 29

Stereotypes 32

Classism 39

Section II – Exosystem: Influence of Policies on Education 41

Discrimination Based on Race 42

Patterns of Discrimination in Education 42

School Discipline 46

Section III – Mesosystem: Parents and Teachers 48

School-Home Dissonance 49

Support in School 50

Future Selves 53

Family Role 54

Section IV – Microsystem: Adolescent Girls Responses 55

Adolescent Girls 56

Coping Skills 57

Mentorship 61

Critical Race Theory 62

Conclusion 64

Chapter Three: Methodology 65

Sample and Population 67

Student Criteria 67

Focus Group Recruitment and Selection 67

One-on-one Interview Recruitment 68

Consent Form 69

Incentives 69

Interviews 69

Instruments 71

Observations 72

BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 4
Data Analysis 73

Triangulation 74

Limitations and Delimitations 75

Conclusion 76

Chapter Four: Study Results 77

Research Question 1 79

Race and Ethnicity 80

Intersectionality – Race and Gender 83

Gender Over Race Identity 90

Research Question 2 92

School Environment and Culture 92

Institutional Agents and Social Capital 105

Teacher Perceptions 111

Peers 113

School-Related Hindrances 119

Overlooked 121

Under-Protected 123

Research Question 3 125

Economics and Family Structure 126

Parental Expectations 139

Coping Skills Developed Under Parent Guidance 141

Conclusion 146

Chapter Five: Findings 148

Conclusions 148

Findings 149

Findings Pertaining to Research Question 1 150

Implications Pertaining to Research Question 1 151

Recommendation 151

Findings Pertaining to Research Question 2 152

Implications Pertaining to Research Question 2 154

Recommendation 155

Findings Pertaining to Research Question 3 156

Implications Pertaining to Research Question 3 157

Recommendations for Future Research 159

References 161

Appendix A: Focus Group Script for African American Girls 172

Appendix B: Childhood Racial Socialization Experiences Scale 173

Appendix C: Student Interview Questions 174

Appendix D: Observation Protocol 177

BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 5
List of Tables
Table 1: Creswell’s (2002) Steps for Data Analysis 75

Table 2: Participant Demographics 79

Table 3: Participant Race and Ethnicity 82

Table 4: Participants’ Education 93

Table 5: Messages 134

BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 6
List of Figures
Figure 1: Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory 16

Figure 2: Erikson’s (1968) Psychosocial Stages of Development 17

BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 7
Abstract
A qualitative study of seven African American female first- and second-year
undergraduate students attending a top-tier predominately White institution is the focus of
study. The effects of middle school and high school experiences on positive identity
development are examined. The Bronfenbrenner Ecological Theory (1986), Erikson
Psychosocial Stages of Development (1968) and Bourdieu Social Capital Theory (1986) are
used to describe the influences of environment, personal crises, and social capital on positive,
healthy identity development of the African American female students. Focus groups, one-
on-one interviews, and observations were used to measure the convergence of information
for data analysis and triangulation of collected data (Creswell, 2014; Maxwell, 2013;
Merriam, 2009).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 8
CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
African American females in public education face challenges related to their race, class,
and gender that are given minimal attention in research while African American male academic
achievement is studied extensively. When compared by race to other female students, evidence
of a gap in academic performance surfaces that both leads to a gap in opportunity and to a status
of inequality. These students’ experiences in and out of school shape their identity, have an
impact on their academic success, and affect their future economic upward mobility.
African American females have been denied access to opportunities that would improve
their quality of life. Also, they have been measured by social standards and norms to which they
are forced to conform or cannot conform because of cultural differences (Thomas, Hoxha, &
Hacker 2013). Social standards and norms are disseminated through education, media, and
discourses derived from the traditional and historical experiences of the dominant culture
(Dupree, Spencer, & Spencer, 2015; Thomas, et al., 2013). The acceptance of societal standards
and norms by an individual who has been marginalized in society can be problematic, especially
if those norms and standards are contrary to that individual’s own lived experience (Cokley,
McClain, Jones, & Johnson, 2011). As a result of their marginalization, having to contend with
racist and sexist stereotypes, role expectations, and stigmas, the process of developing a positive
self-identity becomes challenging for African American adolescent females (Dupree et al., 2015;
Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010; Thomas, et al., 2013).
Furthermore, family and school experiences can either support or hinder the development
of positive self-identities (Dupree et al., 2015; Thomas, et al., 2013). The deep structural
inequalities and hidden curriculum embedded in the public education system ensure perpetual
challenges for the African American female student and result in multiple oppressions on her
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 9
(Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010; Muhammad & Dixson, 2008; Wepner, 2012). The multiple
oppressions take on many different forms, but are most commonly labeled racism, sexism, and
classism. Race, gender and class oppression in the mainstream classroom exclude some African
American females from full participation in opportunities to develop healthy identities as
students in the context of schooling (Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010). Teacher perceptions of
students based on societal norms may relay messages that have a negative impact on the
student’s educational experience and identity development. Similarly, family members and peers
who experience and internalize oppressive societal marginalization may also relay negative
messages to these adolescents (Pyke, 2010). The dissonance between family and school culture
exacerbate the multiple oppressions on the African American females in and out of school, thus
creating wider opportunity gaps (Wepner, 2012).
Some data provide a picture of the challenges African American females face in the
school context. Low-income African American girls are educated in schools with fewer
opportunities for advancement than are middle class students and White girls (Crenshaw, Ocen,
& Nanda, 2015). Additionally, low-income African American girls are punished more often than
are girls of other races. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2015), African
American girls are suspended at higher rates (12%) than are girls of any other race or ethnicity
and most boys. Schools populated by minority students have been found to provide less access to
college preparatory classes, gifted programs and Advanced Placement courses (Crenshaw et al.,
2015). These data affect African American young women and young men. The U.S. Department
of Education (2015) found that 26% of minority-serving schools do not offer Algebra II, and
one-third of the schools do not offer chemistry. Students cannot be competitive to gain
admittance to institutions of higher education without these courses. Additionally, 12% of
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 10
African American students are retained in grade 9, which is double the rate at which all students
are retained (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2015). These data show the
disparate opportunities for the low-income adolescent African American girls, in particular.
A disproportionate number of academic challenges facing African American females
result from social restraints of racism, sexism and classism imposed on them by the dominant
culture preventing a sense of equality (Evans-Winters, & Esposito, 2010; Shorter-Gooden &
Washington, 1996). Throughout history, African American women have experienced multiple
oppressions and have been denied full benefits and attention as citizens. Women of African
descent were not included in the U.S. Constitution as a result of gender and race. African
Americans were not U.S. citizens until 1868, and it was not until 1965 that they were privy to the
freedoms of the country (Evans-Winters, & Esposito, 2010). Under the institutionalization of
slavery, Blacks of both genders became property in a caste system distinguishing people
predominately by skin color. During this time, White superiority, power, and privilege permeated
North American culture. African Americans, particularly women, were silenced and their actions
were controlled. Black women’s bodies were used for bearing children to maintain slave labor
forces (Evans-Winters, & Esposito, 2010). The education of a Black woman or child was of no
interest to the dominant class and race because her worth was measured by her ability to
reproduce the next generation of slave labor.
The treatment of African American females caused the African American family to
experience instability, separation and poverty as a result of generations of slavery, Jim Crow
laws, and discrimination (hooks, 2000). Oppressions on the women were a legal part of U.S.
culture that limited participation in U.S. politics, economy, and education. Even when, in some
cases, voting rights were granted to Black men and to White women, they did not apply to Black
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 11
women. For instance, when Massachusetts passed a law to abolish slavery, African American
men were granted the right to vote. However, African American women were denied the same
right. In Virginia, the law that demanded the taxation of free Black women did not apply to
White women (World History Group, 2016; Norwood, 2013; Race Forward, 2006).
Laws that accommodated racism extended into public transportation and education. The
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson court case established a principle of separate but equal transportation
based on race that extended to schools. De jure laws demanded that children were to be educated
separately based on racial differences with claims that the education for Black children was equal
to that for White children. Even when the court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954
required an end to de jure segregation, segregation by economic and ethnic communities
continued as de facto segregation (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003). The 1960’s Civil Rights
Movement aimed at creating equality for Black people while overlooking the needs of Black
women specifically. The degradation of African American women was common practice during
the Jim Crow South, as altering the treatment of African American females was not a result of
the Civil Rights Movement and it was not the focus of Civil Rights leader’s attention (Smith-
Evans, George, Graves, Kaufmann & Frohlich, 2014). The 1970’s feminist movement focused
on the needs of middle class White women while overlooking the ingrained racism within their
movement (Collins, 2000; hooks, 2000). The necessary attention to the development of African
American female identity has not been provided.
Today, African American students attend schools with majority culturally and
linguistically diverse youth while White students attend schools with majority White students
(Evans-Winters, & Esposito, 2010; Hochschild, & Scovronick, 2003; Wepner et al., 2012). The
de facto segregation of students does not contribute positively to future race, gender, and class
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 12
equality for low-income African American female students. African American girls’
stigmatization in school hinders their ability to negotiate a strong school attachment and
threatens persistence to graduation (Crenshaw et al., 2015). African American females are
resilient in the face of everyday pressures, but trying to be strong does not protect them against
the influence of multiple oppressions on positive self-concepts (Gaylord-Harden & Cunningham,
2009). There is an absence of protection in educational institutions for African American female
students (Crenshaw et al. 2015; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Constant exposure to multiple
oppressive systems, such as racism, sexism, and classism, imposed by the dominant culture can
leave African American girls with negative feelings and attitudes about themselves or their
cultural group (Gaylord-Harden & Cunningham, 2009).
While acknowledging the constant oppressions on African American women in the
United States, there are women who successfully challenge the status quo and succeed in altering
limitations based on difference in race, class, and gender (BlackPast.org, 2015; Crenshaw et al.,
2015). For example, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman were African American women born
into slavery credited with becoming abolitionists and advocates of freedom for African
Americans (BlackPast.org, 2015). Madame CJ Walker and Oprah Winfrey are women who
challenged the economic restraints on African American women in America. Both women
achieved millionaire status during their lifetimes (BlackPast.org, 2015). Although the 1988
Olympic track and field four-time gold medalist, Florence Griffith Joyner, was born into poverty,
she was selected to serve on the United States President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports
in 1993 (BlackPast.org, 2015). She continues to hold records in track and field that men cannot
beat in most countries. Dr. Mae Jemison is an example of a woman moving beyond society’s
limited expectations of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 13
Space travel has been male dominated in the African American community, yet Dr. Mae Jemison
was the first and only African American female to travel in space (BlackPast.org, 2015). The
women named are only a few who are recognized in United States history for their resiliency and
fortitude to move beyond their social constraints to question status quo and change the expected
outcomes for themselves and others. The women listed can serve as inspirational exemplars for
adolescent African American females who are challenged.
Statement of the Problem
The academic identity of the African American is multilayered, but the preponderance of
research is about African American males, often leaving African American female experiences
overlooked. Although a vast amount of research and evidence illustrate the issues surrounding
the African American male student in education, there is less focus on the marginalization of
low-income women of color, specifically African American females (Evans-Winter & Esposito,
2010). African American females experience many of the same educational, economic and social
challenges as those of the African American male, yet the specific educational needs of African
American females in urban schools are overlooked and their unique challenges have been
minimally documented (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). The failure to consider
race, class, and gender dynamics in the education of African American female students
overlooks the influence of these factors on their missed opportunities to learn in school
(Muhammad & Dixson, 2008). The unique challenges of African American women are related to
the intersection of race, sex, and class leading to discriminatory practices in education. African
American women make up a notably underserved population whose challenges are unknown
from lack of attention (Collins, 2000), as research has not focused attention on solving the
challenges that affect them in the United States.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 14
One of the challenges African American females face in education is that national
academic data are disaggregated by race or gender, but not by gender and race, thus making their
academic achievement difficult to trace. The 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) database demonstrates the academic underachievement of African American students
overall. NAEP data show African American students lag behind nearly every subgroup in
reading and math regardless of the grade level tested. From 1992 through 2013, although females
in general excelled in comparison to male students, as a race, African American students
maintain a 30-point deficit compared to Asian students in reading and an average 26-point deficit
compared to Caucasian students (NAEP, 2015). The data are not disaggregated by gender;
therefore, the status of the African American female student is not obvious, making her
performance invisible. According to NAEP (2015), in October 2012, 7% of African American
females between 16 and 24 years old dropped out of high school at double the rate of Caucasian
female students. Data for SAT mean scores of college-bound seniors show that African
American students received the lowest scores in all categories on the college entrance exam from
1986 through 2012 (NAEP, 2015). Once again, much of the data recorded are disaggregated by
race or gender, but missing in K-12 specific data is information intersecting race and gender to
demonstrate the gains or challenges of the African American female student.
The adolescent African American female faces multiple oppressions inside and outside of
school (Adelabu, 2007; Evans-Winter & Esposito, 2010). The multiple oppressions of racism,
sexism, and classism allow societal constructs of discrimination to exist, in many cases, with the
assistance from laws that govern the country. The dominant culture of the United States has
dictated social conditions by assigning roles, influencing behavior, asserting values, shaping
perception, and steering thoughts about minority group members (Esposito & Murphy, 2010).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 15
Furthermore, the effects of race, gender, and class related stressors manifest in how a young
African American female views herself (Street, Harris-Britt & Walker- Barnes, 2009).
Purpose of the Study
This study will focus on presenting the retrospective middle and high school experiences
of first and second year African American female students. Through qualitative methods, the
study seeks to understand the impact that multiple oppressions have on their identity
development in school and in society. This study seeks to add to the current literature to explore
the multilayered experiences of adolescent African American females. Findings from this study
can lead to recommendations that offer supportive measures to increase positive self-identity
development for African American adolescent females. In this study, selected young African
American adolescent females will have an opportunity to detail their diverse experiences for
educators. The overarching purpose is to impose change in the interactions, expectations and
support provided for the development of positive gender, racial and academic identity
development of African American adolescent female students in school.
Theoretical Frames
In order to investigate the relationship between race, class and gender within academic
experiences and identity development in adolescent African American girls, three theoretical
frameworks are utilized. Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory of human development was
used to examine the influence of a person’s environment on her development from childhood.
Each of the levels in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of human development includes
systems that influence the development of an individual, including microsystem, mesosystem,
exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Each subsystem exerts a specific direct or indirect
type of influence on individuals.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 16

Figure 1. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory
Second, Erikson’s (1968) psychosocial stages of development will be used to explore
African American girls’ identity development in adolescence. Erikson suggests that the primary
goal for adolescence is to develop a coherent and stable identity in which identity confusion
versus identity synthesis is the psychosocial task (Santrock, 2009; Wiley & Berman, 2012).
Identity development is critical in adolescence for youth to determine who they are and what
their role in life will be (Santrock, 2009). The better a person’s identity structure is developed,
the more confident the individual will be in her strengths and limitations, leading to a committed
identity and to becoming a successful person (Santrock, 2009; Wiley & Berman, 2012). Equally,
individuals who struggle to discover who they are and, subsequently, have a less developed
identity are more confused and distressed, leading to identity confusion (Santrock, 2009; Wiley
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 17
& Berman, 2012). Erikson found race and gender to be important domains of identity
development, and, perhaps, the most important aspects of influences on development in African
American children (Santrock, 2009). These two aspects of identity are particularly relevant for
African American girls, as, being female and an ethnic minority, African American girls
negotiate a racial and gendered identity within a historically oppressive context (Collins, 2000).
Therefore, both gender and race are simultaneously critical. Negative messages are perpetually
recycled about what it means to be a Black female (Collins, 2000). African American girls have
a particularly challenging task of developing a healthy identity in spite of controlling images
assigned to them in U.S. society.

Figure 2. Erikson’s (1968) Psychosocial Stages of Development
Third, Bourdieu’s (1986, 2011) social capital theory will be used to determine how
cultural, social, and symbolic capital emerges in adolescent African American females’
experiences in and out of school. Bourdieu’s theory of social capital has implications for success
within the K-12 educational system both in and out of school. The educational system works to
maintain the cultural, symbolic and social capital of the dominant group, further disregarding the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 18
African American student. Bourdieu (1986, 2001) suggests that capital is circulated to reproduce
the established social structures. Those privileged with power have a vested interest in
maintaining their status, but, to do so, covert transmissions of capital must occur. In that instance,
the educational system is utilized to maintain power structures, giving access to those who are
deemed qualified (Bourdieu, 1986, 2001). The distinct forms of cultural, social, and symbolic
capital, affect how school culture values certain types of activities, affiliations and knowledge
(Zamani-Gallaher & Polite, 2013). Family resources have a significant impact on education and
opportunities for a variety of networks. Females from middle- and upper middle-class families
have opportunities to receive greater cultural capital returns than do females from low
socioeconomic families (Zamani-Gallaher & Polite, 2013). Economically disadvantaged African
American females receive fewer opportunities for enhancing social capital as a result of their
family economics and the resources available to them. Schools put less value on the cultural
capital that the low-income students bring to school. Additionally, in poorly funded schools, the
chance for enhancement through education is decreased, and the African American female is not
a priority (Zamani-Gallaher & Polite, 2013). African American females in urban public schools
are subject to being overlooked and negatively impacted for existing as African American,
female, and low-income.
There are three research questions that will guide the study. The questions will allow the
student participants space to articulate their interpretation of their identity. Also, the students will
be asked to reflect on their perception of supports or barriers they experienced in the academic
setting. Finally, the students will be asked to think about the manner in which their parents
prepared them for a top-tier university experience or if their parents did not prepare them for
such encounters.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 19
Research Questions
• What are the ways in which African American female students attending a top-tier
predominately White institution (PWI) describe themselves?
• In what ways do African American females believe their middle and high schools either
supported or hindered the development of their racial, gender and socioeconomic
identities as students?
• What role do African American females perceive that their parents played during their
middle school and high school years to prepare them for admission to a top-tier PWI?
Importance of the Study
The layered experience of African American female students deserves attention. African
American girls’ school experiences can improve their potential for academic success when
educators examine how stereotypes and misperceptions about African Americans affect them.
Continuing as schools currently operate reduces African American girls’ opportunities for
upward mobility. It is important for caregivers and educators alike to be cognizant of the rapid
cognitive, physical and emotional development that takes place among the young adolescent
student while also paying specific attention to their socialization and identity development
(Association for Middle Level Education [AMLE], 2010). Youth receive conflicting messages
from peers, guardians, media and educators about appropriate age, gender, and expected cultural
behavior during adolescence (AMLE, 2010). Guardians and educators shy away from
conversations addressing the issues. For African American youth, developing positive racial and
gender identities conflicts with the majority culture; however positive racial and gender identities
are necessary for achieving success. The young African American adolescent female will have
an opportunity to detail her diverse experiences for educators. The overarching purpose is to
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 20
impose change in the interactions, expectations and support provided for the development of
positive gender and racial identification of African American adolescent female students in
school. Researching the experience of African American females as they develop in adolescence
will provide rich data to encourage change in perceptions. Without addressing the problem now,
the racist and sexist social standards and norms will continue to dominate notions of who should
and who should not have access to opportunities.
Limitations and Delimitations
The experiences of students in institutions of higher education will be considered for the
purpose of convenience sampling. The researcher will interview first-year and second-year
undergraduate female students. Seven African American female undergraduate students will be
asked to reflect on their middle school and high school educational experiences. The college
freshwomen will be asked about their identity development as it related to their middle and high
school experiences.
To capture experiences in school and out of school, through the lens of the student,
observations and interviews will be conducted with African American female students who will
reflect on their middle school and/or high school years. The researcher will have firsthand
experience with the participants via the observations (Creswell, 2014). While there are
significant benefits to observing participants, limitations to observing may be time and access.
The researcher may be limited in the time to build rapport with the participants to ensure the full
experience is disclosed. The interviews will allow the researcher to gain historical insight into
the participant’s experiences as witnessed through the observations (Creswell, 2014). The
researcher will attempt to share the identity development of African American adolescent
females in middle and high school through triangulation of observations, interviews, and a focus
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 21
group. This will allow the research to be generalized across young adolescent African American
females.
Definition of Terms
The following terms were used in this study:
African American, Black: Ogbu’s definition of Black Americans will be used to define African
Americans and Blacks. Black Americans, involuntary (nonimmigrant) minorities, are the
descendants of ancestors brought by force to the United States as slaves (Ogbu & Simons, 1998).
Female, girl, woman: These terms will be used interchangeably throughout the dissertation.
Class: Class is a word that describes access and opportunity. It frequently refers to
socioeconomic status, determined by wealth and it is comprised of prestige, social networks, and
power (DeCuir-Gunby, 2007).
Third Space: The creation of third space is a hybrid environment created by the student and
teacher to combat marginalization and punishment (Barton, Tan & Rivet, 2008).
Opportunity gap: The opportunity gap is defined by the scarcity of resources in low-resourced
schools, low-income families and poverty stricken communities. The dominant society
systematically excludes those lacking economic resources and other forms of capital from full
participation in the benefits of society (Wilson, 1978).
Multiple oppressions: The experience of an individual who is intentionally denied membership
into groups that hold the power and capital to deny rewards, benefits, privileges, and
membership to non-members (Reynolds & Pope, 1991).
Controlling Images: Controlling images are the generalized ideology of the dominant group
thrusting authority and power to manipulate images and ideas of Black womanhood (Collins,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 22
2000). Controlling images including the mammy, video vixen, and welfare mother are
reproduced through educational institutions, media, and government agencies (Collins, 2000).
Strong Black Woman: Strong Black Woman is an example of a controlling image. Strong
Black Women are noted for their unyielding strength, assumption of multiple roles, and self-
sacrifice (Abrams, Maxwell, Pope, & Belgrave, 2014).
Black racial identity: According to Cross (1971, 1994) Black racial identity is when the person
has internalized and made a commitment that is anchored in a positive sense of racial identity,
both to perceive and transcend race proactively.
Culturally relevant curriculum: Teachers who create classrooms that support diversity create
learning communities in the classroom. Teachers build on student experiences and student value
is promoted in the classroom. The status quo is challenged through an acknowledgement of the
expected outcomes for students of color (Ladson-Billings, 1994).
Socialization: Socialization involves the assimilation to group norms and expectations through
the process by which the child becomes a full individual (Wilson, 1978).
Organization of the Study
This study will be arranged and developed into five chapters. Chapter One includes the
background of the study, statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, a rationale for the
study, research questions, the significance of the study, limitations and definitions of terms.
Chapter Two is a review of the literature that examines multiple oppressions (racism, sexism,
and classism) and their effects on identity development of African American females using
Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory, Erickson’s (1968) psychosocial stages of
development and Bourdieu’s (1986, 2011) social capital work. Chapter Three outlines the
experimental design used for this study. Chapter Four provides a presentation of the analysis of
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 23
the data. Chapter Five includes the summary, conclusions, and recommendations for the positive
identity development of African American female students.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 24
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter One provided an overview and statement of the problem. It also stated the
purpose and significance of the problem, along with three research questions to guide the study.
Finally, Chapter One provided definitions and the study’s limitations and delimitations. Chapter
Two provides a framework to examine the existing research in relation to the research questions.
It uses Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory to organize and articulate the systems that
influence identity development of African American female students.
Four systems of Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory are used to understand
environmental elements that influence the development of African American female adolescents.
According to Bronfenbrenner, individuals are influenced most directly in their microsystems that
typically include parents, teachers, peers, and neighbors. Bronfenbrenner posits that the
interaction of the influences has a combined effect on the individual’s development. He refers to
the interaction among members of the microsystem as the mesosystem. Outside the mesosystem
are the exosystem and the macrosytem, both of which heavily influence the microsystem and
mesosystem. The macrosystem, society at large, reflects beliefs and values held by society. In the
United States, the macrosystem is heavily influenced by racism, sexism, and classism. The
macrosystem influences the exosystem, but the individual does not interact directly with the
exosystem. Nevertheless, it extends to affect the individual (Santrock, 2009). Poverty, U.S. laws,
school regulations and stereotypes exist in the exosystem. The elements in the macrosystem have
a negative impact on the ability of the microsystem to create harmonious relationships in the
mesosystem and have a positive influence on the African American female child. Racism,
sexism, and classism are multiple oppressive systems that influence the individual’s experience
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 25
in the home and at school. African American female adolescents experience home, school and
community differently than do White middle-class and White females.
Section I – Macrosystem: Multiple Oppressions
The beliefs and values held in the macrosystem influence how various groups are treated
within society. Women of the African diaspora in America experienced marginalization
throughout the history of the United States from the macrosystem (Norwood, 2013; Ricks, 2014;
Williams & Wiggins, 2010). Black women in the United States suffered extreme cruelty under a
legalized system of slavery that denied their humanity and refused them protection under the law
(Norwood, 2013). For African American females, gender and race intersect and allow for
perpetuating stereotypes of Black female sexuality to justify racially based social and power
structures (Smith-Evans et al., 2014). That history remains an undercurrent in the treatment of
African American females today. In this system, African American women are devalued,
dehumanized, and silenced.
The complexity of their multiple identities related to race, class, and gender lead to
multiple oppressions in the social systems that give priority and privilege to White men
(Norwood, 2013; Williams, & Wiggins, 2010). From the sexual violations by White men in
slavery and the Jim Crow South (Smith-Evans et al., 2014) to the male-dominated Civil Rights
Movement of the 1960s, African American women continue to experience oppression related to
gender (Collins, 2000; hooks, 2000). The Civil Rights Movement made historic progress toward
liberating African Americans as a whole, but it gave little attention to sexism and women’s
issues (Reynolds & Pope, 1991). African American feminists characterized the Civil Rights
Movement as African American men who were leading the fight to create equality between
themselves and White men (hooks, 2000). According to the Smith-Evans, George, Graves,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 26
Kaufmann and Frohlich (2014), violence in the Jim Crow South against African American
women was a major impetus for the Civil Rights Movement. Regardless, microagressions against
Black women continue in the form of sexually charged stereotypes, sexual harassment and sex
trafficking (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Also, movements that worked to
secure the equality of middle-class women have not improved the labels that degrade African
American females (Collins, 2000; hooks, 2000).
Anti-sexist, feminist movements overlooked race operating under a conceptualization that
normalizes the White, middle-class experience, thus expecting Black women to suppress their
unique experience and views about a racist, patriarchal society (Norwood, 2013; Ricks, 2014).
The 1970s feminist movement focused on the equal rights of women, but it mainly served the
social reform interests of White middle-class women (hooks, 2000; Reynolds & Pope, 1991).
The White feminist community was self-absorbed in their oppression within the normal White
middle-class experience (hooks, 2000). The Black female’s experience with racism and its
influence on her identity was marginalized within the feminist movement. These major
movements treated gender and race as separate issues, but the multiple oppressions of African
American women are a result of the intersection between gender and race (hooks, 2000).
The double jeopardy concept is synonymous with the African American female
experience (Reynolds & Pope, 1991). The lack of consideration for how race and gender
intersect into double oppression has marginalized her gendered racial identity. Freire’s (2003)
work can be applied to describe the actions of African American males and White middle-class
women in the initial stages of their respective struggles toward equality as the oppressed
becoming the oppressors in their marginalization of the African American female. The impact of
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 27
multiple stigmatized identities and multiple oppressions on the low-income, African American
girls in school are underestimated (Thomas, Hoxha & Hacker, 2013).
Racism
Following Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory, the beliefs and values in the
macrosystem, which represents society at large, affect every other system in the ecological
framework. Racism is one of the main threads running throughout the fabric of American society
or what Bronfenbrenner calls the macrosystem. It affects all the layers of an individual’s
ecosystem, including the microsystem that has the greatest influence on the person’s identity
development. According to Bronfenbrenner, the jobs parents hold, the amount of education
parents have, the economic status of the community, and the quality of schools operate within
the child’s exosytem have a direct impact on the ways homes and schools are structured. Racism
has systematically discriminated against African Americans in employment, housing and
schooling. Policy makers institutionalize racism, and the media perpetuate the myth of racial
inferiority. These are circumstances over which parents do not have full control, and African
American girls are susceptible to their influences either directly or through their parents. The
effects of racism and sexism are influences on American society that have a persistent effect on
the African American woman’s development beginning in her childhood. The images
surrounding African American women from childhood through adolescence and beyond shape
their identities. Unfortunately, many of the images depicting African American females are
negative and contribute to negative self-perceptions (Johnson, 2010).
Racial identity in the United States is hierarchical. America’s perceptions on race are
similar to a pyramid (Myrdal, 1944). Whites have established themselves to be at the top tier and
people of the African diaspora are perceived to be inferior (Chavez & Guido-DiBrito, 1999;
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 28
Myrdal, 1944). Negative messages about a person’s ethnic group shape the group ethnic identity
(Cornell & Hartman, 2007). Color caste systems and racist stereotypes about African American
women developed during American enslavement continue to shape American culture and
threaten positive identity development of African Americans, particularly in adolescence (The
Association of Black Psychologists [ABPsi], 2013; Chavez & Guido-DiBrito, 1999). African
American adolescent girls are challenged to develop positive self-concepts and identities while
facing the multiple stigmas associated with their identity. The adolescent African American
females experience a double jeopardy–first for their racial ethnic group and second for their skin
color.
Colorism. The social construct of race manifests ideals and prejudice about people based
on the color of their skin. Attention is given to skin color and hair texture inside and outside the
Black community (Monk, 2014). These perceptions about skin color have deep effects on the
identity of African American women, especially during adolescence, as positive or negative
racial identity develops in adolescence (Santrock, 2009; Thomas et al., 2011). Documented cases
show that schools in Tulsa, Alabama, Lorain, Ohio and Hampton University have called
Afrocentric hairstyles distractions to student learning and identified dreadlocks and afros as not
presentable in school (Crenshaw et al., 2015). African American girls are surrounded by
messages telling them that they are not good enough, that they are not pretty enough, that their
skin is not light enough, and that their hair is not long enough or blond enough. The messages
that deny African American beauty permeate the psyche of African American females.
Colorism penetrates the African American community and creates a hierarchy among
African Americans based on skin color. The Clark experiments of the 1940s documented Black
children’s sentiments about skin color by testing their racial perceptions based on doll color
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 29
preferences. Black children preferred White dolls to Black dolls and attributed negative feelings
toward the Black dolls. The Clarks concluded that experiences around prejudice, discrimination,
and segregation created feelings of inferiority among African American children and damaged
their self-esteem (Smith-Evans et al., 2014; Gullickson, 2005). The Clark research substantiated
the influence of race, color and status on the self-esteem of Black children.
Self-esteem of African American adolescent female students is lowered when they feel
parts of their identity are not fully accepted as measured by mainstream Eurocentric beauty –
lighter skin, long hair, and fine hair texture (Hannon, DeFina, & Bruch, 2013). The effects of
colorism are found in women’s self-perceptions, self-esteem, ethnic identity, relationships within
families, marriage, education and employment advancement (ABPsi, 2013; Hannon et al., 2013).
Stereotypes about Black Americans seep through the media into homes and schools affecting the
way families, teachers and society respond to African Americans, particularly of darker skin
tones (Monk, 2014). African American adolescent female identity formation is threatened when
their ethnic identity is devalued in school.
Sexism
At the intersection of race and gender, African American females experience oppression
as a result of the White male dominant group’s need to control females’ sexuality and fertility to
benefit a system of capitalist exploitation (Collins, 2000). African American women have been
stigmatized by the “controlling images”, a term coined by Black feminist Patricia Hill Collins
(2000) referring to the stereotypes that have been designed to define Black females for the
benefit of the dominant class. The control over Black females’ bodies dates back to slavery when
the common practice was to “breed” adolescent girls to increase the number of slave children
that would be part of the owner’s property and labor force (Collins, 2000). The ritual of breeding
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 30
Black female slaves began the interlinking of capital gain and controlling the bodies of African
American females in the United States. Still today, the controlling images (stereotypes)
perpetuated about African American females by the elite dominant class and solidified via the
hegemonic messages shared in the African American community, media and music continue to
define groups of African American females’ sexuality and creates gendered racism (Thomas et
al., 2011).
Notions of womanhood. African American women and White women experience
womanhood differently because their experiences are heavily influenced by the images society
plays back to them based on their racial difference (Collins, 2000; Settles, Pratt-Hyatt, &
Buchanan, 2008; Wilkins, 2012; Winkle-Wagner, 2008). Societal notions of womanhood that
vary depending on race and class influenced the roles that African American women adopt.
Adolescence is the time when African American girls either exhibit confidence in their own
identity or exhibit identity or role confusion (Santrock, 2009). The labels in reference to
womanhood for White women are put forth as the ideal descriptions of wife and mother while
the descriptions for African American women are more closely aligned with descriptions of
animals. Researchers have referred to images put forth by Zora Neale Hurston (Settles et al.,
2008). An image she conjures up in her literature is that of Black women as mules – “de mule uh
de world” suggesting that her role is to carry the burdens of the race. Many African American
women have assumed this role as if the survival of the race depends on them to lift the heavy
load (Abrams et al., 2014). On the other hand, the ideal White woman is meek, mild or timid.
Black women who are strong are often considered to be opinionated and assertive (Abrams et al.,
2014).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 31
A qualitative study sought to characterize the strong Black woman to better understand
how women conceptualize the characteristics associated with being a strong Black woman.
Forty-four African American women participated in a focus group to discuss how they perceive
and define roles as strong Black women. The results of the study were that Black women saw
independence as both necessary and an aspect of being a strong Black woman. It was necessary
in the absence of a supportive network deriving from a male partner, but it was part of being
even when a male partner was present because the Black woman is assumed to be and taught to
be self-sufficient by her foremothers (Abrams, et al., 2014). The participants understood the
historical hardships of Black women and relished in the cultural resilience of their foremothers to
survive and persist. For these Black women, the ideal role was the matriarch who would share
leadership with her male partner and not be dominated like meek, timid, White women (Abrams
et al., 2014). These women, anchored in religious beliefs, were empowered by their pride in
ethnicity, and they were appreciative of the “rainbow” of colors, shapes and sizes of Black
women (Abrams et al., 2014). Black women celebrate their strength and diverse beauty. The
stories of Black women told by Black women provide a lens into the strength that is shared in the
group. These stories are not relayed to the larger society because they do not benefit a patriarchal
racist infrastructure. African American adolescents can benefit from stories told of and actions
displayed by strong Black women to instill pride in self and increase a collective sense of
cultural pride in light of a controlling image that attempts to admonish Black women for being
strong, independent thinkers.
According to the results of the Abrams et al. study (2014), the attributes of a strong
woman are necessary and positive among the older female participants; however, Winkle-
Wagner (2008) demonstrates how Black college female students interpret the strong Black
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 32
woman image differently. The expected assertiveness and strength of Black women is not
welcomed in the educational setting as determined by the study. The Black female students
recounted negative classroom experiences of feeling marginalized because their comments were
overlooked in a male-dominated business classroom. Also, Black females felt that they were
strong, but “they were unable to exhibit their independence, assertiveness, or strength on
campus” (Winkler-Wagner, 2008). The Black female students associated being a feminist with
being overly aggressive and attributes of true womanhood with passivity and silence, so Black
women were excluded from being identified as feminine and excluded from the circle of
womanhood (Winkle-Wagner, 2008). For these young women, there was a fine line between the
stereotypical attributes of a strong Black woman, feminist, and womanhood that does not
accurately describe Black women completely adding to her multiple oppressions causing her
identity to be overlooked.
The ever glooming high and low expectations for the strong Black woman can create
negative classroom environments and experiences for African American adolescent female
students that hinder their academic success. Unfortunately, scholarly research often separates
race and gender that demonstrate privileged structures in society (Evans-Winters & Esposito,
2010; Reynolds & Pope, 1991). Race studies may exclude women of color, and studies of gender
focus on White women, leading to reliance on imagined experiences of Black female students
(Winkle-Wagner, 2008), and, thus, never addressing support for the Black female students.
Stereotypes
Researchers have cited Zora Neale Hurston’s work to assert that the mule image of
African American women was used as justification for the harsh labor they were subjected to in
slavery and in their bearing of children who were the result of rape by White slave masters
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 33
(Collins, 2000; Neale Hurston, 1937; Wyatt, 1997). The image has persisted and, even today, due
to economic inequality created by discrimination, a large number of African American women
are expected to juggle motherhood and employment as single parents (Settles et al., 2008). Such
roles lead to stereotypical images of African American women like the historical mammy. White
women are imagined to hold more skilled positions when employed or enjoy the luxury status of
housewife. Working outside the home and then coming home to tend to children, housekeeping,
cooking, and the like was not new to African American women when middle-class White women
were struggling with this balance in their attempts to declare themselves liberated (Collins, 2000).
Stereotypes about the African American female are used to justify the images, labels and
oppressive circumstances thrust upon the population. Those images include the historical
mammies, jezebels, sapphires and welfare mothers (Collins, 2000; Hall & Smith, 2012; Wallace,
Townsend, Glasgow, & Ojie, 2011; Wyatt, 1997). African American women are portrayed as
overly aggressive, overbearing, loud, audacious and are referred to as the “angry Black woman”
(Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010). In addition to these images coming from the hegemonic
larger society, Black males have joined in the degradation of African American females with
terms like gold digger, bitch and “THOTs” commonly used by young men in search of their own
identity at the expense of Black women (Johnson, 2010). By contrast, the African American
female has also been portrayed as a superhuman independent woman. These labels have
permeated the African American female’s experience to oppress her in all parts of the system
designed to maintain her subordination to promote the ideologies of the elite White male
interests and power (Collins, 2000; hooks, 2000; Johnson, 2010). The controlling images each
play a role in relegating the Black female to the bottom of social hierarchy.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 34
Mammy. The mammy image is the quintessential image of the Black female subordinate.
She knew her role in society–to serve the White family and their children. White families
maintained their class positions by using Black women as cheap labor (Collins, 2000). The
mammy image carried responsibility for training Black children to be subordinate to Whites.
Black mothers who internalized the mammy image became conduits for perpetuating the racial
oppression, ensuring that children in continued subordinate behaviors (Collins, 2000). Black
mothers transmitted messages to their children about their place in society. Collins (2000)
suggests that the mammy accepted the subordinate role that she was relegated to while pushing
her children to surpass her existence and succeed through education and job pursuits.
Today, the Black mammy image suggests that the Black woman should be committed to
her work as much as her foremother was to her White family, forsaking her own family. The
mammy is an asexual Black woman with African features who is committed to the White family
and children for whom she cares (Wyatt, 1997). She is characterized as overweight and happy,
non-threatening and dedicated. The mammy today continues to be overweight as a result of
overeating, little exercise and coping with the stress of poverty and feeling unloved (Wyatt,
1997). Adolescents continue the mammy image through their lack of exercise, obesity and early
childbearing. Without positive images, it is hard for them to envision themselves outside of these
images (Thomas et al., 2013).
Sapphire/Black matriarch/Bitch. The Black matriarch, or Sapphire, represents the
female-headed households in African American communities. These women are accused of
perpetuating poverty in the family (Collins, 2000). Prior to the 1960s, there were more White
single mothers than Black; however, the societal messaging highlighted Black poverty and a
caricature of single mothers (Collins, 2000). According to the stereotype, the Black woman is an
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 35
overly aggressive unfeminine matriarch who emasculates her husband, causing the man to desert
her and her children. The Black matriarch is a failed mammy. The matriarch image is used to
explain why Black people remain in poverty (Collins, 2000). She is blamed for not providing
adequate guidance to her children.
The larger societal message about the Black matriarch is that she could not be a proper
example for her children and that she is culpable for the high rate of Black male incarceration.
Therefore, it was necessary to develop the criminal justice system and social policy to correct her
children’s behavior at times that she does not (Collins, 2000). The labeling of the Black
matriarch is one means of masking the United States criminal justice system’s disproportionate
incarceration of Black males (Alexander, 2010; Collins, 2000). A consequence of the racial
profiling and extreme measures to protect United States citizens from Black males is there are far
fewer men for Black women to marry than there are White men available to White women
(Alexander, 2010; Collins, 2000).
Strong Black woman. The strong Black woman is characterized as a provider and
caretaker who is strong like a man, suppresses emotion, succeeds in spite of inadequate resources,
and assumes responsibility of her community (Abrams et al., 2014). The socialization and
internalized perception of the strong Black woman permeates and thrives in society as a result of
the African American female’s gender and historical legacy (Abrams et al., 2014). Past personal
histories of disappointment, mistreatment, abuse, and spiritual values lead mothers to instill
strength and resilience in their daughters (Abrams et al., 2014). The socialization of the African
American female comes from school, society and family all thrusting the idea that these women
must be strong for the larger community.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 36
Although Whites were the first to receive welfare, when Blacks gained access to welfare,
stereotypes about them in relation to welfare began (Collins, 2000). The creation of controlling
images of the welfare mother has stigmatized her as the cause of her own poverty. The creation
of this stereotype is another means of diverting attention away from the structural sources of
poverty including racism, discrimination in education and employment to blame the victims
themselves (Collins, 2000).
Jezebel/Video Vixen/Gold Digger/THOT. Jezebel is the contemporary hoochie (Collins,
2000; Thomas et al., 2013). The Jezebel image was originated under slavery to relegate Black
women to sexually aggressive beings whose bodies could be used for capital exploitation
(Collins, 2000). Gold-digging hoochies and hoochie mamas are women who chase men for their
money. The women attract men to gain access to their money. The impoverished female or
mother is portrayed as one who will exchange sexual favors for economic gain on behalf of her
children (Collins, 2000). Images that are depicted in music, videos, and movies resemble the
gold-digging bitch, the crack whore, the welfare queen, the superhuman matriarch, and the
booty-shaking rap video dancer (Johnson, 2010). Adolescent African American girls with those
images presented to them on a regular basis can believe that those images represent the only
choices available to them. Some girls recognize the difference between their lived reality and the
representation of African American females in videos. While rejecting the sexual images, the
girls also rationalize that African American female video vixens must dance for the financial
rewards (Hall & Smith, 2012). The girls excuse the actions of the female who degrades herself to
escape poverty.
Wallace et al. (2011) researched the relationship of negative stereotype attitudes and
endorsement of Western standards of beauty on the substance use behavior of low-income urban
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 37
African American girls. The discussion of substance abuse is outside of the realm of this study;
however, the effect of negative stereotypes is of interest. A convenience sample of 272 African
American girls between the ages of 10 and 15 who attended one of four middle schools
participated in the study. A variety of questionnaires were presented to the participating students:
Image Acceptance Measure, Teenager Experience of Racial Socialization, and the MJS was used
to measure Black girls’ adolescent identification with the various stereotype images. Positive
parental racial socialization messages about one’s culture, race, gender or class identity and
awareness of discrimination lead African American girls to positive self-concepts (Hall & Smith,
2012; Thomas et al., 2013; Wallace et al., 2011). Girls who accept African American standards
of beauty report a higher self-concept than do girls who agree with negative stereotype images of
African Americans, preferring Western standards of beauty (Wallace et al., 2011). Girls who
supported the stereotype images of Black women’s beauty presented in the media were more
likely to place an emphasis on their own beauty (Wallace et al., 2011).
Media. The media perpetuate stereotypical images of African American females, and
these images distort everyday life in African American families and communities. A problem
exists when young African American girls attribute stereotype images and Western standards of
beauty to themselves while accepting African American female inferiority in society (Wallace et
al., 2011; Hall & Smith, 2012). Girls’ positive identity development allows them to reject the
mainstream stereotypes that contradict their realities and observations (Hall & Smith, 2012). In
the absence of positive reinforcement in the form of messages from parents and teachers, the
girls’ self-concept will waiver. For non-African American people, the images portrayed in
television continue to support their negative views about the African American experience (Hall
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 38
& Smith, 2012; Thomas et al., 2013). Additionally, African American girls are prone to emulate
and internalize the images (Wyatt, 1997).
African American female students need to hold their own beliefs and values while
simultaneously being conscious of the state of mind of the United States racist patriarchal society
that permeates in the hidden curriculum in school (Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010).
Hall and Smith (2012) conducted a study to measure the ways three African American high
school girls interpret and challenge racialized and sexualized media representations of their race,
class, and gender in music videos. The researchers argue that the students’ ability to challenge
stereotypes occurs as a result of their cognitive development in adolescence (Hall & Smith,
2012). Also under investigation were the historical and sociocultural experiences of the girls that
assist them in resisting imposed racialized identities. The researchers chose an alternative school
in an economically deprived urban community to conduct the study with African American
female student participants, ages 17 and 18 from low-income families. The participants were
interviewed about their in- and out-of-school activities, home life and how they would describe
themselves (Hall & Smith, 2012). The adolescent girls in the study demonstrated that they think
for themselves in spite of the negative images that surround them in the media. They were found
to be decision makers and critical thinkers. Mira, one participant and teen mom, rejected
mainstream thoughts about herself as an African American young woman. Shanny, another
young woman, understood the difference between reality and media portrayal of Black females.
She rationalized that although “Video Vixens” may be called sluts, they could dance to get
money to support themselves for upward mobility (Hall & Smith, 2012). Positive self-concept
and high esteem supported the students in the study toward challenging stereotypes. The girl’s
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 39
cultural backgrounds and maturity in adolescence supported their critiques of the media portrayal
of stereotypes (Hall & Smith, 2012; Erikson, 1968; Santrock, 2009).
With little exposure to everyday African American girls, non-African Americans have the
potential to believe that images on television represent all African American females, furthering
a lack of interest in improving the images and attention paid to the experience of African
American females (Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010). Much of the research regarding African
American females focuses on reproduction and sexuality (Collins, 2000; Hall & Smith, 2012).
Researchers use the controlling images of African American adolescents to assert the need for
AIDS research and premarital birth control (Collins, 2000). The media messages provide images
of what it means to be an African American woman. Neither the data nor the media provide a
holistic view of the African American female experience that is complex and multifaceted
(Thomas et al., 2013).
Classism
Gender and race are prominent in factors in the oppression experienced by African
American females; however, economic status plays a prominent role in their experience. Based
on America’s history of racial discrimination, race and economic status are closely associated.
African Americans, as a group, experience limited opportunities for economic mobility; however,
upward mobility is essential for African American middle-class identity development (DeCuir-
Gunby, 2007). African Americans are disproportionately poorer than Whites. African Americans
live in poverty at three times the rate at which White Americans do (White, 2015). Economists
report socioeconomic gaps between races are linked to lower educational attainment, higher rates
of single parent matriarchal households, unequal academic preparation and geographic
segregation (Mazumder, 2014; White, 2015). African American females from lower
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 40
socioeconomic backgrounds face racial, gender, and economic oppressions (Cooper, Guthrie,
Brown, & Metzger, 2011). The socioeconomic status of the neighborhoods that people live in
and the schools children attend influence their access to cultural capital and social capital needed
to successfully navigate the school experience and attain a profession later in life (Bourdieu,
2011; White, 2015).
Research showed that financial stability and upward mobility in the Black American
community is limited by societal structures affecting both current and future prospects. Tracing
the historical legacy of slavery and segregation (Mazumder, 2014) asserts that limited
socioeconomic mobility is a result of social barriers and government policy that have led to
underdeveloped infrastructures, unemployment and high rates of crime in the Black community
(Abrams et al., 2014; Alexander, 2010). The high rates of crime correlates to the high rates of
imprisonment among African American men leaving the African American woman with the sole
responsibility of raising the Black family (Abrams et al., 2014; Alexander, 2010). Mazumder
(2014) purports that the current rates of limited upward mobility among African Americans
could predict that no further progress will be made within the community under the status quo in
education and within the current single parent family structure.
Bourdieu’s (1986) theory of social reproduction applies laws governing the exchange of
economic capital to human social relations. Middle-class children are systemically embedded in
familial and school-based networks that provide institutional support. The opportunity gap is
created by the limited access minority children have to resources and capital taken for granted by
middle-class families and communities (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). The material resources in
educational institutions include, but are not limited to, qualified teachers, rigorous courses, up-to-
date technology and access to sports and extracurricular activities (Smith-Evans et al., 2014).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 41
These are the socioeconomic obstacles that large numbers of African American young girls face
who live in highly segregated communities and attend urban schools.
The ability of some students to navigate the pathways in school is largely dependent upon
the amount of social and cultural capital they and their families have. Bourdieu’s (1986)
concepts around power and the influence of social and cultural capital explain the advantages
held by students who belong to elite and dominant classes. Low-income African American
students are more likely to bring to the classroom discursive practices and experiences not valued
in school and to face teachers who do not have the knowledge or skills to effectively bridge the
school and home cultures (Barton et al., 2008). Some who hold power in educational institutions
are guilty of not valuing the capital students bring to the school context. Therefore, students have
limited access to resources in the school context. Minority students need supportive institutions
to provide access to the resources to support crossing borders.
Section II – Exosystem: Influence of Policies on Education
The stereotypes portrayed in the media reflect and influence societal beliefs and values.
Thus, stereotypical views of African Americans become embedded in the policies governing
institutions, including schools that direct interaction with students in their microsystem. The
beliefs and values of a society influence the way resources and support is invested in educational
institutions and the manner by which resources are distributed. In America, federal and state
policy has a pattern of supporting segregated schools. De jure segregation by law enforced the
separation of African American students from White students of equal age and ability solely
because of race (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003). De jure segregation had a significant impact
on the educational and occupational aspirations and outcomes of African Americans. Schooling
in America has had negative effects on both male and females’ self-concepts and self-
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 42
perceptions (ABPsi.org, 2013; Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003). Racist laws and policies that
enforced inequality and de jure segregation in education remain a part of the exosystem that
limits African Americans’ liberties.
Discrimination Based on Race
Although Brown v. Board of Education ended laws enforcing segregation, it did not end
many of the policies within institutions like education that still enforce societal beliefs and values
in the macrosystem. Communities are segregated today mostly as a result of White migration to
the suburbs after World War II (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003; Wepner, 2012). They
established schools in these communities and, thus, created segregated schools, leaving behind
African Americans and other students of color in what are now considered urban schools. The
belief that institutions with large numbers of African Americans are inferior is deeply embedded
in American rhetoric (Hochschild & Scovronick, 2003; Wepner, 2012). Busing efforts to
desegregate schools following Brown vs. Board were mainly short-lived. These failed attempts at
desegregation, and now the rise of charter schools, created an America where segregation is as
prevalent in 2015 as it was before Brown v. Board of Education.
Patterns of Discrimination in Education
Although segregation and limited access to quality education affect African American
males and females, the distinct effects on females are sometimes overlooked in the face of the
more obvious effects on African American males. The prevalence of negative stereotypes that
adversely affect the educational experiences of African American girls hinder their positive
gender and racial identity development (Smith-Evans et al., 2014; Santrock, 2009). The girls are
too often overlooked, over-policed and under-protected in their educational environments
(Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Some of the institutional and systemic barriers
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 43
that low-income African American female students face are under-resourced schools and
disparate discipline practices (Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Teachers’ perceptions of African
American students often involve racial and gender stereotypes influencing the quality of teacher-
student relationships and, ultimately, affect student self-perception and self-esteem.
Under-resourced schools. There is a strong correlation between attending a high-
poverty, high-minority school and lack of access to equitable and quality resources (Hochschild
& Scovronick, 2003; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). African American children under 18 years old
have the highest poverty rates and 45% of them live in concentrated poverty (Austin, 2013;
Children’s Defense Fund, 2012). High-poverty schools have fewer resources than do other
schools and have limited resources to attract and retain highly qualified and experienced teachers
(Smith-Evans et al., 2014). There is a strong correlation between poverty and the student
demographics of United States public urban schools. Forty-one percent of African American
females attend high-poverty schools as compared to 6% of White females, and 9% of African
American females attend low-poverty as schools compared to 33% of White females (NCES,
2015).
K-12 education. The disparities in socioeconomics, race and gender run through schools
that affect the quality of resources available to African American female students. National data
show that nearly 7% of the country’s African American students attend schools where 20% or
more of their teachers are not highly qualified, meaning they have not satisfied state certification
or licensure requirements (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Teachers in high-minority and
high-poverty schools are less likely to have the necessary materials to teach as compared to
teachers in low-minority, low-poverty schools (National Science Foundation, 2012). African
American children who attend under-resourced schools do not have access to quality curricula or
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 44
instruction to ensure proper preparation to succeed in important subjects (Smith-Evans et al.,
2014). Without skilled teachers and adequate academic resources African American
female/minority students are ill prepared to enter higher education institutions, graduate, and
enter the workforce. Skilled teachers can increase student learning up to six months regardless of
student gender and race more than low performing teachers can (U.S. Department of Education,
2015). All students deserve skilled teachers, and reform is necessary for African American
females living in poverty attending public schools.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). There is a lack of rigorous
course offerings, especially in STEM fields in low-income, high-minority schools (Smith-Evans
et al., 2014). When African American students attend schools where STEM courses are offered,
there is a lack of qualified experienced teachers to prepare them for success in these subjects
(Barton et al., 2008; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). These offerings are often more limited for
African American female students as they face stereotypes that attack their racial and gender
identities and, ultimately, discourage them from pursuing STEM education and opportunities
(Barton et al., 2008; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). African American females’ self-concepts also
make them reluctant to pursue STEM courses. Female students who take advanced STEM
courses in high school are more likely to major and earn degrees in those fields in college than
are those who did not take advanced STEM courses (Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Most people
carry implicit biases that play large roles in the evaluation of women and their abilities that either
equal or surpass those of men (Barton et al., 2008). School policies and practices, reflecting
societal attitudes, suggest science is a masculine subject and girls are deemed incapable of
meeting its challenges (Barton et al., 2008). For high-poverty African American students, access
to rigorous and high levels of science courses, adequate science equipment, appropriate role
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 45
models, and qualified teachers adds additional barriers to gaining the skills to be successful in the
subject. Thus, African American female students face multiple oppressions based on race,
socioeconomic status, and gender. They are most often in racially segregated urban schools
located in poor communities where resources are inequitably distributed. Within these
circumstances, they often also experience discrimination in access to STEM classes based on
gender.
Extracurricular activities and sports. Data from a 2012 report show that, among high
school freshmen, 58% of White girls participate in sports as compared to only 42% of African
American girls (Ross, et al., 2012). Involvement in sports provides life rewards for young
women, including in academic success such as higher grades, higher rates of high school
graduation, and higher scores on standardized tests as compared to non-athletes (Smith-Evans et
al., 2014). Female athletes are also more likely to do well in science classes, and African
American female athletes, particularly, are 27% more likely than are students overall to graduate
from college (Smith-Evans et al., 2014). This disparity is due partly to the disproportionate
involvement of 9th grade African American girls in academic instruction after school as
compared to that of White girls. This after-school involvement in academic instruction is often
remediation or intervention. White girls participate in a variety of activities, including
performing arts, organized sports, and religious youth groups at higher rates (NCES, 2012; Ross,
et al. 2012). African American girls have limited access to intramural sports when attending
high-minority, high-poverty schools. African American girls receive less support than White
girls from teachers to participate in sports (Grieser et al., 2008). Financial barriers prevent
African American families from providing opportunities for girls to play sports. Barriers to
participating in extracurricular activities include lack of financial assistance to participate, lack
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 46
of transportation, increased household responsibilities for younger siblings and the necessity of
working to provide supplemental household income (Smith-Evans et al., 2014). The inability to
play a sport decreases healthy outcomes and academic success for urban students. The
connections between participation in sports, science- and math-taking patterns and college
graduation for African American girls are noteworthy.
School Discipline
Although the suspension and expulsion rates for African American boys receives much
attention, less attention is focused on African American girls, who are punished at
disproportionately higher rates than are other female students. Punitive disciplinary measures
like zero-tolerance policies have a negative impact on African American girls and undermine
their achievement and well-being (Crenshaw et al., 2015). The emphasis on discipline acts as a
detractor from the learning process and leads students to feel less safe at school and less likely to
attend school (Crenshaw et al., 2015). Schools with high African American student populations
show the highest rates of suspension (Smith-Evans et al., 2014). African American students
receive harsher disciplinary actions and out of school suspensions more often than their White
peers for the same offenses (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Compared to
White girls, African American girls are given out-of-school suspension six times the rate of
White girls (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Department of Education, 2014; Smith-Evans et al., 2014).
White students are more likely to be disciplined for objective violations like smoking and
vandalism while African American students are more likely to be punished for subjective actions
like showing disrespect, loitering or making excessive noises (Hannon, De Fina & Bruch, 2013).
Not only are Black girls punished more than other girls, but research has determined that the
likelihood of punishment increases for Black girls as their skin darkens.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 47
African American female students are most disadvantaged by color distinctions within
their race. Hannon, De Fina and Bruch (2013) found that African American female students were
less likely to be suspended than their male counterpart; however, as skin darkens there is a
difference on the impact by gender. Darker skin female students were significantly more likely to
be suspended for subjective infractions such as disobedience, improper dress, and defiance than
male students and lighter skin girls (Hannon et al., 2013). School personnel attribute African
American female students’ behaviors to being unlawful, loud, and unruly without taking into
consideration the compounded micro aggressions presented to them daily (Crenshaw et al., 2015;
Fordham, 1993). Punitive practices and zero-tolerance policies perpetuate conflict in school and
overlook internal vulnerabilities of African American female students thus exacerbating their
negative experiences in school. Crenshaw et al. (2015) found that school’s lack of intervention
and protection of African American girls concerning bullying and sexual harassment contributed
to their school disengagement and lack of feeling safe. Without addressing social and
institutional racism, sexism and classism in the urban schools, African American female students
will continue to be overlooked and harshly punished. Racism, sexism and colorism combined
reinforce and reproduce inequality and oppressions faced by Black females (Hannon et al., 2013).
Girls are more likely to be reprimanded or praised for social behaviors than for academic
prowess and teacher expectations are lower for Black girls than for White girls (Evans-Winters
& Esposito, 2010; Wyatt, 1997). African American girls’ bodies are policed, controlled, and
heckled while, at the same time, marveled. The beliefs and attitudes about their bodies enter the
school setting, resulting in strict dress codes and negative comments about their presumed
sensuality (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al., 2014; Crenshaw, 2010; Evans-Winters,
2005). In research, clothing emerged as a factor associated with ethnicity and negative
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 48
perceptions (Harrison, 2015). In the new millennium, adolescent girls interpret multiple
oppressions through their school experiences.
A qualitative study of four African American adolescent girls ages 10 to 14 found the
girls felt there were different standards for the way Black girls’ and White girls’ clothes were
regulated at school (Harrison, 2015). The Black girls noted the difference in the way teachers
responded to their clothes in comparison to the White girls’ clothes. One of the participants was
made to change her clothes because the teacher said they were in violation of the dress code
policy, but nothing was done to the White girls who were also in violation of the policy
(Harrison, 2015). The difference in the way teachers treat students along color lines affects the
way African American girls internalize their in- and out-of-school experiences. Policies
governing institutions reflect the racism, sexism and classism directed toward African Americans
in general and African American females in particular.
Section III – Mesosystem: Parents and Teachers
Vygotsky helps to interpret the effects of institutions like schooling on African American
female students (Mooney, 2013). He believed the world children live in is shaped by their
personal and social experiences inclusive of experiences with families, communities,
socioeconomic status, education, and culture. Vygotsky established that interaction between
students and adults and between students and peers support their development (Mooney, 2013).
These interactions advance the student’s knowledge. Given the student’s needs and the social
context that surrounds them, teachers and peers, along with parents, can support student
development.
Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory further explains the effects of relationships
inside a child’s microsystem. He posits that the child’s development is negotiated by
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 49
relationships in the microsystem. The microsystem consists of parents, teachers, peers and
neighbors, and interaction among these members in the microsystem creates the mesosystem. A
student’s family experience has an either negative or positive impact on her school experience
and vice versa. If students feel supported in one domain but not in the other, a dissonance
between home and school is experienced (Tyler et al., 2010). If the student is supported in the
mesosystem, the student will develop positive identity; however, the positive identity can be in
jeopardy if negative messages are relayed and the student has negative experiences.
School-Home Dissonance
School-home dissonance has an adverse impact on the lives of African American students.
Students who form close student-teacher relationships have better social relationships with peers,
enjoy school, and perform better in school than do students who do not foster these relationships
(Tyler et al., 2010; Wiley & Berman, 2012). In a study examining associations between home-
school dissonance and academic and psychological variables among African American high
school students, home-school dissonance was found to lead to disruptive classroom behavior
including academic cheating and withdrawal from teachers and peers (Tyler et al., 2010). When
the student’s cultural values, beliefs, and home practices are not consistent with school culture
and practices, students experience some degree of dissonance (Harper & Tuckerman, 2006; Tyler
et al., 2010). African American students who feel that their out-of-classroom values and
behaviors are not accepted at school tend to foster negative attitudes toward teachers and school.
The negative attitudes lead to dropping out of high school, disassociation with school and
conflicts in school leading to disciplinary action.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 50
Support in School
Although the K-12 experience for African American girls living in high-poverty urban
communities are riddled with barriers related to accessing opportunities gained via social capital,
there are examples of support in the school context. Barton et al. (2008) researched how some
classrooms support urban middle school girls to enact meaningful strategies of engagement
specific to science class. The researchers sought to understand how, in some classrooms, urban
middle school girls merged their home cultures with their school cultures to engage in an often
stereotypically male subject. In third space classes, the girls’ out-of-school experiences were
welcomed in the classroom and a third space was created between students and instructors.
Third space. Barton et al. (2008) describe first space as the classroom, the second space
as the home, and the third space as the space created with elements of both. The third space
brings together different knowledge that works to collapse traditionally marginalized knowledge
and discourses allowing the first and second spaces to bridge academic and home culture to
generate new knowledge, discourses and identities (Barton et al., 2008). Third space changes the
interaction and participation of minority youth, particularly low-income African American girls,
allowing them to build their social identities while they build and gain authority in the classroom.
Interactions in the classroom are an indicator of social activity that is permitted and
acceptable. Classroom interaction facilitates identity construction and creates new spaces for
participation in a community of practice (Barton et al., 2008). Through classroom behaviors,
identity is fluid and constructed socially within communities of practice (Barton et al., 2008).
This kind of classroom offers opportunities for students to author identities within whole-class
settings, through small group work, and with individuals (Barton et al., 2008). The manner in
which students are positioned in the classroom shapes their identity formation in class. Girls are
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 51
traditionally positioned with less power in the science classroom, but teachers can empower girls
with positions such as group leader or group reporter, transforming their learning experiences
and affecting identity development (Barton et al., 2008). The research provides insight into
African American girls’ access to cross gender expectations and negotiate new space in the
classroom, allowing them to be successful on their own terms and without judgment.
Culturally relevant pedagogy. Ladson-Billings’ (1994) research involving teachers of
African American students demonstrate teaching methods that lead to culturally inclusive
practices. Classroom practices are matched to the cultural practices that students bring with them
into the classroom. Teachers who welcome students’ culture and value their knowledge create
classrooms that reinforce positive identity construction (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Culturally
relevant pedagogy acknowledges the student’s social and cultural capital and includes the teacher
as facilitator of student-centered learning. It empowers students to access their home cultural
knowledge and develop new meaning in the classroom. Together, the teacher and student
reshape the curriculum to make meaning relevant. The teacher is willing to learn about the
student’s culture.
Teacher perceptions. In studies by Harrison (2015) and by Letendre and Rozas (2015),
students felt they were treated inequitably. Black and Latina students felt that, because they were
not White, their teachers treated them more harshly in the classroom. The African American girls
told of times while in math class when the teacher yelled at the girls and told them to put their
hands down. The girls noted how the White girls did not receive the same response. The girls
interpreted the negative experience with their teachers as a direct result of their skin being darker
(Letendre & Rozas, 2015). The younger 7th grade girls acknowledged the imbalance in treatment,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 52
but the 8th grade girls challenged the stereotypes and inequality in the way the teachers and some
peers treated them (Letendre & Rozas, 2015).
Support toward positive identity development in the classroom is dependent in part on
teacher perceptions and peer interactions. To foster perceptions that lead to positive interactions,
teachers are encouraged to celebrate the multiple factors associated with African American
culture (Gullan, Hoffman, & Leff, 2011). Strong classroom communities that welcome diverse
African American females nurture their positive student development. Some schools integrate
African American history into the academic curriculum to expand awareness of African
American culture (Gullan et al., 2011). Expanding student learning to include diverse curriculum
allows students to cultivate a sense of pride in their culture and to feel less obligated to choose
between African American and mainstream culture (Gullan et al., 2011). Teachers’ explicit and
implicit beliefs permeate in their classroom approaches and practices, and these directly
influence how adolescent African American female students view themselves through their
teacher’s eyes.
Strong learning environments honor, support, and challenge students to be unique
contributing members (Chavez & Guido-DiBrito, 1999). Parham’s (1989) model demonstrates
that a strong self-awareness leads to bicultural success in the United States, and that multicultural
practices respect an inclusive way of doing things. A multicultural framework does not negate
diverse students’ cultures, but allows students’ cultures to be illuminated. Minority groups
regularly navigate educational environments where they are ridiculed for their difference,
stereotyped by race and ethnicity or where they become invisible, as is the case with the African
American female experience (Chavez & Guido-DiBrito, 1999).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 53
Future Selves
One of the factors that contribute to the academic under-achievement of youth is dis-
identification with the academic culture of school. African American youth realize existing
systemic barriers to their success and subsequently distance themselves from behaviors that
would ensure educational success because of a belief that these behaviors are unlikely to lead to
success and prosperity (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1988). Honora (2002) studied the
connection between future outlook and school achievement among low-income, urban African
American adolescents. The study uncovered gender and achievement differences in adolescent
goals and expectations. It highlighted the importance of understanding the historical and cultural
contexts that shape adolescents’ perceptions of the future.
Students who tend to be more optimistic about the future are also more academically
inclined than are students who are uncertain about their future options (Honora, 2002). Students
who are more future oriented and who experience a greater sense of belonging and acceptance in
school tend to outperform students who are less future oriented and who experience limited
feelings of school belonging and acceptance (Adelabu, 2007). Research has shown that female
students are less optimistic about their future prospects than are male students. Females tend to
focus on family and other interpersonal relationships more so than do males, resulting in fewer
goals set (Adelabu, 2007; Honora, 2002). Female students anticipate motherhood will lead to
interruptions in their future career paths (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Honora, 2002).
Higher achieving girls are more optimistic about their future. They discuss more goals
and expectations than do boys or lower achieving girls (Honora, 2002). Higher achieving girls
were most interested in marriage and family, but they were unwilling to forgo their career
interests for marriage and motherhood. Minority and low-income groups limit future outlook, as
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 54
group interactions with high unemployment levels, racism and experiences with oppression limit
their optimism for the future (Honora, 2002).
Family Role
Research shows that parents transmit messages to youth about the presence and reality of
racism, preparing for and conquering racism, cultural values, racial pride, pride in self, equality,
and spirituality (Thomas et al., 2014). As cited by Thomas et al. (2014), Hughes and Chen
(1997) explain that the racial socialization process is both developmental and gender specific
with particular messages given according to the age and gender of the child. Spirituality is
particularly grounded in the African American cultural value system and, as Thomas’ et al.
(2014) demonstrate, it is integral to racial socialization of the African American adolescent.
Spiritual beliefs and religious behavior are related to positive youth outcomes, including
academic performance and achievement (Byfield, 2008, as cited in Thomas et al., 2014). Parents
who experienced racism are more likely to stress the importance of preparing their children for
racism through racial socialization (Thomas et al., 2014). The importance of education and
messages about self-worth and racial pride are deemed imperative to combating discrimination
and increasing self-efficacy (Thomas et al., 2014). Parental messages can reduce the risk of their
daughters adopting negative attitudes, and parent’s messages can also support their daughter’s
resiliency in a racist society (Thomas et al., 2014; Brittian, 2012).
Experiences in education shape the African American adolescent female’s self-esteem
and identity. Skin color influences the relationship between teachers and parents (Trotman Scott,
2014; Hannon et al., 2013). Academic achievement is influenced by teacher expectations, and
teachers expect light skinned student’s families are more beautiful, intellectual, and belong to
higher socioeconomic classes (Trotman Scott, 2014; Hannon et al., 2013). Parents of African
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 55
American students are instrumental in creating counter stories for their daughters to combat
negative messages received in school.
Trotman Scott (2014) conducted a case study on the effects of parent messaging when
they encounter a teacher’s deficit thinking toward their daughter. The study used Cross’s (2001)
racial identity model to identify the stages that a mother and her daughter went through in their
experiences with teachers denying the daughter access to gifted programs. The mother of a 5th
grader believed her daughter was gifted; however, the teachers did not agree. The parents
instilled racial pride and showered her with positive messages at home. Both these tactics proved
to increase the girl’s resilience and combat the deficit thinking of her teachers. Trotman Scott
(2014) believed that the girl’s darker skin influenced the teacher’s judgment about her ability to
enroll in a gifted classroom. The daughter did not gain access into the gifted program, but her
self-esteem and identity remained positive as a result of her mother’s positive messages to her in
spite of the suspected color discrimination imposed by teachers. Erikson (1968) asserts that
parents’ responses to various critical stages in the child’s development have a large impact on the
child’s identity development. Parents are important to developing resistance to racist structures
in society (Trotman Scott, 2014; Gullan et al., 2011).
Section IV – Microsystem: Adolescent Girls Responses
Middle school is a time when most girls negotiate in-and out- of school identities.
African American female students negotiate an Afrocentric identity or a mainstream identity.
Their ability to perform this negotiation in their own best interest is highly influenced by the
relationships and interactions they have had with their families and with school since early
childhood (Gullan et al., 2011). Cultural and socioeconomic experiences inform their school
experiences (Barton et al., 2008). Bourdieu (1977), as cited in Barton et al. (2008), purports that
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 56
some youth are marginalized and punished by symbolic violence: a kind of oppression brought
about by the imposition of systems and meanings where only particular systems and meanings
are granted legitimacy.
Girls’ choice in peer groups, mentors, grades, and after-school programs are important to
their paths in high school and beyond (Barton et al., 2008). African American female adolescents
attending high-poverty schools in high-poverty neighborhoods have limited options for
opportunities. Their choices are determined by accessibility and expectations set by the school
and their families.
During the middle school years, students begin to realize that race is linked to socio-
demographic variables like socioeconomic status and income variance (Mooney, 2013). Middle
school students also begin to be aware that racial prejudice exists as they reach maturity level
that allows them to understand social injustice and inequality (Erikson, 1968; Trotman Scott,
2014). Parents and teachers are most influential in the adolescent African American female’s life
as she develops a strong identity.
Adolescent Girls
Erikson’s stages of Psychosocial development help explain adolescence as a stage of
identity development versus role confusion (Mooney, 2013). Either is possible. If the adolescent
female has received appropriate support from home and school, she has developed an identity of
confidence in who she is and who she is to become. Role confusion occurs when the student is
not sure who she is or what she believes (Erikson, 1968). Healthy identity development is
contingent on whether the child has had positive experiences in development throughout her
childhood. When neither school nor parents have been able to facilitate positive identity
development toward womanhood as Black women in the midst of racism, sexism, and classism,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 57
it is unlikely that girls can make distinctions between stereotypes and positive identities as Black
females. Many young adolescents find themselves in role confusion in terms of whether to adopt
the stereotypes of what it means to be a Black woman or whether to conform to middle-class
White expectations of womanhood. Role confusion sets in for many African American girls
when they have to choose between maintaining their cultural identity/orientation and
assimilation into mainstream culture without a strong compass to navigate a positive identity
(Santrock, 2009). Internal forces of self-concept contrast with external forces as they both are
vying for dominance over identity.
In adolescence, girls are experimenting with who they are and whom they want to
become. If parents, school and society are supportive, then the student can have a balanced
identity. If parents, school and society are not supportive, then the student may have a negative
self-perception. During adolescence, people begin to form their own identity based upon their
explorations. Young people’s interactions with their environment facilitate learning. As students
make sense of objects and experiences, they add information to increase their understanding of
the world (Mooney, 2013).
Coping Skills
Depending on the parent and community influence, as well as school, African American
adolescents use coping mechanisms to deal with gendered racism. To be successful, African
American girls must be resilient, have strong racial identities and possess a sense of social justice.
This is a time when some of them begin to cultivate the identity of a strong Black woman,
especially if they have seen this image in their mothers or other role models (Thomas & King,
2007). In contrast, some African American adolescent girls learn to be invisible in response to
parent and school expectations (Fordham, 1993; Ricks, 2014). They infer from them that it is the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 58
way to be successful in urban schools that do not allow for assertive behavior without it being
interpreted as aggressive. Because parenting, teaching and child rearing practices reward silence
and obedience with good grades (Fordham, 1993), girls who exhibit these traits generally do well
academically. Underachieving girls are typically those who cultivate a striking visibility. They
are loud, outspoken and often angry. Schools stereotype them as angry, aggressive, promiscuous,
or lacking in positive human attributes (Fordham, 1993; Ricks, 2014). Other girls in middle
school respond with physical fighting as resistance to their oppression. Then, there are those who
rely on their spirituality (Trotman Scott, 2014). The problem is that these young girls and women
cannot be authentically themselves. They often make identity decisions in acceptance or
resistance to the power of stereotypes that surround them from birth. The girls themselves,
teachers and school personnel often misinterpret these coping strategies as personality and/or
cultural characteristics instead of responses to living with microaggressions (Ricks, 2014;
Trotman Scott, 2014). They are overlooked or over-policed. They experience challenges to be
successful in school in an environment that challenges who they are.
An exploratory study of 7th and 8th grade African American and Hispanic female
students used school observations to analyze the coping skills adolescent girls used in response
to the microaggressions experienced as a result of multiple oppressions in school (Letendre &
Rozas, 2015). The study focused on gender, racial and ethnic identity development among young
adolescent girls and included the impact of societal messages (often racist and stereotypical) that
the girls received in school, the role of family and peers in identity development, and the coping
skills that the girls developed to manage their interactions in the middle school environment
(Letendre & Rozas, 2015).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 59
Family expectations and church provided positive coping options while, in some families,
fighting was the expectation, thus creating dissonance between the school and home cultures
under zero-tolerance rules for fighting at school (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Letendre & Rozas,
2015). Students reported that derogatory and stereotypical attitudes, language, and behaviors of
peers and teachers had negative effects on their attitudes and ability to cope. For this group of
girls, prejudice, discrimination, and racist behaviors interact with the already complex
environment of the middle school, and fighting provided a feeling of control and protection
physically and psychologically (Letendre & Rozas, 2015). This study provides a lens to the
identity development and coping for girls of color within one middle school environment. There
is a need to continue to examine how African American girls negotiate a positive racial and
ethnic identity in schools where they feel devalued by teacher and peer attitudes and words. The
girls identified parents and adults on campus as advocates for them, but lacking in this study is
the parent voice to provide additional understanding to the way the girls are prepared at home to
cope with the injustices they may face in school and society.
Evidence of the degree to which African American students absorb negative stereotypes
is the manner in which they apply negative assumptions to experiences and situations with other
African Americans. Black people adopted the dominant rhetoric about Black people that
surrounds them and use it on one another. Lacking the ability to engage in critical thinking and
lacking the historical context in which Black people have had to live, Black youth fail to see the
uniqueness of a situation or person, and they perpetuate negative assumptions about one another
(Harrison, 2015). African American girls caught up in role confusion used stereotypes to
describe other African American boys and girls. According to the girls in the study, other
African American boys and girls are easily irritated. They say, almost as echoes of what the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 60
society said about Black people, that Black girls are quick to want to fight, that they are loud,
ghetto, and have attitudes in comparison to White people who are nice and easy going (Harrison,
2015). The girls attributed more positive attributes to White students and negative attributes to
other African American students.
It is best when the family or the school can help adolescent females adopt a healthy
image of Black womanhood. Patricia Collins (2000) established the “Afrocentric feminist
epistemology” characterized by concrete experience, dialogue, caring, and personal
accountability. African American mothers are key in laying a foundation of racial pride and
spirituality for their daughters (Thomas & King, 2007). Collins (2000) posits that only Black
women can truly know what being a Black woman means. Dialogue allows Black women to
share experiences that allow for the deconstruction of the dominating stereotypes perpetuated in
society (Ladson-Billings, 1994). The positive messages that mothers provide their daughters
build their strength in identity and racial pride (Thomas & King, 2007). Messages that promote
mainstream ideologies alone while denying racial heritage have a negative influence on African
American adolescent girls (Thomas & King, 2007). African American parents are challenged
with teaching racial and ethnic heritage pride or mainstream values. According to Boykin and
Toms (1985), as in Thomas and King (2007), African American parents teach their children
within three domains: mainstream, minority, and Afrocentric. The Afrocentric psychology is a
conceptual system that challenges the core assumptions of Western psychological theory and
creates an optimal and holistic conceptualization of human beings and the universe (Myers,
1987). Afrocentric worldview values self-knowledge as the genesis of all knowledge from which
individuals define their own experiences and envelop their whole selves as members of a
collective community (Akbar, 2008; Myers, 1987). Some of the things Afrocentric families value
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 61
are spirituality, harmony, movement, individualism, community, and oral tradition. Mainstream
parents focus on racial equality and Eurocentric values. Minority families focus on status within
an oppressive system. African American adolescent females whose families have trained them in
the three domains become bicultural and grounded in their rich African culture and heritage
(Thomas & King, 2007).
School oppressions can be overcome on the strength of mothers’ messages to their
daughters. Thomas and King (2007) found that mothers communicated messages of self-
determination, assertiveness, self-pride, the importance of respect for self and others and the
importance of spirituality and cultural pride. Daughters reported receiving messages of self-pride,
self-determination and assertiveness, spirituality, racial pride and education. Mothers did not
explicitly provide messages about education, but, through explicit messages about strength and
racial pride, daughters applied their teachings to education. African American females witness
mothers and grandmothers reflecting images of strength while relying on the promise that the
Lord would not give more than one can handle. The messages of spiritual strength and religious
belief are explicitly passed from mothers to daughters over generations in the African American
community. Mothers did not communicate messages about education, but the daughters in the
study received messages about achieving success through education (Thomas & King, 2007).
Racial pride, self-determination and high self-esteem increases African American female outlook
for future opportunities and empowers the student to achieve in the absence of explicit messages
about education from their mothers.
Mentorship
Mentorship by women who have a Black feminist perspective is another example of
supporting positive identity development. Mentorship is a means to support African American
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 62
adolescent girls through to success (Ricks, 2014). Through mentorship, the girls gain access to
the wisdom, experience, and survival skills of elders and gain the understanding and validation
that they share common experiences. Africana feminism perspective thinking women can
support adolescents, as adolescents need other Black women to help them adopt this perspective
in their microsystem. Womanism respects the interconnection between race, gender, spirituality,
strength, and resiliency (Williams & Wiggins, 2010). Womanist activism occurred in a climate
of overt stigma and oppression that reflects a process of maintaining self in the face of
overwhelming hostility and discrimination. The power of Womanism is embedded in community,
leading to support for one another, fighting racism with allies regardless of color. African
American female adolescents can attract attention and gain support from Womanist activists who
are committed to supporting youth toward positive experiences as women.
In order to develop positive and healthy identities, African American female teachers and
parents can support African American adolescents. The cultivation of positive identities is in the
knowledge of critical race theory. Teachers should be aware of the culturally relevant theories
that respect and acknowledge the intersection of race, class and sex for African American female
students. By bringing awareness about the student intersection, the teacher can meet an
adolescent’s needs and support her identity development without imposing indirect identity
confusion on the student and ultimately making her choose or prefer one identity instead of
another.
Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a philosophy that involves being critical of the prevailing
view of society. The theory critically examines race, racism and power as normalized in society
(DeCuir-Gunby, 2007; Lopez, 2003). It is “post-civil rights institutional activism” that was
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 63
influenced by an oppositionalist orientation toward racial power (Crenshaw, 2010). In many
cases, that means looking closer at how class, race, and gender are affected by beliefs that might
favor privileged people like rich, White men over other people like African American women.
Classism, racism, and sexism can affect a young African American adolescent female’s
education and, as an extension, her future. The theory allows African American young women
the space to combat racism, sexism and classism. Without CRT, young women do not have any
way to formulate their identity or project positive images about themselves. Without positive
images, these young women cannot find nor reproduce strong images for themselves.
CRT in education is about questioning how the educational system can best support the
identity development of young people. To be successful in school, African Americans must
possess positive identity and a strong self-efficacy (DeCuir-Gunby, 2007). As cited in DeCuir-
Gunby (2007), Sadowski (2003) posits that school environments are centers for adolescent
identity development because adolescents spend many hours in academic and school-related
environments. School is a center for learning about oneself; thus, it helps to shape African
American students’ sense of identity (DeCuir-Gunby, 2007). CRT pushes Blacks to consider the
failure to establish a sense of identity within society can lead to role confusion or identity crisis
in work, education or political activities (Crenshaw, 2010; DeCuir-Gunby, 2007; Mooney, 2013).
CRT offers opportunities and understanding of the different perspective of disadvantaged
members of society. For example, poor minority children often go to schools with lower levels of
funding than those of their middle- and upper-class counterparts, and less funding equates to less
opportunities for up-to-date technology or good teachers. Racial and gender minorities also face
some issues with classroom activities. All the writers, historical figures, and scientists that
students (African American and White) study in school seem to be White. Subtly, this gives
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 64
African American females the message that racial minorities cannot be good writers, scientists,
or politicians. By offering examples of racial minorities and women in class, teachers can help
minority youth see that people just like them can be anything they want to be. CRT allows space
for a focus on how teachers can help students who are not part of the majority gain an equitable
education.
Conclusion
Although African American girls, in research, reflect negative stereotypes, teachers and
parents who understand and actively alleviate these stereotypes through proper preparation can
mitigate some of the oppressions experienced. The multiple identities of race, gender, and class
intersect and create multifaceted experiences for African American females of all ages, but these
affect the strength of identity development in adolescents. By engaging with popular culture,
students can think critically about subjects they believe they know and examine them from a new
perspective. African American female students, parents, and teachers should question what we
have come to believe through media imagery and reinforce positive culturally affirming
alternatives to support positive identity development of adolescents (hooks, 2000).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 65
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
African American female and male students share similar challenges in underserved
schools in the United States; however, some challenges are unique to the experience of African
American females (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Research provides evidence
of multiple oppressions on African American women, but lacking is research on the effects of
multiple oppressions on adolescent identity development (Thomas & King, 2007; Collins, 2000).
This study sought to add research to the current literature through the qualitative exploration of
the African American adolescent female experience. The research took place inside the
university context to capture an understanding of the effect multiple oppressions in middle
school and high school have on African American adolescent females who are now matriculating
to a top-tier university.
Findings from this study can lead to recommendations for educators and parents to
support increased positive identity development for African American adolescent and young
adult females. Emphasis is on academic achievement and positive identity development. The
study may further districts’ and schools’ efforts to understand ways to make urban schools more
welcoming and supportive to African American adolescent girls and close opportunity gaps by
preparing African American girls for admission to and graduation from four-year universities.
Three research questions were answered through a case study utilizing qualitative methods:
• What are the ways in which African American female students attending a top-tier
predominantly White institution (PWI) describe themselves?
• In what ways do African American females believe their middle and high schools either
supported or hindered the development of their racial, gender and socioeconomic
identities as students?
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 66
• What role do African American females perceive that their parents played during their
middle school and high school years to prepare them for admission to a top-tier PWI?
This is a case study of African American first- and second-year undergraduate female
students attending a traditional PWI (Merriam, 2009). The researcher had an interest in
understanding the multidimensional factors involved in African American females’ developing
positive student identities in a variety of school environments (Merriam, 2009). Research
substantiates the existence of multiple oppressions on African American female students due to
societal biases about race, gender, and class diversity (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al.,
2014). However, research on the effect on female adolescents’ identity development is minimal.
This study utilized a qualitative methodology that provided the opportunity for study
participants to recollect their middle and high school experiences in order to disclose their
experiences freely (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009). The purpose of qualitative research is to
capture feelings, experiences and opinions in efforts to answer research questions. Qualitative
research is open, process oriented and evolving thus allowing the researcher to focus on
understanding the meaning of the participant’s experience (Merriam, 2009). In contrast,
quantitative research methods are specific, confined, and outcome oriented (Creswell, 2014).
Quantitative research does not evolve beyond the confinements of the research measures
(Creswell, 2014). The most effective way to gain understanding about general experiences is
through qualitative methods. Through interviews, focus groups, and observations, young female
participants shared their feelings and recounted individual and collective experiences during
middle and high school.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 67
Sample and Population
The researcher chose to conduct the study at a top-tier PWI. At this school, the
participants for the initial phase of the study took part in a focus group and were chosen based on
a combination of criteria. The first criterion was their voluntary willingness to participate. The
second criterion that the pool from which they were selected was made up of female students in
their first and second year of undergraduate study. The size of the focus group was expected not
to exceed 12 participants.
Student Criteria
The student criteria were selected to identify African American females who would
voluntarily share their reflections on middle and high school experiences. The students were
demonstrative of adolescents who were able to cope with school challenges and, thus, amass the
social capital they needed to be successful. As a result of their acceptance into a top-tier
university, none of the participants are considered academically unsuccessful. The emphasis of
their participation was on what schools did to support or thwart their growth and development as
students eligible for admission to a top tier four-year university.
From the focus group, the researcher used stratified sampling to select three African
American young women who represent different U.S. states of origin and different majors to
participate in a single one-on-one interview with the researcher. The three students selected for
interviews were also observed in the university classroom setting.
Focus Group Recruitment and Selection
To gain access to African American students at the university, a flyer stating the purpose
of the study was distributed to African American residence hall monitors, members of the
African American student councils and the African American student campus support center.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 68
The lead investigator spent a consecutive five days in the African American student campus
support center to make introductions to all African American female students as a means to
identify first- and second-year African American female undergraduates. Once first- and second-
year undergraduates were identified and, after they expressed interest in participating in the study,
they were asked to write their name, major, contact e-mail, phone number, home state and types
of middle and high schools they attended. After twenty-five names were collected, the next step
was for the lead investigator to identify a date and time to gather the participants in a focus group.
Once participants agreed to the date and time, up until the actual date, some participants
cancelled, leaving the numbers in flux; however, the lead solidified a group of seven women.
In introducing the focus group, the researcher emphasized the purpose of this study to
shed light on the obstacles African American adolescent females face in the development of
healthy and positive identities. Understanding the African American female experience benefits
school districts’ ability to create opportunities that increase positive African American female
identity development, thus increasing their potential for academic achievement.
One-on-one Interview Recruitment
Following the completion of the focus group, the lead investigator reviewed the focus
group audio tape transcription, notes taken during the session, and the availability of the women
to make a determination about which of the three women would be invited to participate in the
one-on-one interviews. Three women were invited for one-on-one semi-structured interviews to
answer questions pertaining to the research questions. The women selected for one-on-one
interviews were determined by their extensive and detailed responses in the focus group, their
availability and willingness to participate and their ability to provide the researcher with rich
details of their school experiences. Following one-on-one interviews, member checks were
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 69
conducted to solicit confirmation from the participants that data analysis is accurate (Creswell,
2014; Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009).
Consent Form
Participating students were provided with an overview of the study at the initial focus
group meeting. They received a flyer describing the study. The women who signed the consent
form were informed they would be recorded on audiotape. The women were all of consent age,
18, 19 and 20 years old; therefore, they did not require parental consent to participate in the
study.
Incentives
Incentives were publicized on flyers and communicated to students to encourage
participation. At the focus group session, snacks were provided for all participants to encourage a
communal atmosphere and the students’ dedication to attending. At the conclusion of the focus
group session, participants received ten-dollar Target gift cards for their involvement. To reward
one-on-one interview participation, the three women received a second ten-dollar Target gift
card, and snacks were available to them. Upon completion of the study, a Chromebook was
raffled off for full participation. All of the participants’ names were included in a box and a
second name was included for the interviewees. Ultimately, Lily was awarded the Chromebook.
Interviews
To avoid disruption to the students’ instructional day, the focus group and interviews
were held at mutually agreed upon times and scheduled according to the participants’ availability.
The focus group was convened in the university African American student support center’s
conference room. The location was ideal because the study participants were mostly recruited
from the support center, thus it was an obvious commonly known location. Upon arrival for the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 70
focus group session, the women were offered pizza, oranges and bottled water. They were
informed that the discussion would be audio recorded on both a cell phone and handheld
recorder as a back-up. The lead investigator then provided each participant with a consent form,
and each participant read it as the lead investigator offered to answer any questions they had.
Seeing that no one had a question, the women signed the consent form and were provided with
copies of the form for their records. After reviewing the consent forms, the women were asked to
share the information they had provided previously to the lead investigator: home state, major,
undergraduate level, and the type of middle and high school they attended. Also, the women
were asked to create an alias by choosing the name of a flower. Throughout the discussion, after
the lead investigator asked the group a question, the ladies responded first with their alias and,
then, the answer to the question. The lead investigator took handwritten notes on participants’
responses throughout the session. The session continued in that fashion, concluding in less than
two hours.
The merit of conducting a focus group is the ability to build a sense of community among
participants to consider their own views in the context of other group members’ views (Merriam,
2009). Merriam (2009) advises that the focus group has an appropriate use, but, if participants
are not comfortable or knowledgeable about a topic, the focus group may not be a useful tool.
The researcher included icebreakers and an opportunity for the women to ask questions about the
study and for them to select their pseudonyms prior to conducting the focus group session in
order to garner the desired participant interactions.
One-on-one interviews were held in the university library, a semi-private setting, to
avoid distractions. The participants were offered oranges and bottled water at the individual
interview sessions. The interviews were conducted for an average of one hour. According to
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 71
Merriam (2009) and Creswell (2014) interviews are important in garnering sufficient information
about the subject matter without trying to guide participant responses. The researcher used a
semi-structured interview format. Each question was accompanied by a set of probing questions
designed to answer the research questions. At the conclusion of the interview, the participant was
presented with a ten-dollar Target gift card. The lead investigator requested that the participant
ask her professor permission for a classroom observation to take place. The lead investigator and
participant agreed they would discuss schedules for observations the following week.
Instruments
The Focus Group Script for African American Girls (Appendix A) was developed to
understand aspects of social identity particular to gendered racial identity (Thomas et al., 2011).
The original study included focus groups of 17 African American young women between 15 and
21 years of age. The results suggested that gender and racial identity had greater importance for
participants than did separate racial or gender identities. Participants identified with negative
stereotypes and images of African American women, issues of colorism and standards of beauty
(Thomas et al., 2011). The importance of self-determination was highlighted. The participants
identified the intersection of race and gender as an influence on their self-identification. This
instrument was used to ensure that questions captured the intersection of African American
females’ multiple identities.
The Childhood Racial Socialization Experiences Scale (White-Johnson, Ford, & Sellers,
2010) was developed to assess African American mothers’ racial socialization messages based
on their experiences during childhood. The measure is comprised of four items (Appendix B).
The questions were used in the one-on-one interviews to determine the participants’ childhood
socialization. The questions asked about how often family and community members discussed
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 72
race and racism. The lead investigator expanded the questions to include sexism and classism to
answer the research questions.
Twenty-nine educators from Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and Monterey used the Student
Interview Questions protocol in a Master of Art and Tier I Credentialing Program. The questions
compiled provide key insight into learning barriers, engagement, and supports. Twelve survey
questions were modified to gain a thorough understanding of the scope and nature of the specific
behaviors and attitudes of the adolescent participants in this study (Appendix C).
Observations
The researcher conducted observations to gather unbiased data regarding the students’
experiences in university classroom settings. Observation guides were developed to observe how
African American females are functioning inside the culture of the university they attend. The
observer used an observation guide that captures interactions between the instructor and students
through scripting. Detailed accounts were made of the observations. The observations were
conducted with the three women selected from the focus group who also participated in the
interviews. The intent was to see the participants in their natural setting. The researcher observed
the young women both in major courses and in an elective class. The observation protocol
(Appendix D) was used to script student and teacher moves in five-minute intervals. Throughout
the observation, typed notes were maintained with notations about student demographics, class
size and study participant level of involvement. Attention was paid to classroom culture,
technology used in the classroom and the relationships between the participant and her teacher as
well as the participant and her classmates. Each observation was conducted in one class period
on the university campus.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 73
Data Analysis
Data analysis began with a review of the purpose of the study (Merriam, 2009). At the
completion of each stage of data collection, focus group interview and interviews, the recordings
were uploaded to rev.com and transcriptions of the recordings were requested. While reading the
transcriptions, notes were taken in the margins of the transcript to capture reflections, tentative
themes, ideas and topics that emerged from each set of data (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009).
Notes regarding what the researcher needed to ask, observe, or look for in consecutive rounds of
data collection were kept on the computer. For example, after a review of an interview transcript,
the researcher noted what needed to be pursued in the next interview that might not have been
done in the first interview (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009). The researcher used triangulation to
determine whether findings from each of the sources of data confirmed one another or whether
discrepancies were present. This process continued throughout data collection. When it was time
to analyze the data and write the findings in chapter four, the researcher crafted a set of tentative
categories or themes to answer the research questions by identifying common themes found in all
the data sources.
It was important to conduct data analysis simultaneously with data collection. The
researcher found it helpful to read the focus group transcription in anticipation of the one-on-one
interviews so that, if something was not clear, the researcher could ask the interviewee for
clarification. Also, conducting data analysis simultaneously with data collection allowed the
researcher to expand probing questions in consecutive interviews to answer research questions.
Without ongoing analysis, the data could become unfocused and repetitious because the data
collected can be expansive and too overwhelming to attempt analysis at one time (Merriam,
2009). Member checks occurred to ensure participant and researcher alignment in how the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 74
experiences are communicated (Creswell, 2014; Merriam 2009). The researcher e-mailed drafts
of the dissertation to interview participants who were asked to read the components that were
written about them. The participants who replied to the request confirmed that their experiences
were captured and the descriptions were accurate. The researcher maintained contact with the
study participants through email to request additional information and confirmation of ideas that
the researcher had about data collected. Most of the participants responded to email requests
while others did not. The lead investigator was mindful of the participants’ limited availability as
undergraduate students managing their schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Interview logs,
field notes, reports, records, and reflective memos were maintained on a regular basis after each
interaction with participants.
Triangulation
In an attempt to validate the study, the process of triangulation was utilized (McEwan &
McEwan, 2003; Merriam, 2009). The data from the interviews, focus groups and observations
were used to assess the validity of the findings by the convergence of information (Maxwell,
2013; Merriam, 2009). The focus group, interviews and observations allowed the lead
investigator to collect different aspects of data about the women at different times and in
different settings that ultimately allowed for triangulating analysis (Creswell, 2014; Merriam,
2009). Triangulating data was useful in identifying themes (Creswell, 2014). The three data
points allowed the lead investigator to analyze the similarities and differences of the women’s
experiences. Once the raw data were transcribed and codes applied to the data pieces, the
researcher looked for themes in the findings (Creswell, 2014). The codes were assigned to
elements of data that the researcher deemed were important to answering the research questions
(Maxwell, 2013). Data was analyzed using Creswell’s (2002) steps for data analysis.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 75
Table 1
Creswell’s (2002) Steps for Data Analysis
Step One:
Organize and Prepare
• Sorting and arranging the data
• Transcribing interviews
Step Two:
General Sense
• Read through all data
• Reflect on the overall meaning
• Record general thoughts about data
Step Three:
Coding
• Create and label categories
• Organizing the material into “chunks”/categories
Step Four:
Description
• Generate a description of the setting/people/categories/themes
• Detail rendering of information
• Generate small number of themes/categories
• Display multiple perspectives
Step Five:
Represented
• Narrative passage to convey the findings of the analysis
• Detail discussion of themes
• Discussion with interconnecting themes
• Present a process model
Step Six:
Interpretations
• Meaning of the data
• Lessons learned
• Researcher’s personal interpretation
• Meaning derived from comparison of the findings to
literature/theories
Source: Creswell (2014)
Limitations and Delimitations
Limitations of the study were found in the sample population. The sample was diverse in
that it was made up of women from various states and school types; however, the sample was too
small to generalize their experiences. The lead investigator’s ideal sample population included
students who were adolescent middle school African American females. University institutional
review board restrictions made it difficult to gain permission to access the specific target group
of 6th to 8th grade students. The lead investigator felt it was necessary to understand the current
perspective of middle and high school students as they were developing their identities. In
contrast, a delimiting fact was that the researcher gained access to university female students
who were able to reflect on their middle and high school experiences to offer an analysis of the
effects of their experiences effects on identity development. The middle school or high school
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 76
student feasibly does not possess the maturity yet to analyze her experiences to the degree that a
college student would have.
Another limitation to the study existed in the observation phase. The lead investigator
chose to be a complete observer in the sense that she did not interact with the students during the
observation visits. The lead investigator should have been an observer as participant to gain a
better understanding of the students in their university classrooms. Observers as participants
work as observers primarily and participants secondarily (Merriam, 2009). The observer as
participant, in contrast to a complete observer, takes liberties to gain access to a wide range of
information from the observed population. While the researcher was not hidden from the
students in the classroom, the researcher did choose seats in the classroom away from all
students, allowing her to have a wide view of every student, teacher and the interactions taking
place in the classroom. As a result, some of the observed participants answered questions the
observer had at the conclusion of the class, but absent was on-going analysis of the data collected
from the observation during the observation.
Conclusion
The research methodology for this study was important in understanding how data were
gathered, from whom, and for what purpose. In order to conduct this research, it was necessary
to complete the institutional review process at the University of Southern California. The process
validated the ethical practices of the study and allowed this researcher to ask for access to the
university students. The purpose of the case study was to answer the research questions outlined
previously.

BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 77
CHAPTER FOUR: STUDY RESULTS
This chapter presents the findings from this qualitative study of factors affecting the
identity development and academic experiences of the subjects in this study, starting with their
middle school experiences. Three research questions guided this study:
1. What are the ways in which African American female students attending a top-tier
predominantly White institution (PWI) describe themselves?
2. In what ways do African American females believe their middle and high schools either
supported or hindered the development of their racial, gender and socioeconomic identities
as students?
3. What role do African American females perceive that their parents played during their
middle school and high school years to prepare them for admission to a top-tier PWI?
Research findings are presented here based primarily on participant responses during a focus
group session with seven young women. Follow up interviews with three of the focus group
young women selected to participate in one-on-one interviews provided further findings related
to the research questions. The researcher also conducted a single observation of each of the three
students in their classes. In accordance with the study requirements for confidentiality, each
participant chose the name of a flower to conceal her identity: Rose, Poppy, Lily, Tulip, Katniss,
Hibiscus, and Daisy.
Participants
Seven African American female first- and second-year undergraduate students at a Tier 1
California private university participated in this study. Per participation requirements, all
students were either first- or second-year African American female students. This requirement
allowed for the interviews to be conducted with students who were still within one or two years
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 78
of high school graduation and, therefore, able to recall high school and middle school
experiences.
Of these seven undergraduate students, three were in their first year, and four were in
their second year of college. The participants represented a variety of majors. The first-year
students’ majors were public relations, narrative studies and biomedical engineering. The
second-year students’ majors were broadcast and digital journalism with a political science
minor, policy, planning and development, human biology, and business administration. The
participants were all a part of the African diaspora; however, they had divergent school
experiences and each grew up in a different part of the United States. The four women who
participated in the focus group only (not the interviews as well) were from Virginia, Texas, and
California. Two of these four women were from Texas. Three women who, as a result of the
depth of their answers related to the research questions in the focus group, were chosen to
participate in the one-on-one interviews and observations; they were from Georgia, California,
and Missouri, respectively. The middle and high school experiences of all participants ranged
among charter, public, and private schools. Each of the women chosen for the interviews (Lily,
Rose and Poppy) had middle school and high school experiences in at least one of the above
types of schools. Their major was in one of the four core academic fields (English, math, science,
and history). The participants were from different areas in the country, their socioeconomic
backgrounds varied, and, coincidently, they all had an older brother.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 79
Table 2
Participant Demographics
Lily Rose Poppy Daisy Tulip Hibiscus Katniss
Age; School
Year (1 or 2)
18; 1 20; 2 19; 2 18; 1 20; 2 19; 1 20; 2
State of
Origin
GA MO CA TX TX VA CA
SES Upper
Middle
class
Lower
Middle
class
Low
Income/
Working
class
Mom –
Low
middle
Dad -
Middle

Middle
School
Private,
Christian
Charter Public Private,
all-girls
Public Private Private
High school Private
Christian
Public Public
Magnet
Private,
all-girls
Public Private,
all-girls
Private
First Gen.
Student
No No Yes No -
parents=
2 yr.
degrees
No
College
Major
Narrative
Studies
Human
Biology
Broadcast
Digital
Journalism
Pol. Sci.
Biomed
Engineer
Business
Admin.
Public
Relations
Policy,
planning and
development
College GPA 3.7 3.5 3.56 3.04 2.96
Career
Aspirations
Screen
writer and
author
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Research Question 1
The first research question asked, “What are the ways in which African American female
students attending a top-tier PWI describe themselves? This question was included to identify
how young women describe themselves as a way to understand how they think of themselves
and interpret their experiences. The women interviewed during a focus group session agreed they
allow societal trends to define how they use the terms African American or Black. They all
stated that race is a larger factor for them than gender is, but the women find it challenging and
difficult to separate these aspects of their identity that make them who they are. They
acknowledged the societal pressures they experienced as Black women whose ancestry links
them to the African diaspora. They expressed awareness of their shared oppression because of
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 80
their African lineage and their shared identity as women. They all spoke of their reliance on their
cultural connections and mothers’ modeling to navigate the world and to form their individual
identities as African American or Black women. They all agreed that, in response to the shared
experience in the African diaspora as Black or African American women, they developed an
inner strength passed on to them through their ancestry. The image of a strong, resilient Black
woman was a recurring theme throughout the focus group session, as the majority of the
participants expressed African American and/or Black women are strong and resilient. The
participants embraced this identity for themselves. They saw these as attributes as their expected
responsibility and role that assist them in coping with the external pressures they are destined to
experience.
Consistent with research (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014), the women stated that, during their
adolescence, they negotiated their identity primarily within the context of their ethnic group
experience. In young adulthood, they are now able to reflect on their earlier experiences while
considering the group label most relevant to them and, thus, commit to the ethnic and racial
identities that resonate with them most. Overall, the women in this study revealed they have had
experiences that make them question their role in society, but, ultimately, the positive messaging
they received from their family, friends, and some teachers allowed them to define who they are
as African American or Black female students, independent of the stereotypes and limited
expectations projected on them by the dominant U.S. society.
Race and Ethnicity
When the young women in the focus group were asked what they consider to be their
ethnicity, Katniss reported that she mostly identified with the term African, but, since she was
born in America, she guessed it would have to be African American. Rose identified as African
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 81
and White, but, mostly, she identified as African American or Black. Hibiscus considered herself
Afro-Caribbean, and the other four women said, African American or Black. The women were
asked what they consider to be their race. Rose said she considered her race to be Black, mixed
or biracial. The other women, Poppy, Daisy, Tulip, and Lily, chose the word Black to identify
their racial identity. Before posing these questions, the researcher clarified for the focus group
the difference between ethnicity and race and noted the two identities are often closely
intertwined. Ethnicity is associated with the cultural group a person chooses; racial identity,
however, is more often assigned by the group in power based on the person’s outer appearance,
mainly skin color, and is imposed by those with power in a societal orientation.
Rose, whose father is West African and mother is White, speaking in reference to
ethnicity, confirmed her understanding of the difference between race and ethnicity in saying,
“That’s [ethnicity] more cultural, but, as far as race, I feel like it’s just a category that we use to
put people in and so, in America, I’m considered Black or biracial.” Tulip and Poppy did not
identify with any connection to their African ancestry. Poppy said, “For me, I just consider
myself Black as in Black American.” Tulip agreed with Poppy and added,
I don’t have any connections [to Africa], so I don’t really care either way because I don’t
even know what to define myself as sometimes. I feel like society kind of defines what
we’re labeled. I kind of go by what society usually calls me, I guess.
Hibiscus exhibited more confidence and a sense of belonging to a defined group when she talked
about what it meant to her to be Afro-Caribbean. Hibiscus said, “Afro-Caribbean, to me, simply
just means a Black person from the Caribbean or having belonged to the African diaspora, and,
when I say Black, typically that just means that I am a Black person.” Katniss responded and
said,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 82
I identify as African for my ethnicity because I’m more in touch with my African culture,
rather than the Black culture. When people see me, they won’t necessarily say I’m
African. They’ll see me as Black, but, growing up, up until my freshman year, I only saw
myself as African.
Consistent with research (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014), these women’s identities are
influenced by the racial and ethnic labels imposed by American society, which are dominant in
African American women’s lives. Ethnic and racial identity develops in adolescence, and the
more relevant ethnicity is in adolescence, the more connected one is to confirming into
adulthood one’s ethnic identity with a group (Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014).
Among the participants, there was a clear distinction between the American-born Black
students (Poppy, Daisy, Tulip, and Lily) and the African American students (Katniss, Rose and
Hibiscus) born to one or more immigrant parents. Rose, Katniss and Hibiscus, whose parent(s)
immigrated to America, identified a distinct difference between their ethnicity and race.
Table 3
Participant Race and Ethnicity
Participant Ethnicity Race
Katniss African or African American Black
Rose African & White Black
Hibiscus Afro-Caribbean Black
Poppy Black Black
Daisy Black Black
Tulip Black Black
Lily Black Black

Ultimately, in attempts to express their identity, all of the women deferred at different
degrees to society’s labels to define themselves. They all admitted to acquiescing to society’s
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 83
view of them as Black; however, they demonstrated awareness of this influence while also
exercising some control over or defining ethnic and racial identities independent of society’s
definitions.
Intersectionality – Race and Gender
When describing what it means to be a woman, the focus group participants discussed the
intersectionality of their race and gender. They were unable to discuss one without the other
because, for them, their race and gender are two prominent parts of their identity that make up
the whole. The women agreed that the development of inner strength is a common experience for
Black/African American women, even as they are subjected to stereotypes and overlooked by
mainstream society.
Daisy, Poppy, Hibiscus and Lily describe the intersectionality of being a Black woman
that makes it difficult to separate being Black from being a woman. The women agreed that
negative stereotypes surround them based on society’s perceptions of their racial identities and
for being Black. The young women relate to the feelings described by Reynolds and Pope (1991)
associated with being a minority female. Daisy said, “You’re treated differently as a woman
depending on what race you are.” Daisy articulated themes heard from the majority of the
participants in the focus group, particularly the theme of the strong Black woman:
It’s kind of like, in society’s view, you’re at the very bottom…you’re going to have to
work a lot harder to prove yourself being Black and being a woman. Black women get
the short end of the stick a lot of times. I think that being strong comes with being a
Black woman because you don’t really have another choice. I feel like, in order to
survive having attacks at your character, you’re going to have to develop a thicker skin. It
just comes with being a Black woman.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 84
Lily said, “It’s hard to separate or impossible to separate being Black from being a
woman.” She stated that being Black and being a woman gives you a certain perspective on the
world. Lily said, “Being Black colors the way I look at the world the same way as being a
woman does.” Poppy said,
I don’t want to say it’s a double negative, but there’s already so many social constructs
against just being a woman for all women. You also have to face being Black on top of
that…negative stereotypes…just being a woman and being a Black woman is different
than what the majority… a White woman would face.
Hibiscus reinforced the complexities in the intersection of race and gender for Black women:
It’s really hard for me to separate my womanhood from my Blackness because I don’t
really think separately about being a woman, but I think about being Black all the time…I
think I do put my Blackness first…I don’t like putting two prominent parts of my identity
against each other.
Hibiscus realized that her race and gender are two prominent parts of her identity.
However, it is her race that calls for attention first. African American or Black women cannot
detach from either parts of their identity because the intersection creates the dominance. When
society considers Black, it is the Black male that is exemplified, and, when society thinks of
female, the White woman is the example (Livingston, Rosette, & Washington, 2012). As a result,
the Black women are overlooked.
Lily’s comment addressed the struggle for identity amidst the multiple oppressions that
she said come with being a Black woman:
As a Black woman, you just have to be hyper-aware of everything just because there’s so
many factors about your identity that cause you problems...I find that being a Black
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 85
woman comes with a lot of pressure…because there’s so much to change and so much
that you really can’t change.
Consistent with research (Abrams et al., 2014; Settles et al., 2008; Wilkins, 2012; Winkle-
Wagner, 2008) these young Black women referred to being Black and a woman as the burden of
having to be strong which is exemplified in the stereotypical strong Black woman. She speaks of
the ongoing struggle in which the Black woman has had to engage, but she speaks of these
burdens as ones the Black woman has had to overcome. In her use of the word overcome she
characterizes the Black woman in language of strength as an overcomer:
Tulip stated,
Because we’ve [Black women] have gone through a lot more struggles [than Black
males], we feel like we have to overcome a lot more things. Being female and being
Black that has a lot of different obstacles that we’ve had to go through over the decades,
over the years in the past in the history: slavery, voting rights, just everything really.
Tulip described the Black female’s present struggles and historical context of past social justice
obstacles as well as victories over these obstacles. She too spoke of the Black woman in
language of strength:
I think that being female just means that we understand that there are some things that
aren’t equal right now, but we’re going to fight for what we think is right and fight for
our personal beliefs and the beliefs of others around us. I think it’s just being empowered,
being strong, and fighting through whatever obstacles we have and just knowing that life
is unfair sometimes. It’s okay because we’re strong and we’re going to make it through.
Katniss agrees with Lily when she said, “being an African American woman, I have to tell
myself that we have all these pressures against us, I have to work ten times harder and fifty times
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 86
smarter.” Tulip stated, “being a Black female means that we have to do something about it. We
have to actually incite change and some of that is teaching friends just about our culture and
about what we do daily to keep up.” Tulip stated, “we can be mad at some points when
something is directed toward us, but at one point you need to go out and teach somebody
something so that everybody else can start to learn what we know.” Both Katniss and Tulip
acknowledged the oppressions they experience as Black women, but they both also speak of their
will to overcome the oppressions and their ability to change society.
Hibiscus picked up the theme of the “strong Black woman.” She stated,
I think being a Black woman means that you’re constantly fighting against certain things
like certain stereotypes or theories about who a Black woman is, and I think sometimes in
that quest to prove ourselves, [we] shame each other for certain things that we’re doing,
like slut-shaming and things like that kind of thing. Black women are typically not very
loving of one another, but kind of understating of one another in the sense that [is] a lot
of support and self-love. Where I found that was in other Black women. I think that’s
something unique to us.
In this statement, Hibiscus also returned to the matter of relationships among Black women
themselves in the midst of their oppressions. She joined Katniss and Tulip in calling for Black
women to unite in the struggle. She spoke of the necessity of Black women supporting one
another in facing their shared oppressions. She also spoke directly against divisions among Black
women.
The portrayal of the strong Black woman in contrast to the angry Black woman
stereotype create a hierarchy of stereotypes that places welfare mothers and modern day ‘thots’
at the bottom rung (Collins, 2000). The stereotypes allow Black women who already feel they
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 87
are rejected by Black men and rejected in employment opportunities to play the “class” game as
a way to distinguish themselves from the “sluts” so the world will know they are different. Some
Black women struggle against society’s image that all Black women are sluts or extraordinarily
strong women. Both images put them in jeopardy.
The Collective Black Woman
Rather than seeing themselves as victims, the participants saw themselves as change
agents. The women demonstrated a critical consciousness about their experiences with
marginalization and discrimination in society (hooks, 2000). These women agree that Black
women are overlooked. Lily said, “at the helm of a lot of movements, Black women are on the
front lines, but don’t always get the credit for it just because [for that reason] we [Black women]
just have to be aware.”
Poppy adds that people forget about the struggles of Black women, including Black males.
Poppy said, “I feel some sort of responsibility to empower other Black women just because there
aren’t a lot of people that are doing it.” Poppy expressed the importance of Black women
supporting one another because society offers little support for Black women.
Daisy agreed that Black women should uplift one another. She stated,
Being a Black woman comes with a lot of proving people wrong or having the idea that
you have to prove people wrong like disprove people’s theories about Black women. It
also comes with a lot of unlearning. As a child, you’re probably not given a lot of support
from your friends or people you went to school with, or you saw in the media that Black
women were disrespected or weren’t worth a lot. So you have to unlearn that as you get
older and learn your worth and your value.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 88
Daisy acknowledged that being a Black woman requires a certain level of strength and grit to
combat the images and ideas that society projects on them. Daisy said, “there’s a big emphasis
on Black girl empowerment on social media and in society in general. A lot of us up lifting each
other, which is a beautiful thing.” These women found that social media both empower Black
women and in some cases reinforce the negative images that come from mainstream media and
other societal influences.
Stereotypes in Media
Hibiscus expressed a concern about images that Black women portray of themselves:
I do think that we have to be responsible [about] the images that we’re releasing to people.
I feel like there are Black girls who behave in a way that people consider ghetto. They’re
real and they’re valid and we shouldn’t look down on them for that.
Daisy stated,
It’s dangerous just to have one image of what Black girls are but I think for me, the thing
is a lot of people don’t watch hip hop…I don’t think that’s the image that’s getting out to
non-Black people the most.
Daisy did not agree that the images that are promoted widely through media to the world have an
effect on her or other Black women. Throughout the focus group, Daisy acknowledged the
difficulties that Black women experience related to the stereotypes that have been created about
them while also being optimistic about uplifting Black women.
Rose stated,
I still personally enjoy watching those shows [reality television shows, ex. “Love & Hip
Hop”], sometimes. They’re just entertaining. We understand that not everyone acts like
that. It is hard when other people don’t understand that and they just assume that you act
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 89
a certain way because of how you are. Some say, ‘oh I just thought you were ghetto
because that’s how ghetto people talk out here [in California].’ I respond with ‘no it’s an
accent that I have. I feel like, even though these shows are entertaining for us [and] we
like to watch them, it still makes it harder for us to get away from the ghetto stereotype.
The participants agree that images in the media feed stereotypical images into society that are
potentially attributed to them and other Black women. The stereotypes that are promoted in
media many times illustrate a singular dimension of some Black women who the participants
saw as a threat to their freedom to be themselves. The focus group participants desire to see less
judgment passed on other women. Focus group members stated that if women exhibit behavior
associated with the stereotype it is not the role of other Black women to judge them. They felt it
was more important for Black women to be unified.
Consistent with research (Abrams et al., 2014; Settles et al., 2008; Wilkins, 2012;
Winkle-Wagner, 2008), these women agreed that the strong Black woman stereotype, and the
role expectation that accompanies it, exists and permeates their experiences. These women also
identified themselves as participants in unifying and supporting one another, Abrams et al.
(2014) found support for the image of the strong Black women to be present in their study as
well. Lily, Rose, Katniss and the other women acknowledged the societal labels and expectations
set for the Black woman, and they acknowledge that some Black women exhibit some of the
stereotypes. Even though they do not choose to exhibit some of the negative stereotypes in their
own behavior, they still identify with Black women because of the strength they see in them.
They see the strength of the Black woman, in the many ways it is manifested, as a unifying factor
for the collective Black woman. They saw their collective strength, although manifested in
various ways, as a unifying factor. They embrace their role as change agents, strong Black
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 90
women, as angry and aggressive. However, they are not fearful of embracing these women as
part of the collective Black woman. They progress to unify through their collective strength.
Their stance on the collective strong Black woman differs from the one portrayed in the Winkler-
Wagner (2008) study that showed undergraduate African American women who interpreted the
strong Black woman image with being overly aggressive. Lily, Rose, Katniss and the other
women in this study did not see the image of the strong Black woman as detrimental to their
identities in the multiple ways it might be expressed. They expressed that part of being a Black
woman was being a strong Black woman to overcome the many obstacles put before them.
Gender Over Race Identity
When asked specifically about what being a woman in general meant to them, all
respondents described their Black woman experience except Rose and Katniss. Rose and Katniss
spoke about womanhood exclusively without linking it to their racial identity. These are the two
whose ethnicity is more directly tied to their cultural ties to Africa. Both of their fathers were
born in Africa. One cannot help but make the connection that, because these women have
confidence in who they are culturally, they can more freely enjoy what womanhood could mean
for them without being stifled by society’s labels or opinions of who they should be. The women
are not bound by the history of oppression on Black women in America. Instead, they have a
multidimensional view of womanhood for African America. Rose stated she loves being a
woman:
I love being a woman. I love femininity. I love being girly. I love being myself, but, at
the same time, not necessarily putting myself in the confines of what a woman is
supposed to be. I like sports. I like science.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 91
Rose acknowledged that she enjoys being a woman. She was more concerned about the
stereotypes that society projects of women (not necessarily Black women, but women in general).
She resisted the implied limitations to what women should or should not do. Her attitude is more
akin to the White feminist stance for whom resistance to sexism is more important than
resistance to racism. Rose did not define herself within the limitations society places on women.
Further, Rose’s opinion of and love for a feminine womanhood is, perhaps, based on examples
by behaviors she saw in her mother who is White, not Black as the mothers of the other
participants. She is embracing interpretations of womanhood that are widely accepted by the
larger society. The definition of White women has been widely accepted into the circle of
womanhood while that of Black women has not (Collins, 2000; hooks, 2000). The messages
Rose’s mother demonstrated model for Rose that womanhood is enjoyable.
Katniss said, based on her African cultural background, there are certain standards that
her mother taught her to uphold for herself. For that reason, she defines herself by her
womanhood over being Black. She said, coming from an African culture, gender roles for
women are emphasized. She stated,
Basically, if I were to think…okay…choose whether you’re a woman or Black, I would
probably identify as woman because I seem to hold myself to such a standard…Based off
of my cultural background, there’s certain standards that we…that my mom taught me to
hold myself to. That would foster why I define myself as a woman versus Black.
In Katniss’ case, it is her mother who leads her to define herself as a woman, and it is her cultural
ties that allow her the freedom to do so without undue regard for society’s views for women.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 92
Research Question 2
The second research question asked, “In what ways do African American females believe
their middle and high schools either supported or hindered the development of their racial,
gender and socioeconomic identities as students?” Two sub-questions surfaced to answer this
research question. The first question is, “How did the middle and high schools support the
African American female students?” and the second question is “How did the middle and high
schools hinder the African American female students?” In response to questions about how
schools supported the young women as middle and high school girls, themes that surfaced were
supportive aspects of the school culture and environment, positive relationships with some
teachers and institutional agents, and positive relationships with some peers. To answer how
schools hindered the women’s development the themes that surfaced represented the flip side of
positive experiences that made them feel over-looked and under-protected at school. The focus
group did not speak to these experiences with the same depth as the students spoke to them in the
one-on-one interviews. The data collected from the interviews helped provide insights into how
the young women’s experiences prior to entering the university helped shape how they saw
themselves in the context of the university. The observations demonstrated how these students
interacted with their teachers and peers in the predominately White university academic setting.
The observations focused on their interaction with the professor and/or other students. They also
focused on how the participant functioned as learners in the class.
School Environment and Culture
The young women who participated in the one-on-one interviews, Lily, Rose, and Poppy,
attended various school settings in their respective urban cities. Lily attended an Episcopal,
private school during middle and high school. Rose attended a French immersion public middle
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 93
school and a public high school. Poppy attended a charter school during middle school and a
public magnet high school. All three of the interviewees reported that their schools offered them
classes that supported their admission to the university. All of the young women attended school
in an urban setting and felt their experiences with teachers, institutional agents and peers
contributed to their overall development. The opportunities offered to them at their respective
schools shaped their academic pursuits, level of school involvement and their outlook about
themselves as African American women.
Table 4
Participants’ Education
Name Middle School High School
Lily Episcopal, Private Episcopal, Private
Rose French Immersion Public
Poppy Public, charter Public, magnet

Lily. Lily attended a small private Episcopal school in the suburbs of an urban city in
Georgia during middle and high school. Lily acknowledged that her parents’ economic status
awarded her many opportunities that included the ability to avoid public schools her parents
perceived as poorly run, access safe schools in safe neighborhoods and travel the world. She said
her home environment was such that “[I] didn’t have to worry about anything other than school.
I just had to go to school and come back.”
Lily’s school offered a rigorous academic program. She took honors and advanced
placement classes in her sophomore, junior and senior years of high school. She recalled that her
school had basic science courses, including “computer science and they had information systems
and another computer science class, but they had the regular biology, chemistry, physics and
anatomy.” For Lily, basic science courses include computer science, physics and anatomy.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 94
However, low income, high minority schools lack rigorous STEM courses. Research
demonstrates (Barton et al., 2008; Smith-Evans et al., 2014) that, when low income, high
minority schools offer STEM courses, qualified teachers are not available to adequately prepare
the students for success in them. According to Lily, the teachers in her school were “pretty
smart.” For example, her senior year computer science teacher “started [a car magazine
company] and had all these really high jobs and came back to teach because he really liked it.”
Lily stated, “I have a lot of really high achieving teachers at my school.” Not only did Lily state
that she had access to rigorous STEM courses, she also stated that her professors were talented
and highly qualified instructors who were models for her and other students.
In addition to the rigorous academic program, students at Lily’s school were challenged
socially through a three-year global program that students had to apply to be admitted into after
freshman year. According to Lily, the program taught students about global issues, and the
students were expected to take a trip to study either nationally or internationally. As a result, Lily
traveled to Costa Rica and Argentina with the school. She received a $2500 grant in her senior
year for designing a program to have a social impact based on what she learned in her travels.
With the funding, she started a non-profit. Lily’s education and financial resources afforded her
opportunities in school and beyond.
When asked to what she attributed her acceptance to a top-tier predominantly White
university, Lily could not identify just one thing, but she pointed to her involvement in middle
and high school, which she listed on her university application. She said she participated in
multiple sports: swimming, volleyball, track and cross-country. Throughout middle and high
school, she wrote three novels and was a mentor in a girls’ organization. In her senior year, she
started a non-profit organization, volunteer extensively, was on the journalism staff and on the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 95
committee to design the school’s new schedule, and she participated in speaking engagements at
her teachers’ requests.
Lily acknowledged having a high level of access to multiple opportunities at her school.
She stated she was aware her teachers gave her opportunities that they did not offer to other
students. Lily had direct connections with teachers and counselors in her school. She learned
how to use social and cultural capital to accomplish the many goals she had for herself. Her
teachers demonstrated their faith in her and taught her the power of social and cultural capital.
Lily was aware that her parent’s income and capital bought her a level of privilege that other
young women, particularly many African American female adolescents, did not enjoy.
Rose. Rose attended a small urban French immersion charter middle school where she
completed eighth grade with 30 other students. The public high school she attended was also
small. Rose felt the school encouraged her to feel good about being an African American female.
Rose stated, “I went to one of the best schools in the state, actually, but we were in a really bad
district.” To attend the public high school, Rose said students had to apply and, upon admission,
had to maintain a 2.5 grade point average. If students fell below that grade point average, they
were placed on probation and expelled if they did not improve. As a result of the high
expectations, Rose saw classmates and friends dismissed from school, specifically African
American males. She said,
We were proud of that [the school was known to have all the pretty, smart Black girls
attending], but, at the same time, it was kind of hard because you see your friends, who
are [African American] guys, and they’re getting kicked out. They can’t go here anymore.
Once you’re kicked out, you can’t come back.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 96
Rose was proud of the reputation of her high school for the rigorous program and the smart
students, but she was sad that the African American males were kicked out because they could
not keep up academically.
The high school Rose attended offered the International Baccalaureate (IB) during her
junior year, and that made all of the classes honors level. Rose recalled, “when I first got there,
they had advanced placement, but they were kind of getting rid of that program to begin the
International Baccalaureate because an international program kind of made them more
recognizable in the world.” From Rose’s assessment, the school administration sought a rigorous
program of study for their students. The reputation of the school was important, thus the students
had to prove they were capable of meeting the requirements to attend. Rose’s school promoted
the three forms of capital: social, cultural and symbolic (Bourdieu, 1986). The cultural capital of
the school demanded students maintain a 2.5 grade point average. When students were unable to
meet the requirement, they were expelled from the school without options for return. The social
capital of the school, from what Rose describes, would be the reputation of having smart students
or all of the smart and pretty African American female students. The symbolic capital of the
school was demonstrated in the move from a school with honors and advanced placement (AP)
classes to an IB program. As Rose explains it, it was more prestigious to have the IB program.
Although the school was the best in the city, for students who did not have the cultural capital to
navigate through until graduation, there was no opportunity.
About the teachers in the schools she attended, Rose said in the French immersion middle
school teachers were amazing. In high school, she had really great teachers, but there were also
some who were 3 or 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. She said:
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 97
Honestly, I just got lucky because my school was so good. My [high] school is like the
cream of the crop of the city, so it was kind of like if you went to [that school], you’re
going to have a good education. If you didn’t [go to that school], then you probably want
to go to the suburbs because you’re not going to get a good education [in the city].
According to Rose, the common perception was that students at her high school were receiving
the best education offered in the city.
In terms of the STEM expectations and courses offered at Rose’s high school, she said,
“we had to take every subject every year. I took science all four years.” As Rose pointed out, the
high school she attended offered students more than what was expected or available in the
traditional public schools in her city. Rose received a laptop computer from her school during
her junior year. She said, “we had a computer lab and everything. It wasn’t Mac Books or
anything but it definitely provided us with tools.” The laptops for the students came because
Rose’s school was a pilot school for new programs and technological advancements. Rose
enjoyed the perks her school had to offer. “[The school] actually had the most extracurricular
activities of all the high schools in the city. We had a lot of stuff.” Rose said the only thing they
did not have was many athletic opportunities because the school was small. “The college scouts
didn’t look at us much [compared to schools in California].” According to research, high poverty
schools that are under-resourced contribute to the achievement gap among African American
male and female students, (Smith-Evans et al., 2014). Sports and extracurricular classes are
dispensable in under-resourced schools. Rose was fortunate to have gained entry into the best
school in her city. It allowed her access to special programs like the IB program and the
extracurricular activities she chose. Other students in her city who were not enrolled at her
school may have had less than what Rose had available to her academically and otherwise.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 98
Rose said her investment in everything she did is what she attributes to her being
admitted to the university:
I really feel like being well-rounded is what got me in and being involved in different
things for a long time. It wasn’t just like I picked up seven clubs senior year. I was really
invested in everything I did. Anything I did, I got a leadership role or helped out in some
way: church to sports to academic clubs.
Describing her involvement in school, Rose said,
I lived at my high school. I was there at seven in the morning and I would maybe go
home at like five or six in the afternoon because I would be doing a club…I would go to
practice because I was always involved in some type of sport or activity year round. I
knew basically everybody in the school. It wasn’t too big of a school, but I was definitely
a really friendly and social person; so I knew pretty much everyone.
Rose’s behavior and attitude about school correlates to research that shows African American
students develop positive academic outcomes as a result of their sense of school belongingness,
(Trask-Tate & Cunningham, 2010). Rose’s attitude about school contributed to her having
positive school experiences and high academic outcomes.
Rose was asked to speak at parent and board of education meetings and to be a
representative of the IB program at her high school. For her, it was very rewarding to be asked to
represent the program because she was the only African American female asked to speak, and
that made her feel really proud. She said,
By my senior year, most of the non-African Americans were a part of the IB program, but
African American students didn’t want to take the rigorous classes like other races did. I
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 99
was really close with the coordinator…there were other African American females in the
program, but they chose me, and I was the only one that was chosen to represent.
Rose is driven, and she made conscious efforts to be social and academically involved. Rose
activated and bought into the social, cultural and symbolic capital that her school had to offer.
She enjoyed attending a high school known for being the best in the city, and she took advantage
of the opportunities available. In high school, she moved toward solidifying her identity as an
intellectual and African American female. She used social and cultural capital to be accepted into
elite groups as a result of her academic focus and her appearance.
Poppy. Poppy is a young woman from Southern California. She attended large urban
middle and high schools in predominately White upper middle class neighborhoods. The middle
school was an ethnically diverse public charter school for advanced studies with about 200
students, according to Poppy. The public magnet high school student population, according to
Poppy, was 75% Black, and her graduating class was about 500 students. She said the Black
students who went to her high school generally were from South Central (now known as South
Los Angeles). According to her, there were maybe 5% White and Asian students while Latino
students were the second largest group at her school. She said, in her middle school classes, there
were a lot of Black, Latino, White and Asian students. Research said that, when African
American students are educated in low-resourced schools with peers of low socioeconomic status
and ethnically isolated, opportunity for academic advancement is limited (Smith-Evans et al.,
2014). Poppy was educated in ethnically and socioeconomically diverse school settings; however,
she noted that people segregated themselves in high school by race and academic ability.
Poppy took several STEM classes in high school because her high school became a
science magnet when she was in 10th grade. She stated, “They had aerospace and engineering
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 100
which was one magnet and then they had environmental science as a second magnet and they
had sports medicine which was the third magnet on campus or emphasis in the magnet school.”
According to Poppy, there was a strong emphasis on STEM at her school because the school
generally produced students who would attend University of California campuses that required
higher levels of math and science for admission. Poppy said she chose to take the typical path of
an honors student, so she took honors and AP classes and AP tests. She took physics, marine
biology, and honors biology classes that are all a part of the University of California admission
requirements. These are also requirements for upper-tier private universities in California.
When asked about her teachers in middle school and high school, Poppy said she had
some highly competent middle school teachers; however, high school was a different story. In
high school, she felt that her teachers were competent until the school district initiated budget
cuts. “[The AP Stats teacher, who was also the soccer coach] had graduated with a degree in
math, but he wasn’t considered a [highly qualified credentialed] teacher; so, towards the end of
my high school [year, he left].” From her perspective, this was a budget issue, but, in actuality,
this was most likely a conflict with No Child Left Behind credentialing regulation. Poppy recalls
principals leaving in the middle of the school year as well. She said, “I just honestly did not see
the emphasis on academics.” She said teachers in general did not really put much effort toward
students unless they saw that the student actually wanted to do well.
From Poppy’s own experiences, she acknowledges there are teachers who will focus
energy on students who they feel (according to research) possess the characteristics of
mainstream society (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). These same institutional agents will support some
while acting as gatekeepers for others. Poppy demonstrated a level of comfort with being
overlooked in her political science class. During the classroom observation at the university,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 101
Poppy was observed to maintain silence throughout the class period. She did not contribute once
to the class discussion. Poppy sat next to the other African American female student (who joined
the discussion on two occasions) in the crowded university classroom of 30 students of diverse
ethnicities. Poppy’s professor, a White male, did not encourage students who were not
participating to engage in the conversation. Poppy refrained from being a vocal participant
although students surrounding her were adding their input, some more enthusiastically than
others. Some classmates were observed to have computers open to Facebook, some were instant
messaging while others in the class were feverishly swinging their hands back and forth to get
involved in the discussion. At the close of the class, Poppy informed the observer that she was
taking notes and looking up websites that the professor mentioned during class. One might say
that Poppy was negotiating with herself, determining what approach to take in the class. She had
the cultural capital that motivated her to follow along on her computer without verbally
participating, thus participating passively. She did not demonstrate her social capital to negotiate
the classroom with a high level of comfort. Poppy chose not to volunteer to participate and her
professor did not encourage discussion from students who did not volunteer.
Reminiscent of Poppy’s interest in middle school, she recalled her school’s having art,
play production and music classes. She was involved in all of it until “California started not
putting as much emphasis in the arts.” She recalled having many options in middle school;
however, in high school, she said the school was mainly sports-based: “We had a band, but, then,
they fired the band director. There just wasn’t an emphasis in the arts, but sports was always
huge.”
Poppy said high school experiences led her to the university only because she
encountered teachers who acknowledged her potential and motivated her. Typically, students in
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 102
honors and AP classes have access to the most qualified teachers. They made the difference in
spite of the other inadequacies in the school. Poppy said:
I didn’t really see what I was capable of - I didn’t really realize that until I came to high
school when I had teachers that saw it in me and wanted that to come out of me. High
school, I had just amazing teachers. I had great teachers that wanted the best for me.
It is not clear whether Poppy realized that she may have had access to the best teachers because
she was taking AP and honors classes. Loeb, Kalogrides, and Béteille (2012) found that
administrators place more experienced teachers in advanced courses with higher achieving
students because the course of study requires more subject matter mastery. Those teachers also
tend to be the most effective in the classroom. Research has substantiated that students who
attend high poverty, high minority schools are exposed to less experienced teachers than student
counterparts in low poverty, low minority schools (Haycock & Hanushek, 2010; Loeb et al.,
2012; Smith-Evans et al., 2014;). It was not coincidental that Poppy made connections with her
teachers. Also, she had access to the best teachers because of the classes she selected as a result
of her mother’s push for her to take rigorous college preparatory classes.
Poppy’s mother understood the importance of symbolic capital and she believed in her
daughter’s abilities. In adolescence, life experiences can lead people to a stable identity (Erikson,
1968). Throughout life, Poppy was encouraged to maintain high academic achievement as
evidenced by her mother’s school choices for her; however, it was not until high school that she
solidified an academic identity for herself, primarily because of access to excellent and caring
teachers. Poppy was also an active student on campus. She was in clubs on campus, the president
of a community service organization and a member of a club focused on social injustice. She
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 103
said she joined clubs as a way to “just try to connect to people in the clubs.” She took SAT prep
courses through her church to prepare for college.

Poppy said that her high school was made up of people who were low performing.
However, the surrounding neighborhood had many places where one could go for SAT prep and
college prep courses. In her high school itself, she said they just did not emphasize higher
education for the students who went there:
The students that were in AP classes and honors classes were definitely treated
differently than the students who just took the normal curriculum, but I would say there
was no equality of education in comparison to higher performing schools [in the same
district].
The mesosystem represented in Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory demonstrates the
relationship between the esteem that Poppy held for the opportunities afforded to her at school
and the expectations for academic success that her teachers and mother expressed. She very well
represents the advantages she enjoyed because of her mother and community who had social
capital to interact within the mesosystem with her school to ensure she was aware of how to
access opportunities.
Both home and school expectations were in harmony in Poppy’s case even though she
attended a school with overall low academic performance; thus, there is a clear direction for
Poppy to ascend toward. In the exosystem lies the poverty that surrounds Poppy. She is witness
to the injustice served to classmates who do not aspire to the same academic heights as she.
Poppy felt that, because she was low-income, she did not have the opportunity to take expensive
SAT preparation classes. She took advantage of SAT prep courses through her church with a
deacon that were much more affordable than classes her friends were taking. She said, “it [SAT
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 104
prep at church] still helped me get to where I am now, so I don’t want to say his [the Deacon’s
SAT classes] weren’t as great, but it [class selection] was limited because of my financial
situation.” Poppy was aware she did not have financial resources equal to upper income students.
However, she still had access to the necessary preparation and tools needed to accomplish her
goals of attending her chosen university. Her experience provides evidence that family and
community’s social and cultural capital can influence a student’s experience with schools, even
in low income and low performing schools.
In spite of the circumstances of most schools Lily, Rose and Poppy would have attended
in their residential placements, their parents made alternative opportunities available even within
the urban school settings. Their parents sought something different for them as far as school
options. The parents of these women had a level of social and cultural capital that made them
seek other options for their daughters versus the settings they would have normally participated
in. Each of the school curricula established rigorous academic expectations and college-ready
course work. These students, although products of different socioeconomic backgrounds, all
escaped the perils of poverty, poorly funded and under-resourced schools (Loeb et al., 2012;
Smith-Evans et al., 2014). They have been set on pathways toward strong identities as students
and stronger confirmations of their abilities to attain success as African American women. As a
result of these women’s school placement, they learned how to navigate school environments
and how to use social and cultural capital to achieve and, ultimately, gain admittance to the
university they attend today. Adults at their schools prove to be influential agents who supported
their access to high academic achievement.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 105
Institutional Agents and Social Capital
Participants from diverse socioeconomic, geographic and educational backgrounds all
had institutional agents who helped them adopt academic identities. It did not matter that they
attended private, public or charter schools. There were adults who supported them. Lily, Rose
and Poppy identified institutional agents, those adults in their schools who were not their
teachers, but took an interest in their academic and personal well-being. These institutional
agents were administrators, counselors, and a school secretary, but, regardless of their roles in
the school, the young women credited them with cultivating a positive school experience for
them, leading to the young women feeling a part of the school and adopting an identity of a
capable student.
Lily said her sophomore and junior year math teacher encouraged her to enroll in an
honors math class, and the teacher supported her throughout the class, leading Lily to believe
that practice would help her improve in all of her endeavors.
Sophomore year, I did really well in my math class. I got100 on all of my tests, super
easy. She was like, “You should probably be in honors math,” and I always thought I was
really bad at math, but she pushed me to do it anyway. I did the honors math, and the first
semester was bad because I just got a B. I got an 87 second semester just because I was
catching up on all the things that I didn’t learn last year, but I got a 97 second semester
because I did my homework in her room every day after school…She would stay…that
was helpful just because that whole stepping up to honors math, made me realize that,
just because I think I’m not good at something, doesn’t mean I can’t practice at it and get
better.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 106
Some of the institutional agents Lily identified for their strong influence on her academic
success and admission to college were her global studies teacher, her guidance counselor and her
college counselor. Lily expressed that the lessons she learned from them had a profound effect
on her. She stated,
I feel like he [global teacher] just taught me to think about the world [from] a different
perspective and to understand my place in the world, but also how I can change the world.
That sounds really cheesy, but [it shows] how small impacts do matter and that you don’t
have to end world hunger to do something good. I would say my college counselor, who I
met my senior year, definitely impacted my college decisions because he encouraged me
to apply wherever I wanted to even if I didn’t feel like I’d get in or get a certain
scholarship. He would tell me, “Just apply anyway.” Definitely gave me a space at school
to unwind and not be so uptight because I was the only Black kid in my classes. A space
where I could be myself, which meant being in class was easier just because I wasn’t so
uptight all day. I was close to a lot of my teachers in high school. They just made it easier
to be there.
The most positive teacher (institutional agent) relationship Lily said she experienced was
with her guidance counselor. It was different from her relationship with her college counselor
because it was the guidance counselor’s job at the school to support her and “that’s exactly what
she did,” said Lily. She described her guidance counselor as a friendly person who was not close
to everyone, but she and Lily were really close. Lily said that the guidance counselor was one of
those people who would remember everything a person told her. The guidance counselor
comforted her and, according to her, she always had something nice to say and something that
would help her out.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 107
The secretary at the front desk was an unexpected source of support for Rose because
school secretaries are not typically a part of the formal structure of school that interacts directly
with students. Rose stated,
I was really, really, close with her, and she had always given me so much advice through
high school. She was kind of like an auntie to me, so she definitely was always there for
me, and anytime I needed something, she helped me out. She was definitely one of the
people [who] helped me.
Rose’s relationship with the school secretary developed because Rose was late to school
every day. Through the years, Rose was able to visit the secretary in her office and talk to her.
Rose said, “She was so nice and so friendly, so I would just go into her office sometimes and just
hang out.” Institutional agents like the school secretary make a difference in student’s lives.
According to Stanton-Salazar (1997, 2011) and, consistent with Bronfenbrenner’s (1986)
ecological theory, the most important social systems for students are the extended family or
mesosystem, including the school, community organizations like church and peers. For Rose, the
school secretary represented the school, and, although she was constantly late to school, she was
not met with reprimand. She was met by an understanding and supportive adult who kept her
motivated and encouraged her to pursue academic success.
Rose’s account of the school secretary’s role in supporting her makes the case that
institutional agents do not necessarily have to be credentialed personnel. A variety of people can
play that role. Rose said teachers who saw potential in her led her to different opportunities to
encourage her to be a high-performing student in high school. Like Poppy and Lily, Rose’s
academic identity was solidified in high school from a combination of her parents’ messages and
school supports. In addition to the front desk secretary, Rose’s English teacher had a strong
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 108
influence on her high school academic success and admission to college. Of her English teacher,
she stated,
She helped me write my admissions essay. She wrote me a recommendation letter. She
was really, really, supportive. She believed that I would get into the schools I really
wanted to get into. She had a lot of faith in me, which really helped me.
There are two aspects of social capital as described by Bourdieu (1986) that may explain
Rose’s experience in school. One is that social capital is cumulative, and the other is that it
possesses the capacity to reproduce in identical form or expanded form (Stanton-Salazar, 1997).
Rose’s mother was a teacher, and, as a result of Rose’s relationship with her mother, although
she did not say it, Rose may have had an ability to relate to the teachers and adults in her school
that promoted social networks for her. Rose was possibly more experienced in interacting with
educators who supported her ability to succeed in school and academically because her mother
was a teacher. Additionally, her positive disposition and self-described social and friendly
personality may have made it easy for adults to want to support her academic and life pursuits.
Her mother possessed social capital that she passed on to Rose.
Poppy also attributes part of her academic success to the teachers she met along the way,
specifically three high school teachers and a college counselor. Her high school teachers made
her feel that she was a competent student. In middle school, she was a part of an advanced
academic program, but she did not know her own potential. Poppy said,
Middle school…I didn’t really see what I was capable of. I didn’t really realize that [my
ability] until I came to high school when I had teachers that saw it [potential] in me and
wanted that to come out of me.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 109
Consistent with Erikson’s (1968) psychosocial theory, Poppy negotiated between having
the ability to achieve in the world versus accepting an inferior presence. She did not realize her
full potential in middle school. In high school, her confidence developed with the support of
teachers and she realized her greater potential:
High school, I just had amazing teachers. I had an English teacher who really saw
something in me. He made sure to stick with me even after his class in 9th grade. I wasn’t
even thinking about college or which colleges that I want to go to. He would get on me
about that. I would go to him when I needed help…He always was willing to help me and
he still checks in on me.
I had a great [History] teacher from sophomore year on and he pushed me to be
great. I had great teachers that wanted the best for me.
Then I had a [third] teacher who I, honestly, really did not mesh with [Poppy did
not feel that she and her teacher got along]. She was my AP English Lit teacher in 12th
grade. She saw the greatness in me, too. She would really push me…She was so willing
to help.
My college counselor…I can tell that she really did care, but she was the only
counselor that people knew cared about us, so people were going to her instead of their
actual counselor…I was going to her instead of my actual counselor for things outside of
college…she was definitely one of the best resources as far as college. She gave me all
these waivers and tips and she spoke a lot in classes.
Poppy benefited from three teachers who had a strong influence on her high school success and
admission to college. The college counselor ultimately replaced the school counselor because
Poppy felt he was not serving her needs. Poppy admits that her success in classes was a result of
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 110
relationships with her teachers. Consistent with research, students’ ambivalence occurs as a
result of educators’ contradictory roles as advocates of some while also serving as gate-keepers
to others (Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2011). Poppy witnessed this dichotomy in her school. She had
advanced classes leading her to interact with the most effective teachers in her school.
Additionally, she had the social capital to navigate school and relationships with teachers.
Students who were willing to do the work were rewarded with support from teachers while
students who were not motivated or who did not possess the same self-advocacy skills were met
with less support. According to research, students who have the ability to identify more closely
with the dominant cultural expectations, the greater the opportunity is for the student to be
successful in navigating school systems (Ogbu & Simons, 1998; Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Poppy’s
teachers supported her and motivated her to respond with efforts to ascend beyond societal
expectations.
If I had a very good relationship with a teacher, then I really, really wanted to do my
work and do more and overachieve sometimes just because I really, really, was interested
in what they were doing, and I got really good feedback from them. I would say that,
honestly, they were more willing to help because they knew that the students in their
classes wanted to do well and to go to good high schools and colleges.
Experienced and effective teachers prefer to work in schools and classrooms where students do
not require a high level of discipline monitoring (Haycock & Hanushek, 2010). Poppy’s intrinsic
motivation for academic achievement in the classrooms of teachers she respected is, by extension,
a result of the relationship fostered between her teacher and her. Further, the positive
reinforcement in the form of feedback she received from her teacher fueled her motivation for
academic achievement (Stanton-Salazar, 2011).
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 111
Lily, Rose and Poppy recognized there is a correlation between academic performance in
a class and their relationship with that teacher. Lily said, “I think I did better in those classes
where I felt really close to my teachers. I don’t know why. I just felt better in those classes.”
Poppy agreed that there is a strong correlation between the relationship she had with her teacher
and how she performed in the class. Positive identity development occurs when the relationships
in the microsystem and the mesosystem are positive. It is apparent, however, that these young
women possessed unique qualities that gave them access to these kinds of teacher-student
relationships. In most cases, their parent’s cultural and/or social capital made a difference. In the
case of Lily, it was her parent’s cultural and social capital that made opportunities accessible as a
result of their socioeconomic status and, in the case of Rose, it was her mother’s social and
cultural capital. Rose’s mother had the knowledge necessary as an educator to teach her daughter
how to navigate the school system and how to cultivate relationships that would support her own
desires to be successful. In the case of Poppy, it was her mother’s cultural belief and value
system that made education a priority.
Teacher Perceptions
Teachers made these women, Lily, Rose, and Poppy, feel like an important part of the
school. Consistent with Gullan et al. (2011) research, Lily and her teachers had positive
interactions because the teachers acknowledged the women’s voices and saw their potential and
celebrated them. Gullan et al. (2011) suggest that positive teacher perceptions lead into positive
interactions when teachers encourage the celebration of the multiple factors affiliated with
African American culture. Lily said, “I definitely felt I was a part of the school because I was so
involved in a lot of different things…I was really close to my teachers.” Rose felt her school
valued Black students because they made Black history a part of the core history requirements.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 112
Poppy felt that, although she was from a low-income background, her teachers valued her as an
individual and they encouraged her success.
The socialization of students to be academically successful begins early in life. Attitudes
and values that increase individual’s motivation to aspire toward academic goals and, eventually,
adult success are first fostered at home with parents and extended family members (Stanton-
Salazar, 1997, 2011). School agents are instrumental in supporting or hindering students toward
the promotion of solidified academic identities (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Institutional agents offer
moral support, and they are able to foster extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in students that is
then furthered by the student’s individual effort and desire to achieve (Stanton-Salazar, 1997,
2011). Gate-keeping agents tend to be found in high-minority, high-poverty institutions where
they utilize their social capital on individual students who they deem to be worthy of resources
(Stanton-Salazar, 2011). Each of the women had an adult who made them feel like an important
part of the school structure. In adolescence, specifically middle and high school, students are
influenced by teacher and peer perceptions of them (Erikson, 1968). Adolescents internalize
others’ views to form their opinion about themselves. Thus, the more positive others’ perceptions
are of the student, the more positive identity development and academic experience (Stanton-
Salazar, 2011). As a result of positive relationships with teachers in their specific school
programs, the women blossomed to adopt academic identities leading them to a top-tier
university. The important thing here is the powerful role of teachers. Equally important is the
role of other institutional agents.
During observations, it was apparent that Lily and Rose established a level of comfort
with their professors. It was early in the semester, yet both students were willing class
participants. In Lily’s English class, she was the sole African American student in a class of 14
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 113
students from diverse backgrounds situated around a conference table with the Latino male
professor at the head. Lily demonstrated her knowledge by frequently answering questions,
referring to handouts that she highlighted prior to attending class. Her preparation for class was
obvious from the ease she exhibited in answering the professor’s questions, making connections
to the literature, her life and other literature referenced in the class discussion. Rose was
observed in an African American dance class that was both lecture and participatory. Rose’s
professor encouraged her participation in the class by requesting that she lead a demonstration of
the Kid ’N Play, a dance made popular in the nineties by the rap group Kid ’N Play. Without
hesitation, Rose obliged. Rose displayed confidence and competence in the class.
Peers
Consistent with Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory and Bourdieu’s capital
theories (1986), peers are important components in an individual’s development. Bronfenbrenner
posits that peers exist in the microsystem and contribute to the individual’s home culture.
Bourdieu cites peers amongst the most important social spheres for children. In the one-on-one
interviews, the women were asked about their choice in peers and whether macroaggressions are
discussed among their peer groups. The women responded that they continue to have many of
the same friends from high school; however, friendships formed in middle school are less
maintained in their present lives. Also, the women each made the observation that, at the
university, students tend to cultivate friendships within homogenous racial groupings. Each of
the women noted that their middle school friendship groups were diverse. However, as they
matured, the groups became more homogeneous and, in college, they are mostly homogeneous.
Lily and her friends discussed racism and microaggressions in context of school and in
structures in society:
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 114
I definitely didn’t talk about it with anyone in middle school. Just because I wasn’t self-
aware yet…[in high school] I had a small group of friends there [global class] that we
would talk about issues like that [racism, sexism, classism] but, really, only in that class
setting. As far as my personal friends, we would talk about it all whenever we saw an
article or a news story, or something that happened to us, we would just talk about it and
figure out the reality of structural racism, how institutions keep people in
poverty...Definitely as I got older, we would talk more, as far as figuring out the impact
that it has and understanding how big of a deal it is, so we talked about it a lot.
Lily’s choice in friends is a testament to her maturity and social consciousness.
Lily’s best friends attend the university as well. They were friends in the global program.
Lily said her friends were multicultural and that her close friends are LGBT of some sort. She
said she chose her friends because she had the most in common with them. She said, “I mean, we
thought about the same things on the same level.” She said her choice in friends has remained
the same because her friends are “open-minded people who think about things beyond the
frivolous what’s going on in pop culture, who want to do well in school, who have plans beyond
college, who are interested in more than just partying on the weekends.” Lily’s friendships
promoted successful academic identities. This description of her friendships reinforces the way
Lily described herself as a serious and socially conscious Black woman when she responded to
questions about her identity. She surrounded herself with supportive peers.
Lily said, even back in middle school, she counted her friends among her mentors. She
said,
I definitely leaned on my peers to get through middle and high school. I did a ton of
research about college before I applied and so did my friends. If we found scholarships,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 115
we’d send them to each other. If we saw a school that another would like, we’d send the
name and stuff. [My best friend] and I definitely held each other up, especially because
what I had as my home life is the complete opposite for her. She spent a ton of time at my
house. She probably spent more time at my house than she did at her mom’s [house] so
just like also giving her a space where she could do well in her school work by letting her
come to my house and there were tons of day like she slept over on the weekdays just
because she had to focus.
In the focus group and one-on-one interviews Lily demonstrated compassion she held for her
friends, family and causes. In particular, she demonstrated empathy toward those who did not
have the same level of access as she recognized that she had. She saw her role as a change agent
who could ease discomfort for others.
Rose said, “I’ve always been really close with people who think like me.” Rose admits
that her mother warned her about friends whom she did not feel had Rose’s best interest at heart,
but, still, Rose was allowed to make her own decisions. Rose noticed that her friendships
developed as she matriculated through middle school, high school and, now, college. She said,
[I was] just cool with everyone. People knew me to be cool with like so many different
groups of people. I had a really, really broad friend group I guess you’d say. I could go
with any group basically and I would feel comfortable because I can talk to someone or
be cool with them.
Rose chose to be around positive people. She was conscious about spending time with
friends who were positive. Rose said she has always had multicultural friends; however, in
college, Rose feels that her friends are the least multicultural. She said all of her close friends are
Black. In middle school and high school, she had White, Hispanic, Black, biracial, Asian, and
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 116
White friends. She was around much diversity in middle and high school, and race was not an
issue. Now in college, she stated feeling that students segregate themselves. Rose finds it more
challenging to be friends with classmates, but, within her soccer group, she has multiracial
friends:
All my friends from high school, I’m still close to them. I talk to. Now, it’s definitely a
super mixed group of people. In college, I feel like I’ve only made Black friends here.
It’s not that I don’t want to make friends with other races. It’s just hard because I just feel
uncomfortable and I don’t really know how to approach people…People have cliques
here. I think because the school is so big because you have to make your own little clique
or niche to feel comfortable and feel at home. I feel like that’s what happened.
Sports allow more cross-racial friendships, but not in class:
I talk to the people that I know in class. That’s just because it’s [sports is] a very open
environment and social. You talk and you work with people and you meet them, but in
class, it’s like you’re in there for class and you take your notes and then you leave.
Rose enjoys the interactions in the athletics department because the athletes have much in
common, so for her, it is easy. “We can just talk about stuff and be friends as opposed to the
class.” Additionally, Rose said, “all my friends are religious but they’re down to earth.”
Rose’s description of going to class, taking notes and leaving is also what the researcher
observed of Rose in her African American dance class. Rose participated through a dance
demonstration upon the professor’s request, and Rose answered questions in class as well. Rose
did not interact with classmates. Both Rose and the observer arrived to the class at the same time,
about five minutes before class began. Rose introduced the professor and observer to one another.
Rose took a seat at a square table in the second row while the observer chose a seat at a table in
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 117
the back of the room to ensure the ability to observe the entire class. Students entered the
classroom, took their seats and two students sat with Rose, but the observer did not witness any
verbal exchanges. Throughout class, students participated and the professor occasionally asked
all students to stand to try a dance. Everyone responded and attempted to emulate the dance
move the professor led. Rose verbally and physically participated in class in response to the
professor, but she did not interact with classmates. As she explained, class time calls for focus
while her time in sports allows more interaction and socializing. Rose is very comfortable with
interacting with adults to solidify the necessary relationships with institutional agents.
Poppy said, in middle school, she was not conscious. She was immature in middle school.
She allowed classmates to make jokes about Black people, “Growing up, middle school, I just
was not socially conscious at all. I’ve let people make Black jokes or just slight microaggressions
growing up.” Students in the focus group session also admitted to allowing friends to make
Black jokes and, in retrospect, they are regretful that they did not stop them. The young women
were not mature in their thinking about interactions with peers and how the microaggressions
were not serving them positively. Poppy mentioned,
In my middle school every semester, if you got a 3.0 and above, then you got to be like
[at] a special honor roll recognition ceremony. It just made you feel good and made you
want to compete like, [her classmates would tell each other their grade point average in a
fun and competitive manner] “Oh, I got 3.0. I got 3.5 this year.” That actually would
probably be one of the things that pushed me to do great academically, and, then, I guess
have some fun sort of competition between friends.
School bestowed special honors for academic achievement; so as a result, Poppy and her friends
were motivated to compete with one another. Poppy talked about high school and college:
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 118
High school was a little bit different because a majority of the student body was Black.
There, I could tell that there were little spurts of activism, but a lot of people just really
didn’t care or they just weren’t in tune with things that are going on around them. Now
that I’m here at the university, me and my friends have discussions about this stuff
[racism, sexism, and classism] all the time. I’m learning new things as well because,
being a Black woman, there are things that I wasn’t necessarily open minded to, like
different from the sexuality and things like that. I’m learning that now. My friends all
came from different walks of life, but, because of that, we all contributed to a larger
debate about certain things that we hold dear. You can say in middle school, I was
considered like Whitewashed or whatever. In high school, I started getting more into
Black culture, like pop culture and things like that. A lot of my friends, we group together
based off, like, we performed well academically because we’re all in honors and AP
classes. My high school friends had AP and honors classes that brought [us] together.
A great deal of research makes the claim that peer influence is a strong factor in shaping
students’ perspective on academics. When students have access to friends who are academically
inclined, they tend to be academically engaged as well (Bernhardt, 2013).
Poppy’s choice of friends evolved.
It’s interesting. I feel that, in college, people segregate themselves. I don’t even think it’s
on purpose. I just think people want to be with those who look like them and understand
them. For me, I was a little different than other Black females on campus because I lived
on the African American theme floor. All my friends who were Black came from that
floor. There were other people on the floor that weren’t Black that I’m friends with as
well. My core group of friends are Black. That was what held us together - our Blackness
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 119
especially being in a predominately White institution. That’s how my friend group
formed here.
As minority adolescents develop an ethnic and racial identity into adulthood, their
commitment to their ethnic and racial identity becomes solidified in the context of their
development. Thus, if it is the culture of the university for students to socialize amongst
ethnically and racially similar peers, then the women will do that as well (Erikson, 1968; Umaña-
Taylor et al., 2014).
School-Related Hindrances
In-school discrimination against African American students, both boys and girls, has
been documented in current media and in research (Crenshaw et al., 2015; Smith-Evans et al.,
2014). The interview participants cite cases of discrimination they experienced in school. Even
though the women came equipped with social and cultural capital and from privileged homes,
they experienced discrimination that persists in what Bronfenbrenner (1986) calls the
macrosystem. However, this causes less distress to their identity development in terms of their
microsystem. Whether their experiences with a teacher may have been negative or comments
from peers were inappropriate, these negative experiences in school were dim in comparison to
the supports these young women said they had in school and at home. For these women, the
negative experiences with teachers, peers or their feelings of being overlooked and under-
protected pale in comparison to the support they received throughout their education. These
women have enough sense of themselves not to be hindered by these experiences.
Speaking specifically about negative experiences with teachers, Lily and Rose could not
think of teachers who had discriminated against them or with whom they had a negative
experience. For them, it was external to the classroom personnel who mistreated them. Lily said,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 120
“I can’t really think of a negative experience with a teacher.” She recalled interactions with one
woman who made negative comments that, in retrospect, made Lily think the woman was a poor
influence to have at school.
Rose said, for her, it was a new principal who mistook her for a delinquent student. She
said, “That’s probably the worst experience I’ve had. Other than that, I have never had any
problems with my teachers.” For that uncomfortable situation, Rose called on her mother to talk
to him about the way he spoke to Rose. From then on, Rose recalled the principal reaching out to
her to apologize. Rose was keen about her ability to use her social capital through her mother’s
influence.
For Poppy, who attended a public magnet high school in a large urban school district, in
high school, she could tell that some teachers were just there for a paycheck. She said,
There are some teachers that just didn’t think that you could succeed. Like I said, a lot of
people that went to [her school] were from low-income communities. I felt like a lot of
teachers just had given up except for the few. I had amazing teachers, but, a lot them,
they had just given up. I feel like they really didn’t expect a lot. I even had a counselor
tell me maybe I shouldn’t shoot my goals so high as the university.
Honestly, faculty and administration in my high school in general - You could just
tell they didn’t care and they weren’t there for you. It would be hard to even just try to get
your transcript sent to different colleges and things like that. There was just so much
bureaucracy that made you not even want to try to achieve for greatness so that just
wasn’t good.
Given Poppy’s high school, it seems commendable that Poppy would graduate and attend
the prestigious university she attends today. For low-income African American students, school
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 121
experiences as Poppy described in her magnet’s host school are responsible for the high dropout
rates among African Americans. The state of California reported having the highest graduation
rates this year and a measured climb over the past five years; however, for African American
students, the numbers remain stagnant at the same level as the year before (California
Department of Education, 2016). Based on the data and statistics, Poppy was protected from the
ills of what could have been, and she had a positive experience because of her participation in the
magnet program. If students do not have institutional agents willing to provide support structures
for students who do not have access to needed information, their academic potential for success
is forever threatened.
Overlooked
Lily said, in her small private high school, she was not overlooked. Instead, she stood out
because she was Black and female:
I feel like because of gender and race I stuck out more, people would notice me more. We
would always joke [that I] could never skip Chapel because they would know if [I] were
gone. I feel like it was the opposite effect [of being over looked] because I was one of so
few.
In high school, Rose said none of her classmates, other than her close friends, expected or
knew that she was doing well academically. People were surprised because she graduated in the
top 10 of her class. Rose recalls what classmates said about her:
People were like, “Oh, you’re just a pretty little Black girl. You just act like all the little
Black girls in school. You just care about your clothes and this and that or your shoes and
things like that.” It’s just like I fit the stereotype of other Black girls in my school, so
they didn’t really expect me to excel academically. A lot of other Black girls who are
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 122
similar to me weren’t doing well in school, so they didn’t really care. It’s not that they
were doing bad, but they didn’t care as much [as I cared]. They got B’s and C’s and they
were fine with it.
Rose was comfortable and enjoyed being the only one to represent African Americans. She knew
adults supported her and she did not feel a reason to broadcast her accomplishments; it did not
bother her that classmates were surprised about her academic achievements.
Poppy recalled feeling that she was overlooked in math and science classes. “In my math
and science classes, they knew that I was a high performing student, but I guess I was
overlooked in comparison to other students who performed better in those classes.” Poppy
thrived in history courses, government and writing classes, courses that she had strong
relationships with the teachers. Overall, in her high school, she said,
I could tell that my teachers cared about me, and my teachers didn’t overlook me, but I
guess, like, the higher up you got, I did feel kind of overlooked when it came to applying
for my SATs and taking AP tests and just applying for college. I guess I kind of did feel
overlooked in the sense…I just felt that nobody cared that I was trying to go to school but
my individual teachers did not overlook me.
Poppy described the lack of involvement on the part of some of the institutional agents at her
school. Fortunately for her, there were particular teachers who pushed and supported her
throughout high school and the college application process beginning in ninth grade, regardless
of the service she got from her academic counselor. She said:
My high school counselor, I just felt like he didn’t really care. There have been times
where I went in there [his office] to ask him for help, and he was busy or going to lunch
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 123
or there’s times where he pulled up the complete wrong student’s information, so it was
like you [he was not] weren’t even prepared for our meeting. He was just a mess.
Poppy had enough sense about her future and herself to seek out the college counselor who she
adopted to be her counselor because her actual counselor was not serving her needs. Poppy, by
senior year, had the understanding to apply social capital to further succeed academically.
These young women had levels of social capital that enabled them to successfully
navigate their school environments. Lily was confident about her role in the high school, and
staff made her feel like a strong part of the school. The comments made by classmates did not
bother her, but highlighted her responsibility to be present. Rose demonstrated that her academic
success was a part of who she was and, while others were surprised, she made it a priority to
balance life and academics. Poppy was not beholden to her school counselor because she had the
college counselor, her mother and teachers who cared. For these women, incidents of being
overlooked did not break them because they were grounded in what was most important to them.
Under-Protected
In Lily’s school for most students, money was not scarce and parents could write checks
to the school in exchange for excusing their child’s poor behavior. Lily felt under-protected:
Racist things would pop up every now and again and no real consequences would be
taken out against the people who would do horrible things. Sometimes I felt a little under
protected or vulnerable but kind of another thing you just sweep under the rug and get
over it.
She accepted that it was the culture of her school. She recalled when three juniors in her high
school were caught selling drugs, and the Black student was expelled, but the two White students
who were selling drugs were assessed. Lily attributed the unequal punishments to class
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 124
discrimination. Lily recalled that some minority students were on scholarship through financial
assistance programs, but, when they made poor decisions, they were expelled. Lily said, “I feel,
at a certain point, it’s like it doesn’t matter what color you are, if you can buy your way out of it
[a problem], you’re fine.” Lily saw the difference in access and opportunity resulting from
increased financial means.
Rose said, in middle school, she felt under-protected because that was during the time
that she was confronted with pressure to identify as White or Black. She had to choose to hang
with the Black girls or the White girls because each group segregated themselves. Rose said,
In middle school…the issues I was dealing with - race and gender and feeling comfortable
with who I was and what my race was. I was on my own because I didn’t really have
anyone to really protect me in that situation.
During middle school, a critical time of identity development, she faced situations with friends
who helped her conclude that African American, Black or Biracial was her identity (Erikson,
1968). Reflecting on her middle school and high school experiences, she was aware of her
growing awareness, by the time she reached high school, of the inequities of schooling based on
race. She displayed an awareness that she is able to articulate her experience as a college woman.
As Rose described middle school to high school and, finally, the university, she displayed the
stages of Black racial identity development described by Cross post-civil rights: pre-encounter,
encounter, immersion/emersion, internalization, and internalization-commitment (Worrell,
Vandiver, Schaefer, Cross & Fhagen-Smith, 2006).
Poppy said she felt protected in school. However, she said,
I could see where some students could feel under-protected academically. There were
times I felt unprotected academically, but I had the three teachers that were always
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 125
looking out for me, so that was good for me, but my counselor, for example, I felt under-
protected by him because there were times he just wasn’t prepared and he didn’t seem
like he valued my growth but I had those three teachers that were protecting me.
These women were afforded protection throughout their schooling experiences in middle
school and high school. Many African American female students do not have the social capital,
support of institutional agents or the self-confidence to successfully navigate school
environments that may be working to their detriment. For these women, institutional agents have
shown confidence in their ability as students while others have shown a lack of care and support.
In these women’s lives the institutional agents they had were stronger than those who worked to
destroy hope through overlooking and under protecting them.
Research Question 3
The third research question asked, “What role do African American females perceive that
their parents played during their middle school and high school years to prepare them for
admission to a top-tier PWI? The family unit and extended family had a role in establishing high
expectations for the student participants. Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory
demonstrates that the parts of the microsystem, the family interacting with teachers, creates the
mesosystem. The strong mesosystem reinforces students’ academic identity and fuels their
motivation for success. Bourdieu’s (1986) social capital theory is applicable to family support
because the family imparts their social and cultural capital into the student through socialization.
Data from the focus group and one-on-one interviews were used to answer this question.
Few questions in the focus group led students to offer information that answers this question;
however, the three interview participants gave in-depth information to help answer this question.
Consistent with research (Thomas et al., 2014), students revealed that parents deliver messages
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 126
to youth regarding the reality of racism as well as how to prepare for and combat racism.
Parents also communicate cultural values, racial pride and self-love (Thomas et al., 2014).
Based on the interviews, mothers’ messages to the women served as protection for their
daughters and a guide for expected behavior. Research shows higher achieving students’ family
members served as models for what to expect in the future and they mentioned that their parents
supported them to reach their goals (Honora, 2002). Bourdieu (1986) identified socioeconomic
status as an influence on the unequal academic achievement of children. The cultural capital
and social capital that is shared through the habitus or social norms based on socioeconomic
expectations lends itself to students learning to successfully navigate the school experience. The
coping skills that the women developed were influenced greatly by their parents’ messages to
them and the societal roles their mothers accepted for themselves and displayed to their
daughters. The women in this study credit their mothers with supporting them in their
academics and identifying their role in society as college-trained Black women. Even in the
case of the White mother, the message was how to exercise her role to use cultural and social
capital to help her relieve oppressions that would ordinarily come to Black students.
Economics and Family Structure
Consistent with research, females and students of higher socioeconomic status tend to
report more support from their parents and teachers than males and students from low SES
backgrounds (Trask-Tate & Cunningham, 2010). The women in this study have families who
support them academically. Their family structures, socioeconomics and the expectations set by
their parents were exhibited through their messages of the importance of education.
During the one-on-one interviews, Lily shared that she lived with her mother, father, and
older brother. She described her family’s socioeconomic status as upper middle class. As
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 127
evidence she offered, “I know how much our house cost, and the cars that I drive, and my
parents drive. I went to a private school. My parents paid for it out of pocket, [tuition for] like
both me and my brother.”
In reference to her extended family, including her aunts, uncles, and cousins, Lily said,
“My parents were the only ones who did it the traditional way; [they] went to college, graduated,
married and then had kids.” Lily admits that, if it were not for her parents’ economic upward
mobility, she would not have been afforded the privileges of traveling around the world or being
able to attend private school. When asked, “to whom do you attribute academic success?” Lily
stated,
Probably to my parents, just because they gave me access to anything that I needed. They
put me in a good school. I had a home environment where I could do well. I guess my
parents by default because by them giving me the tools I need to do well in high school I
can now do well in college.
Lily’s parents had the cultural and social capital and economic means to provide safe spaces for
her to learn and study both at school and at home. She pointed out specifics, including her
mother’s influence. She stated,
I feel like economic class has changed pretty much every aspect of my life. Education
itself is so important, but not just like I went to a nicer, safer school than they [cousins]
did. I went on vacations like every spring break. I traveled all over the place. I’ve been all
over the world. Some of my cousins have never gotten on a plane before. Just healthier
[lifestyle] because my mom’s really into organic stuff, but that’s expensive. The fact that
there’s a gym in my basement is different. Just so much more, and, because of that, I feel
like I understand that there’s something beyond my immediate situation.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 128
I know a lot of [my] cousins who live in the same town that they grew up in and
have no intention of leaving just because they haven’t seen what’s out there. It’s not their
fault, but they’re incapable of acting in a larger society when they can’t acknowledge that
it’s there. It’s just because I’ve been given so much, just because I was born to the
parents that I have. I feel like I have bigger aspirations, and I can work towards them,
whereas my cousins would probably have bigger aspirations, too, if they understand that
they could get there. I know a lot of my cousins who can’t even fathom going to a four-
year university or working at a corporation, and, so, they kind of just accept the fact that
they’re just going to work at Walmart or work at AT&T forever. That’s just what they do.
They never talk about doing anything more than that. It’s kind of frustrating because I’m
like, “Don’t you know that you can do all these things? You can do anything you want
to?” Since no one told them that growing up, you almost can’t change that now.
Lily recognizes that her parent’s economic status enabled her to experience a top-rate education
and that without their economic status, her life would be closer to that of her cousins. From being
aware of her privilege, Lily has a more liberal view about the world and socioeconomic
differences. She said:
I would say I don’t have the exact views of my parents, just because I think I’m a lot
more liberal than they are. They definitely understand issues with racism, but they also
[because they have experience with mobility] there’s still the idea that, if you’re poor, it’s
because you make bad decisions, and I don’t believe that necessarily. I’m sure my
decisions play into that, but it’s hard to make good decisions if you don’t know what a
good decision is, or don’t have access to things that are…there’s just so many things that
keep people poor and keep making them poor, and my parents don’t really believe that.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 129
Also my parents have really focused on Blackness, when I’m really interested in issues
across the board. I guess my friends are just a lot more liberal than my parents and their
generation. Like, when they talk about social issues when they think [of] inequality they
think racism against Black people when there’s just so many other issues and so many
other groups that are struggling from racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, all
that stuff. They don’t really pay that much attention to it, I guess.
Lily is aware of global issues and concerns as a result of her privilege. Lily acknowledges that
her privilege makes her aware of her access to make choices and she is sympathetic to others,
even family members who do not have the same privileges. Thus they were not able to make
similar education and life choices. Lily spoke of her parents as a unit:
I feel like it seems like a small thing. Your parents have more money, but that changes
every aspect of your life. It’s hard to fathom, hard to separate anything from my
background and what I’ve been given access to just because of my parents.
Rose and Poppy had different socioeconomic experiences than did Lily. Rose lived with her
mother, older brother and younger sister most of her life. Her parents divorced when she was in
5
th
grade. Rose stated,
We always had family living with us, my dad’s family: my uncles and some of my
cousins. I had a lot of father figures in my life. I was always close with my dad, but he
just lived in a different city, so I stayed close with his family through his brothers. I
would say we’re about lower-middle class. Pretty average. I mean, we never had any
really hard money problems, but we’ve never really had that much money. It’s kind of
like…I’d say we’re lower middle class.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 130
Rose attributed her academic success to her family, particularly her mother. In her case,
family solidarity and social capital were more influential than economic capital. Of her family
she said:
I think that they’ve [family] always been there to support me. They’ve always been there
if I needed something in there. They’ve always made sure I felt like I was appreciated
and that I was doing something well. Anytime something happens, they’re always at my
games. They’re always at my events. There are things like that and they would push me,
especially my mom. My mom is one of the biggest supporters I have in my life.
Rose believed she worked hard to gain admission into the university she attends now; however,
she also attributes her success to her mother’s unconditional support and belief in her. Her
mother was a source of social capital that made a difference in her educational pursuits:
My mom really pushed me, and she knew that I was going to get into schools. She
booked trips for me to visit [universities]…before I even got admitted and she was, like, I
just know you’re going to get in so we’re going to go visit them because you have to
choose if you want them or not. It was during spring break, I did not have admission
letters yet, but she was so supportive. She knew that, any time I needed help, she had
some of her colleagues…to look over my admission letters and she made sure I had all
my scholarship things, she was super helpful with all that stuff, like tax stuff. My mom
was a mentor for me.
Rose saw her mother as a role model. Her mother augmented her economic capital with social
and cultural capital. Her mother understood well the role education plays providing quality of
life. She also had a network of colleagues as the social capital to enable her navigation through
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 131
the educational pathways to college for her daughter. Rose credited her mother with her
academic achievement.
Also in Rose’s case, relatives and neighbors were able to act as substitutes for her father
to support her physical and emotional health. Rose’s uncles acted as substitutes for her father
who lived away from her. Rose’s mother provided supports for her as a cheerleader and model
for high academic expectations and success.
In contrast to Lily and more similar to Rose, Poppy lived in a home where her father was
absent. Her mother was a beacon of strength and unabashed encouragement; however, as a result
of her father’s absence, her family experienced limited discretionary funds. Poppy and her older
brother grew up with their mother in California. Most of her family members are in California,
but many of them are from Louisiana. She believes her family is like-minded because they all
grew up in a southern Baptist church giving them similar morals and integrity. She stated that
she grew up lower middle class; however, she experienced a culturally supportive childhood:
Honestly, when I was growing up, I never really saw myself or my family as low income.
I would say that now we’re probably lower middle class. Growing up, I never really saw
that because, in middle school and in high school, I was surrounded by people who were
from the same areas as me. Coming to the university, I know now that I definitely would
be considered lower middle class. I didn’t feel that when I was growing up.
Poppy made it clear that her family did not let their limited financial status become an excuse
for not preparing to enter a top-tier university. She didn’t see the difference in socioeconomics
among her family, friends and classmates until she entered college. “I lived on [residential floor],
which is the African American floor at the university.” Poppy said she and her African
American dorm mates are all the same, so they understand the limits of their financial
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 132
circumstances. In college, it has become apparent to Poppy that more affluent peers are less
concerned with finances while she must budget and keep a close track of her spending. Poppy’s
awareness of her family’s economic status is heightened as a result of being at the top-tier
university with students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
Because Black parents are disproportionately represented in low-income status, not only
do they lack the economic capital to access quality educational experiences for their children,
they also often lack the social and cultural capital to act upon their aspirations for their children
(Wilson, 1978). However, Poppy’s statements provide evidence that Black parents are often able
to support their children in ways like imparting moral and cultural values. Poppy’s mother drew
upon her cultural and social capital to advance her daughter’s education. She understood and
stressed the importance of education, and she did not accept excuses for anything less than the
best academic achievement from her daughter. Not only did Poppy’s mother push her to pursue
advantages within her school, but she also had the support of her church for moral and social
capital:
For me, because I was low-income, I didn’t have the opportunity to take really expensive
SAT prep classes and things like [that], so because of [her deacon], I was going to
[church] and I was taking SAT prep courses much cheaper than my friends and it still
helped me get to where I am now, so I don’t want to say his [SAT prep classes] weren’t
as great, but I was limited because of my financial situation.
Poppy stated her belief that growing up low income has given her more understanding for other
people:
Honestly, I’d say my social status…it’s kind of bitter-sweet because, being low-income
and then being Black and a woman, there’s just so much in the world that you have to
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encounter and so many things that you have to deal with, so it’s a setback but, in the eyes
of others, you’re looked at as an other, and there are certain opportunities that you may
not get. At the same time, I think it makes me more of an understanding person, and a
more empathetic person, and a more grounded person because I’m definitely a very
strong Black woman, and I have such a strong sense of identity and I don’t give up and
things like that. I just see certain issues, like there’s so many things in the world that you
could complain about, but just to have a positive outlook and to not give up, I feel like
that is shaped from being a low income Black woman.
Each woman considered her family’s socioeconomic status as a gift. Their perspectives
were shaped in part by their family structure and socioeconomic resources. However, even when
financial resources were limited, they did not allow economics to become a barrier. Rose, Lily,
and Poppy all had older brothers and identified their parents, usually their mother in particular,
as being influential in their pursuit of higher education. In their homes, higher education was not
an option, but an expectation.
Mother’s Messages – Race/Gender Messages
A common message that these women received from their mothers is that hard work is a
necessity. It seems to be a part of African American women’s identity that they must work hard
because they are Black and female. They accept that, if they want to attain higher education, they
are going to have to work harder than everyone else. The messages begin as early as elementary
and middle school.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 134
Table 5
Messages
Participant Message
Poppy “You always have to work twice as hard to get half of what others got”
Katniss “We just have to work ten times harder and work smarter”
Lily “You have to work harder if you want to get to the same places”

Consistent with Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory the parents, especially the
mother as presented in this study, have a significant role in the microsystem to reinforce and help
develop the social and cognitive development of their children. The African American young
women reported they were recipients of cautionary messages that prepared them for racial and
gender bias induced experiences. The cautionary messages empower the daughters to negotiate
the biases of society with strength and awareness that while they must work harder, they also
have the tools to do so and be successful doing it.
In the focus group, Katniss said,
My mom taught me to hold myself to [a certain standard], my mom always told me that,
because I’m Black and also a woman, I have to be the one forcing myself to go the extra
mile in order to obtain my goals. As much as I don’t want them to, a lot of times, people
overlook me or people of my kind because of who we are. We just have to work ten times
harder and work smarter in order to obtain [our] goals as African American women… I
know that if I were to go into the workforce, especially with what I want to go into, I
have to work ten times harder and fifty times smarter.
Katniss accepted the message from her mother to work harder to achieve ideal outcomes in her
K-12 schooling that landed her in a prestigious university and will guide her through her desired
major: policy, planning and development.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 135
During the focus group, Poppy credited her family’s religious affiliation with shaping her
identity as a capable student along with the unspoken messages of strength she gleaned from her
mother. She stated,
All my family is from Louisiana. I live in a southern Baptist household…there are gender
roles. There’s some things where men are supposed to be the breadwinners, and they’re
supposed to be the head of the household. Women sort of just sit back and not really
[exhibit] feelings or weaknesses necessarily. Even my mom, I see her, I know she’d be
really stressed or things like that and she would never show it. It kind of hurt…It hurts to
see your mom struggling, and you know she’s struggling, but she doesn’t want to [tell
you]…because my mom will give us everything, and it hurts seeing her knowing she’s
internally struggling, but she feels like she can’t express that. Then, I kind of adopted that
as well. I’m very guarded and I do not allow myself to be vulnerable at all. I see it. It’s
prominent, at least in my personal life.
Even when they have feelings of weakness, they project the strength necessary to overcome
difficulties. Consistent with research (Thomas & King, 2007), African American women adopt
images of inner strength as a result of feeling that asking for help or demonstrating vulnerability
would be seen as a sign of weakness. Girls often observe their mothers and grandmothers
functioning past the point of exhaustion without complaint for the benefit of the family unit. This
message of strength is often highlighted by the biblical proverb that many African Americans
have adopted to cope with their oppressions, “the Lord won’t give you more than you can bear”,
(Thomas & King, 2007, p. 141). Poppy has taken her mother’s model and emulated it. She
expressed that she accepted the role of strong Black woman to support her mother and protect
herself. She admitted not asking for help or seeking support from those outside of her mother.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 136
Poppy knew her mother could feel vulnerable or weak, but her mother never stopped pushing her
academic success.
During the one-on-one interviews, Poppy talked about her mother’s messages related to
education that she (Poppy) adopted. She said:
My mom was very serious when it came to school…My mom has made it very clear that
college was the end goal. Basically, I cannot get a C. C’s were not a thing in my mother’s
eyes. I wouldn’t say, my mom pushed me to the point, she pushed me, but she knew that I
could do something. Once, there was a semester in middle school, maybe, I think, where I
got straight A’s, and ever, since then, my mom was like, “I know you can get straight A’s
so why aren’t you doing it?” Once she knew that I had certain capabilities, she’d always
push me to reach for the best. I thank her for getting me to where I am now.
Poppy credits her mother with being the force that set high expectations for her to achieve and
excel in school. She described her family life as one of humble beginnings because her mother
raised she and her brother alone. They were a low-income family, yet her mother’s message of
high expectations and upward mobility through education resonates clearly.
Poppy’s mother’s messages have been effective in developing an African American woman
who expressed an awareness of her own beauty, worth and ability as an individual and student.
In interviews, Lily and Rose elaborated on the messages they received from their parents
about themselves. Lily said,
They [her parents] didn’t really talk too much about that [gender, race and education
identity], like the intersection of all this but they just always relayed the idea that I have
to work harder just because of my identity and that people will count me out. Like, if I
mess up, as a Black girl, they’re going to remember more, just because I’m probably the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 137
only one in the classroom, just because it’ll fit into a stereotype, so they definitely hyped
up the whole, “you have to work harder if you want to get to the same places.”
Rose said,
We talked about school pretty often, but my parents never really bothered me too much
about school just because they knew I was always on track, and my brother and sister
needed a lot more help than I did…when they did talk about school [it was] mostly my
grades, just seeing how I was doing and then I also was involved in a lot of things at
school so they were always asking, “When are your games? When are your meetings?
What do I need to help you with?” Especially my mom saying things like, “you did well,
we’re proud of you.”
Rose said her mom was easy going, but her dad said she had to get A’s. He also relayed the
message that the family was not wealthy and, because of that, they were poor and she needed to
do exceptionally well in school. Although it was an exaggeration, Rose got the message her
father delivered. Rose did not worry about her father’s messages as much because he did not live
with her and her mother’s messages were always reassuring and calm.
My mom has always been like…she’s a teacher, so she’s always been like if you need
help, let me know. I stress myself out more than she does. If I had a B, I was freaking out.
She was like, “it’s ok.” My dad, he’s like, “You have to get good grades. You have to get
all A’s.” He’s very strict when it comes to grades, but I kind of grew up with my mom, so
I never really felt the pressure because, with her, she’s always like, “It’s ok. Even if you
get a C, it’s fine.”
Rose’s mom helped her feel reassured about herself and her academic standing: “I wanted to do
well myself so it felt reassuring with my mom, especially like when she was very understanding
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 138
of how hard school was. She’s a teacher so she really understands. I felt really reassured.”
Rose’s paternal uncles lived with her throughout her youth, and, like her father, they maintained
high expectations for her. She said her extended family had high expectations for her:
One of my uncles, one of my close uncles did that as well [had high expectations]
because he lived with us for a while when I was in high school. They were both, “You
can do better.” I was like, “Oh my God, I got good grades!” That’s just like their culture,
and they just know me especially. They know that I can do really well, so, if I do
something, they’re like, “You can do better.” With my dad, it was never like a constant.
It would just be every once in a while. By the time I was a senior, he just expected me to
do well. He wasn’t even asking anymore. He just expected.
When Rose had challenges at school with teachers or administrators, it was her mom who called
the school to advocate for her. Her mother was involved on her behalf. Once, her mom called a
principal to reprimand him for how he treated Rose:
My mom was pretty involved at my school, so she knew a lot of the teachers, and she
talked to a lot of them, but I never had any calls home or anything. I definitely had my
mom call some teachers, or I had her call some teachers when I was having some
problems with them…Both of my parents went through education, so they just expected
me [to do the same]…they both have masters, so they expect me to go all the way
through.
Rose’s mother was supportive of her and allowed her to have the space she needed to do well in
school. Rose’s father pushed her, from a distance, and for some it could have been frustrating or
overwhelming; however, thanks to her mother, Rose was able to establish her own study habits
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 139
that benefited her and pushed her to excel in school. Rose’s uncles influenced her work habits
and acted as extensions of her father who was physically absent from the family.
Living in a home where the father was absent could be a negative experience for some
children, resulting in role confusion. Whether children actually become deprived when the father
is absent from the home is largely dependent on the mother’s role and many other factors, such
as the role relatives or neighbors are able and willing to play as substitutes for the father (Wilson,
1978). The women in this study benefitted from the messages from an extended family, but the
role of the mother was prominent according to accounts Rose and Poppy provided.
Parental Expectations
Every one of the young women participating in this study stated that her parents have
high expectations for their daughter’s education. Different social class norms and behaviors are
exhibited based on difference in social class (Wilson, 1978). Family units use their social capital
to prepare children to navigate in their class environment and in the larger culture. Customs,
values, ideals, beliefs and goals of the family class and culture is transmitted through
socialization practices (Wilson, 1978). The interviews and focus group session supported the
perspective in the research literature that parents play a major role in shaping how students
approach their schooling experiences.
Lily shared that, every day, her parents would ask her about her day at school; it was the
usual dinner conversation. She said they started discussing college in her junior year, and they
began to tour colleges at that time. Lily said her parents would say, “It’s your job to do well in
school,” and that they made it very clear that college was not an option. Both Lily and Poppy
heard, “college is not an option” in their homes. The high expectation for them to attend college
was set for them early in life, and their parents made the expectation clear.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 140
Rose shared, “Both of my parents [have master’s degrees], so they just expected me [to
do the same].” Rose’s father and uncles expressed high expectations for her. She said,
They’re very strict in the way that they think. With my uncles, it was like I always had to
be perfect because I didn’t want them to see me failing or doing something bad or things
like that. My mom is American. She understands what it’s like to be a teenager here, so
she was more relaxed and she definitely gave me air to breathe and make mistakes, but
also was there to guide me. With my mom, it’s more of a reassuring feeling.
Poppy said her mother stressed that it was mandatory and expected that she would attend college.
Poppy said her mother was adamant about the messages she sent her regarding school:
The main message was college is not an option. Don’t even think about not going to
college. That was the main message and just not to give up because things will get hard.
Mainly, it was just she believed in me and that she knew I could do it and it was like why
don’t you do it?
Poppy said her mother enrolled her in music class, sports, SAT prep and college prep
courses because she wanted her daughter to have a well-rounded education with the hope that
she would reach success through education. Poppy’s mother believed that advanced courses and
extracurricular classes would set her apart from other students. Her mother made sure she was
very involved in extra-curricular classes:
I took pre-algebra in middle school. Then, I went on to take higher level math classes in
high school, AP classes. I was in the honors magnet of my school before it became a full
magnet. Then, in my middle school, I was in, they called it SAS, school for advanced
studies. Outside of the regular curriculum, I was in that. My mom has made it very clear
that college was the end goal. My mom basically forced me into music lessons when I
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 141
was younger. I loved it when I was growing up, like music lessons, sports. I played
volleyball. She put me in a bunch of things when I was younger. It was just a matter of
me deciding what I like and what I wanted to do, and a lot of SAT prep and college prep
courses to., she put me in those as well.
Poppy’s mother did not need to reach out to her teachers, unless it was about college,
because she did well. Her mother looked for college information on her behalf. Although Poppy
appreciates her mother’s high expectations for her, she stated that, at that time, her mother was
annoying. However, her mom prepared her to feel confident as a Black young woman and to
know it is necessary to do well.
Coping Skills Developed Under Parent Guidance
Coping skills support African Americans with dealing with micro aggressions as a result
of experiences with multiple oppressions in school (Letendre & Rozas, 2015). High expectations,
spirituality, and racial pride lead to strength for combating negativity about one’s identity. Lily
shared that there were not big problems for her in her life, however she admitted that she did not
feel close with her immediate family. She said,
We get along, but we don’t really know each other that well…I mean it’s kind of a
problem just because I feel like I should know my family members better than I do, but it
doesn’t hinder my everyday existence.
Lily also shared that she struggled with anxiety in high school. She believed that it might have
been easier to deal with if she were closer to her family members:
I did struggle with a lot of anxiety in high school, which might have been easier to deal
with if I were closer to my family members, but there are people at the school that I could
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 142
talk to about [stressors] like my guidance counselor and my math teacher - they definitely
helped me a lot with my anxiety.
Coping skills that Lily relies on now are in the form of mental processing and journaling.
She said,
I usually do a lot of processing. I’m not usually someone to bring it up and discuss it. I’ll
just come to a conclusion on my own and just tell the person - ok, this is how I dealt with
it. I’m not really a big discussion haver, so I think about it a lot on my own, listening to
music and stuff or writing about it. I just deal with things on my own.
Lily admitted that she was distant from her family, but she found refuge in the company of
teachers at school. She also drew connections to the privilege that she grew up in surrounded by
protective messages that affirmed her identity as an African American female. While Lily felt
distance with her immediate family, she still had the support of her teachers and her parents’
guidance that have lent her the skills to productively channel frustrations through processing,
communication and journaling.
In contrast, Rose said she is really close with her siblings and, as a result, she uses them
as a support system. Of her family, she said,
Like my mom, my brother and my sister - I’m really, really close to them. Even my dad,
I’m really close to him as well. It’s actually fun. I feel like I’m closest to every person in
my family but more close to them than they are to each other. I’m close to my brother
and my sister and my mom and my dad than they are to anyone else. They’ve always
been the people like I’ve always looked to whenever I needed something or I needed
advice or feel bad about something. I just know they’ll never judge me, and they’ll never
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 143
look at me in any type of way. They’re always going to be there, caring and supportive if
I need them.
Rose expressed her love for her family, comfort and reassurance that she will always have the
support of her family. The relationship that she describes supports her to combat negative
manifestations in her life. She also recognized that her faith in God is a source of comfort during
times that she feels anxious:
I feel like my religion is really important to me, and I’ve always used it to reassure
myself that, any time I’m feeling down or I feel like anxious or I don’t know what to do, I
just think everything happens for a reason and God has my back. It’s okay because I’m
going to get through it. That’s definitely something I’ve always used definitely to calm
my anxiety because I have a real bad anxiety when it comes to school and things like that.
She talked about her ability to confidently speak up for herself when necessary:
I’ve always been very outspoken about things that I don’t agree with. I think that any
time I felt like there is an issue I would say something about it. When I first went to high
school I was very shy and very quiet and very nice so that people run over me a little bit.
I learned from that experience and developed a tough shell as well, so I didn’t really let
certain things bother me. I also spoke up more and said things about if I didn’t agree with
something.
Rose was aware of her strengths and her growth development. She was aware of when
and how to use her voice. In terms of coping with life challenges, Rose said she “freaks out” and
feels like her life is going to be over if she does not keep on top of her school work. In Rose’s
5th grade year, her parents divorced and in high school her uncle died. She said, “My parents got
divorced in my 5th grade. I think it was harder for my younger sister, so I had to comfort her a
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 144
lot.” When her uncle passed away, she said it was challenging because he was a father figure to
her because he lived with her for years. Although she had challenges in her childhood, she said
she does not believe in having her schoolwork adversely affected by problems or distractions that
may be taking place in her life. Rose shared that she always stayed on top of her schoolwork. She
believes her familial supports and faith help her cope with life disappointments.
Like Rose, Poppy relied on her faith to get through academic and personal stressful
times: “I would say it [religion/faith] makes me kind of grounded, in the sense that I don’t just
have nothing to turn to when I’m stressed out and things like that, because I pray.” Poppy shared
that her brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was in high school. Before that, she
said she was not really going through a lot. She did not tell anyone about her brother because she
did not like to be vulnerable. She does not believe her grades suffered during that time. She was
not putting in a lot of effort, but still she was able to maintain her grades. It was not until she
wrote her personal statements for college that she began to share her challenges with others. Of
that time, she said,
It was just like once we got over one thing, there is another thing. I think I started being
able to cope with it more because I want to be the backbone for my mom, so she
wouldn’t fall apart. I guess it was like a lot kind of trying to juggle school and being there
for our mom like taking care of my brother.
Consistent with the strong Black woman image (Collins, 2000), Poppy accepted her
responsibility to her family. She did not burden anyone with her experiences surrounding her
brother’s condition. She categorized what she felt she had to do to deal with the situation. She
said,
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 145
For me, I don’t want to say that I shut down, but I shut things out. When I was with my
brother, I was like in the moment. It was very surreal. When I left the hospital and I was
at home and at school, I just shut that out and I tried not to think about it. I didn’t really
tell my friends about it. It’s not like they can ask me like, “Oh how’s your brother?” And
stuff like that. I was really good tuning things out, which is not good, but that’s just how I
deal. I’m working on opening up to others more. I journal now so I can get things out. I
talk to my mom more, but, as far as friends, I’m still vulnerable when it comes to talking
about certain things but I will say that I’m getting better at it.
Poppy learned that it was not the most beneficial to keep to herself when she was experiencing
challenges in her life. She said she talks about micro aggressions related to her race and gender
to deal with them:
I realize that, a lot of times, you can’t necessarily be upset with people, because they
honestly just don’t understand, so for me, a part of it is just educating people on why I
feel a certain way about certain things to help them understand, and now I have this
upsurge of advocacy and activism where I want to like – instead of just being upset about
it, I want to actually try to change things, which is how I deal with it.
Religious influence is strong in the African American community, particularly when it comes to
dealing with microaggressions. Poppy said, to deal with her brother’s condition, “a lot of it was
just praying about issues that came up, or turning to my mom about it, asking the church for
prayer. They really were like an extended family for me.”
The women acknowledged that religion was influential or not. However, consistent
throughout their statement is that their parents demonstrated that religion serves a purpose in
child rearing. Poppy and Rose developed strong ties to religious beliefs and practices through
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 146
their families, while Lily attended religious schools where she saw religion as a form of cultural
habitus and not as personal. Consistent with Erikson (1968), as a youth matures, she seeks
belonging and confirmation for who she is to become. Although there may be a difference in
ideology, as in Lily’s case, she is able to commit to her own identity with clarity about her
beliefs. Rose and Poppy demonstrate that they have fully accepted their parents’ ideas and they,
too, make adjustments about who they are and how they will utilize their experiences in
adolescence.
Lily, Rose and Poppy have found their strengths to cope with life challenges when they
surface. Lily and Poppy found journaling to be helpful to them. Rose and Poppy found support
systems in church and at home. The three of them identified safe spaces to cope with life
challenges. Racial pride and self-determination as implanted by their live-in parents have
supported these women to sustain academic achievement throughout middle school, high school
and college.
Conclusion
Each of the women projected themselves as strong Black women: confident in their
identity, academic ability and relationships. Although they belonged to two oppressed groups
(Black and female), their family backgrounds gave them many of the attributes of privilege.
They attended schools their parents selected specifically for them as a result of their parents’
high expectations and social and cultural capital. Lily had a strong sense of self and
understanding that her economic status was a privilege. For that, she had compassion for others
who did not have access to travel, private school and an upper-middle class lifestyle. Rose was
strong in her identity as an African American woman. She capitalized on the social and cultural
capital that she learned from her mother. Rose took advantage of instances when she was the
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 147
only African American female representing all others and she took pride in being selected for the
role. Poppy owned being a strong Black woman as a part of her responsibility. Poppy’s mother
instilled in her that education was not an option; her academic achievement resulted from her
mother’s emphasis on the importance of education. The women’s sense of self, parental guidance
(usually in their mother’s messages) and support from institutional agents contributed to their
status as undergraduates at the top-tier university. These women experienced privilege
throughout their academic careers and supported identity development because their parents,
teachers and peers were in harmony. The mesosystem, according to Bronfenbrenner’s (1986)
ecological theory in which the members of the microsystem are interacting positively and
Erikson’s psychosocial theory (1968) explain the adolescent identity development that occurred
in these women. Their mesosystem, inclusive of their parents, teachers and peers, worked to
support them while, throughout their childhoods and adolescence, their positive experiences
outweighed negative ones, allowing them to solidify the many aspects of their identity and
become confident in young adulthood at the university.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 148
CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS
Chapter One identifies the rationale for studying African American female students.
Chapter Two is a review of the literature that examined multiple oppressions (racism, sexism,
and classism) and their effects on identity development of African American females using
Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory, Erickson’s (1968) psychosocial stages of
development and Bourdieu’s (1986, 2011) social capital work. Chapter Three details the
qualitative methods used for this study. Chapter Four provides an analysis of the data. Chapter
Five provides a summary of the findings, conclusions and recommendations for the positive
identity development of African American female students.
Conclusions
The major theme that emerges from this study is that, although race played a role in their
development, it is clear they were privileged young women. Their privilege is based on the social
status their families were able to give them as a result of their families’ ability to access
educational opportunities for them. From the focus group and the interviews, it became clear that
middle school and high school experiences have lasting influence on African American females’
student identity development, but their parents’ ability to access particular middle schools and
high schools is significant. In their accounts of middle school and high school, it is clear that
they escaped many of the systemic and structural oppressions faced by the majority of African
Americans in U.S. public schools. The acts of discrimination they described are minimal in
comparison to those typical for African American females attending high-poverty, high-minority
schools. These female students were privileged. Their parents had social and cultural capital to
ensure the women had the best education their money could afford or that their parents’ social
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 149
and cultural capital could access; their schools had rigorous academic programs available to
them.
Further, through their middle class upbringing, these African American females presented
themselves in ways that made them acceptable to their teachers. They fit into the culture of
schooling, which mainly reflects middle class values and behaviors. From the interviews, it was
clear they also had strong and appealing personalities; thus, some teachers gravitated to them.
School personnel chose them and acted as institutional agents to provide the school-based social
capital required to meet criteria for admission to a top tier predominantly White university
(Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2011). These women were privileged by the social and cultural capital
received at home from their families, and they were able to further it at school with support from
institutional agents willing to help them.
Another conclusion from this study is the critical role institutional agents play in
promoting African American females’ academic success. They can help students recognize and
overcome institutional barriers to their academic advancement. The critical role of teacher inside
and beyond the classroom is reinforced in this study.
Findings
Three research questions led to the findings:
• What are the ways in which African American female students attending a top-tier
predominately White institution (PWI) describe themselves?
• In what ways do African American females believe their middle and high schools either
supported or hindered the development of their racial, gender and socioeconomic
identities as students?
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 150
• What role do African American females perceive that their parents played during their
middle school and high school years to prepare them for admission to a top-tier PWI?
Findings Pertaining to Research Question 1
The participants were clear about how they prefer to describe their race and ethnicity.
Students who were born in the United States to American-born parents preferred the label Black
in reference to their race and ethnicity. They saw little connection to Africa. The students who
had at least one parent born in Africa made a distinction between their race and ethnicity. They
saw their race as Black while their cultural ties or ethnicity was best described by the term
African American. They wanted to hold on to their African roots as part of their identity.
Intersectionality of race and gender emerged as a second theme among all of the students
who described themselves as Black. They did not embrace the idea of separating two dominant
parts of themselves. They counted both race and gender as equally important to their identity.
Only the women who had at least one African parent gave priority to gender over race. They
discussed their womanhood as separate from their racial identity.
The theme of a collective Black woman emerged under the banner of the strong Black
woman. They projected strength and embraced the identity of a strong Black or African
American woman. They also felt it was important for African American women to embrace one
another, thus uplifting the notion of a collective Black womanhood.
Although all of these young women had been admitted to a top-tier university, they felt a
kinship to all Black/African American women and rejected distinctions based on class or images
in the media that would negatively stereotype African American women. As a result of
answering questions related to Research Question 1, the participants made it clear that they were
confident about how they saw themselves in society. They used their historical understanding to
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 151
push forward instead of being crippled by them. The women recognized that unity and strength
continue to be a necessity for African American women, and, coupled with that, is the obligation
to offer continued support to fellow African American women regardless of their status in
society.
Implications Pertaining to Research Question 1
One way of understanding the difference between African American females and males is
the historically based difference in the way they are perceived by their teachers. African
American males and females encounter institutional agents and gatekeepers differently. These
women were less threatening than African American males overall because of their gender and
their access to social and cultural capital to gain symbolic capital available through education
(Bourdieu, 1986; Stanton-Salazar, 2011).
These young women represent the next generation of adults as potential educators and
mothers. Their ideas are promising an opportunity for African American women to embrace one
another in support and create a movement of inclusive practices.
Recommendation
Middle schools and high schools need to do a better job to increase support to Black
students’ academic identities. School curricula continue to ignore, underrepresent, or distort
African Americans’ roles in the history of the world and the United States. Some of the
participants in this study report identity confusion in middle school or high school that is typical
of adolescents, but they experienced little support in their racial identity development from the
school. Through schools’ recognition of diversity and respect for various cultures, schools would
contribute to positive identity development among students. Schools do a disservice to student
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 152
identity development when the school culture solely acknowledges mainstream culture and
history.
Districts and states must deliberately require textbook publishers to be more accurate and
inclusive in their representation of the diversity in cultures in schools. Also, teacher preparation
programs need to include more explicit training for teachers and administrators in ways to make
schools more inclusive with classroom pedagogy, counseling practices, and school structures that
promote a rich inclusive school environment that intentionally supports students’ cultural, gender,
and racial identities.
School communities would benefit from recognizing local and global cultural practices
so that school personnel are exposed to cultures beyond their own. Teachers and other
institutional agents need to come to terms with their own racial identities to be able to function as
supports for the diversity of students present in U. S. schools. Schools need to recognize the role
students’ peers play in creating an inclusive school culture. They have to address the limited
views of diversity held by students about those who differ from them. Black female and male
students are often made to feel like the perpetual foreigner or other in the school context. School
administrators and institutional agents can promote strength and pride through culturally relevant
practices. All students would benefit from the exposure and knowledge of a variety of cultures
through the study and promotion of cultural diversity in school curriculum.
Findings Pertaining to Research Question 2
Regardless of the school location, demographic make-up, or the school’s designation as
public or private, the common theme related to the positive influence of middle school and high
school was the relationship between the young women and a few institutional agents, particularly
teachers, who were able to have a strong positive impact on the participants as students. Because
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 153
of the positive relationships fostered between the women and institutional agents, the women
flourished. Even if and when the students were met with institutional agents who worked to their
detriment, the positive relationships with only a few institutional agents they had developed were
sufficient to overshadow the negative messages they experienced within the school. Every
participant identified teachers who challenged and, at the same time, encouraged them to take
rigorous classes, and, in actuality, helped them be successful in the classes. Because these
teachers demonstrated belief in the students’ abilities, the young women worked hard in classes
they had previously thought of as impossible. With the support of these few teachers or other
institutional agents, the young women learned how to navigate their school environments and
overcome barriers. In the process, they increased their use of and access to social and cultural
capital. Further, through the combined capital of one or more parent in each young woman’s life
and the capital their institutional agents made available, the young women were able to navigate
schools and rise above obstacles within the institution to gain entry into a top-tier university.
Although the women in the one-on-one interviews came from different economic backgrounds,
they each credited specific teachers who believed in them for their present day success.
On the other hand, the women did have experiences with feelings of being over-looked
and feeling under-protected; however, their negative experiences had minimal influence in
comparison to students who attend highly under-resourced schools or who experience teachers
who express biases against their students. In spite of social and cultural capital that these young
women brought to the school setting, they still faced the macroaggressions and the
microaggressions that are deeply embedded in U.S. society that Bronfenbrenner (1986) calls the
macrosystem. These beliefs about students of color find their way into the daily experiences of
school through institutional policies and practices deeply embedded in the institution of U.S.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 154
schooling. These young women, despite many elements of privilege, were not immune to the
racism, but they were better equipped to handle them because of their identities shaped largely
by parental capital. The schools the women attended were in various ways above average in
terms of resources and programs. The women were enrolled in special programs in their schools
and their families supported their participation in them. An important point is that parents and
institutional agents interacted in ways that protected them and gave them the incentive to
advance academically. The support they received inspired confidence in their ability to be
successful.
Implications Pertaining to Research Question 2
An implication of this finding is that, when parents and institutional agents are working
toward a common goal of supporting African American female students, they create a safety
zone around them that shapes their school experience regardless of the institutional barriers they
face. This arrangement fulfills Bronfenbrenner’s notion of a mesosystem in which key parties in
the microsystem like parents and school personnel are working together to support students
(Santrock, 2009). Unfortunately, this arrangement is frequently missing for African American
students, especially in schools located in low-income and highly segregated communities.
Students and their families, although present in large numbers, are minoritized. The
minoritization of certain groups serves to marginalize them and keep them in the other status. In
most cases, African Americans and the poor experience this marginalization in U.S. schooling
(Sleeter, 2011). Either the weakness of the community prevents mothers from interacting with
schools on behalf of their daughters or schools reject them as assets to the educational process. In
schools where Black students are minoritized, institutional agents working on their behalf are
few, and Black students are often ignored or invisible. However, as in the case of the young
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 155
women in this study, Black parents who tend to have greater economic, social, and/or cultural
capital to act on their children’s behalf still, at times, are exposed to the effects of race or gender
based macro aggressions.
Recommendation
The united purpose between caring institutional agents who act to counter the obstacles
schools often create for Black students and families is a powerful force that needs to be
intentionally cultivated in the academic progress of Black female students. They build into young
women, including African American female students, a confidence about themselves that enables
them to persevere in the midst of obstacles, and they provide the social and cultural capital that
leads to academic success. Schools need to focus on cultivating a mentality of institutional agent
among all staff on behalf of all students. Teachers tend to be drawn to students in whom they can
see themselves or who manifest behaviors acceptable to them. Also, parents who lack social and
cultural capital do not have the benefit of passing on needed information to their children that
enables them to survive the racism and classism still. Schools must, therefore, form partnerships
and hire personnel who are able to strengthen parents as knowledgeable participants and
advocates for their children’s education. Similarly, school personnel need training to learn to
respect and cultivate school-parent partnerships. Parents also need skills in how to prepare their
children to navigate the school experience. Not-for-profit and for profit organizations, like the
Parent Institute for Quality Education, provide parent trainings at schools to teach minority
parents ways their children can gain access to college, but parents also need ways to support their
children as early as pre-school. By the time they reach middle school, their paths are
significantly already determined.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 156
Gatekeeping, by limiting the access students of color have to rigorous academic
experiences, needs to cease. District administrators have a responsibility to monitor school
master schedules to ensure they provide equitable access to rigorous academic experiences for all
students. Some of the young women in the study only had access to high-level academic courses
because of the intervention of a teacher. Counselors typically assign students according to
traditional practices that are often covertly, and even overtly, discriminatory; therefore, without
an advocate, these students’ access to college is determined long before they apply to college.
The role of the institutional agent must go beyond the classroom into school cultural practices.
Further, access should not be limited to schools with specific programs, but should extend to
traditional, average, low-performing and high-minority schools. Schools need to be restructured
to offer high quality teachers at every grade level in every classroom, with accompanying
support for students to be successful. School curriculum reform should include accurate
representation of the contributions and struggles of African Americans in the world and in the
nation. Lastly, equity in funding is essential to ensure adequate resources to promote African
American students’ progress despite the many economic, employment, and educational obstacles
they have faced historically and continue to face.
Findings Pertaining to Research Question 3
The interviews and focus groups also communicated that mothers’ messages about race
and gender have a strong influence on African American women’s perceptions of themselves as
confident and capable students as they navigate middle school and high school. The women in
the one-on-one interviews acknowledged their mothers with providing messages of strength and
high hopes. Mothers demonstrated their belief in their daughters’ academic ability early in the
educational career. Mothers’ deliberately selected the schools that their daughters would attend
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 157
in order to secure the best educational environments for the best educational outcomes. The
mother is the one in nearly every case who demonstrated an awareness of the challenges they
would face in their middle school and high school years as women and, particularly, as Black
women. They proactively counteracted with messages of encouragement and support. They
reflected back to them images of who they were that countered the negative images of Black
women they would encounter. Also, mothers were willing to advance their daughters’ outlooks
about the college process by ensuring they took the right classes in high school and traveling
(even on limited budgets) to colleges prior to receiving acceptance letters. Family members,
again, mainly mothers, maintained high expectations for the women through modeling their
expectations and verbalizing their expectations often. Coping skills were developed under their
mothers’ guidance. Mothers and positive institutional agents early in the young women’s student
lives provided the support that enabled these young women to beat the odds. Mothers are
supported in this role, however, when a minimum floor of income and stability are present in the
family structure.
Implications Pertaining to Research Question 3
It is clear from the way these young women described themselves that they developed
identities of the strong Black woman as a result of their mothers’ influence. Even those whose
mothers are not Black put forth an image of a strong woman for their daughters to embrace while
also ensuring that they held on to their racial identity. For African American females, strength is
an expectation that, perhaps, comes from their African heritage and became a prominent factor in
Blacks’ survival of slavery. History and current literature document the many political and
economic leadership roles African women have played in many cultures of Africa. The need for
strength, the expectation that African American women are strong women and the stereotype that
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 158
Black women are strong and angry all coexist in descriptions of Black women. Anger is often an
accompanying feature of strength in the survival of African Americans. The strong Black woman
image is often what the participants said enabled them to overcome challenges.
Mothers play a major role in shaping daughters who become the students in classrooms
(Brittian, 2012; Thomas & King, 2007). Mothers’ high expectations for their daughters and their
modeling lead their daughters to adopt positive gender, ethnic and socioeconomic identities.
Important messages are critical to the development of these young women coming from their
mothers and these institutional agents from childhood and continuously. Training needs to start
early because their training was developing early.
When mothers are less than confident in whom they are, the daughters sense it, and they
subscribe to the feeling of weakness or vulnerability to the greater society. The mothers’
messages are the most important for their daughters. By implication, the question arises as to
whether African American males benefit equally from strong Black women as mothers or
whether they need fathers to play this crucial role.
Recommendation
It is critical to celebrate African American female diversity, abilities and individuality.
Mothers of African American women will benefit from recognizing that both spoken and
unspoken messages transmitted to their daughters affect positive identity development. The same
goes for teachers of African American female students. African American females can abandon
making apologies for who they are and live in their strength and unapologetically be strong
Black women. Although the mothers of students in this study played active roles in their
daughters’ academic success, the many obstacles low income mothers living in oppressed
communities sometimes mute their voices in their children’s education. The mothers of students
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 159
in this study had themselves experienced successes that enabled them to understand the journey
their daughters would have to take. This same awareness is not present among mothers who,
themselves, have been denied opportunities to experience academic success. Schools and
community organizations need to jointly launch efforts to embrace, include and strengthen
mothers of African American youth, given that their role has proven to be a critical factor in their
daughters’ success.
Recommendations for Future Research
Teachers’ perceptions of African American young women in this study had a strong
effect on their ability to develop positive perceptions of themselves. Almost in every case, the
teachers saw them in a way that they had not seen themselves. When young women referred to a
teacher who had a positive image of them, it surfaced that the teachers saw them as capable
African American young women and influenced them to adopt positive identities of themselves.
The teachers’ belief in them also helped them to see themselves in the future with positive roles.
Lily, Rose and Poppy recognized that there is a correlation between academic performance in a
class and their relationship with that teacher.
From the data that show Black female students to be surpassing Black males
academically, this finding about the path of Black women raises questions about the role of
mothers and institutional agents on behalf of Black male students. It raises the question of
whether same gender role identity shaping is the link that is absent for Black boys, largely due to
societal conditions, (i.e., inferior educational opportunities, unemployment, mass incarceration)
that have diminished the presence of the Black father figure from the home. The importance of
mother messages to Black males is not clear on whether or not Black males need gender-alike
messages. Early research identified the father’s role in the Black family as one that solidifies
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 160
gender roles (Wilson, 1978). The relationship between Black boys and their fathers is damaged
when the father is absent, the two are estranged and do not have a relationship.
Further, the frequency of gatekeepers in the lives of Black males prohibits positive
academic outcomes for Black male students. The historic maltreatment of Black males and
negative perceptions in the education sector is worthy of the attention it receives. However, it is
necessary that institutional agents extend the social and cultural capital to all students equally.
Most critical is the need to identify ways for schools, communities, churches, and other
institutions to create conditions and opportunities for parents to play their role in their children’s
education and how to play those roles. Likewise, there is a need for research that helps
educational institutions learn how to partner more effectively with parents by building on the
forms of capital parents bring, even when they are not conventionally recognized.
Future research should include a study of African American female students’ identity
development as they progress through middle school, high school and college. Although much
research pinpoints the transition to middle school as a major juncture in the academic lives of
students, little is known about factors that influence elementary school experiences have on the
way students enter middle school. Not enough is known about the manner in which middle
schools prepare to embrace and advance the academic success of African American students –
both females and males. A case study with a larger sample population of African American
female and male students would be worth furthering the discussion to identify the supports
available to students, how they are used and how general education students in high-minority
high-poverty schools can succeed.
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 161
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BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 172
Appendix A
Focus Group Script for African American Girls
These questions have to do with race and gender.
Focus Group Script for African American Girls (Thomas, A.; Hacker, J.D.; Hoxha, D. 2011)
Identity
• What is your ethnicity?
• What is your race?
• (If different, what is the difference between your race and ethnicity?)
What does it mean to you to be of your ethnicity/race?
• What does being a woman mean to you?
• What does being an African American girl or woman mean to you?
• Can you describe the first time you realized that you were an African American girl or
woman?
Prompts: Where were you? What was happening? Where other people involved?

Have you thought about these ideas before? How have your ideas changed over time? Consider
some experiences you’ve had that may have caused you to change your thoughts about ethnicity,
race and gender.
Standard facilitation prompts:
Thank you for sharing.
Does anyone want to respond to what she said?
Does anyone else want to respond? What were you thinking as she was sharing?
____________ do you want to answer this question? Standard elaboration prompts:
What I heard you say is ________________. (Simply summarize or paraphrase.) Do you want to
add anything else?
Closing
Why did you choose to participate in this study?
Did you learn anything today?
What was helpful?
What do you think we should do with the information as psychologists to help other people?

BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 173
Appendix B
Childhood Racial Socialization Experiences Scale
These questions have to do with race and gender.
Childhood Racial Socialization Experiences Scale
White-Johnson, Rhonda L., Ford, Kahlil R., & Sellers, Robert M. (2010). Parental racial
socialization profiles: Association with demographic factors, racial discrimination, childhood
socialization, and racial identity. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Vol. 16(2),
237-247. doi: 10.1037/a0016111

Items
1. How often did your parents or the people who raised you talk about race, racism or other
groups?
2. Not including your parents or the people who raised you, how often did other close relatives
such as your brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and grandparents talk with you about race, racism or
other groups?
3. How often did your friends talk about race, racism or other groups?
4. How often did other adults such as church members, your teachers, or neighbors talk to you
about race, racism or other groups?
Participants responded to the items using a 5-point rating scale ranging from 1 (never ) to 5 (very
often ).

BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 174
Appendix C
Student Interview Questions
These questions have to do with many themes in the school context. Students will be asked up to
12 of these questions in the one-on-one interviews. Many of them are yes/no questions, however
probing questioning methods will be used to increase the amount of information the student
shares with the researcher.
http://santacruzmonterey.edleadersforequityandexcellence.com/student_interview_questions.php

Student Interview Questions:
Classes/Activities
What classes are you most successful in, which are you least successful in,
and why?
What is your definition of success?
What subjects or activities do you like/dislike? Why? Why not?
Do you participate in any activities, which ones and why?

School Success
What could your school do to make you more successful?
Is school important to you? Why or why not?
What do you think is important?
What does your teacher do when you're successful?
Do you work hard at school? Why or why not?

School Connectedness
Do you feel like you are a part of the school? Do you feel like you are
connected to the school culture?
Do you feel good about yourself when you're at school?
Do you feel like you can be yourself at school?
What do you think the school could do better to support you
Academically?
Socially?
Or in any other way?
What expectations do you feel the school has for you? Do they expect a lot?
Do you look forward to coming to school in the morning?

Teacher Support
What does your teacher do to help you?
How do you think your teacher feels about you? How do you know?
Who is your favorite teacher and why?
How can you tell if you are learning what your teacher is teaching?
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 175
How do you get help in school if you are having trouble learning or doing
your work?
Do you think your teacher(s) have high expectations for you? How can you
tell?
Do you think your teacher knows you well? How can you tell?
Do you believe that you are cared for in your class and at school?

Safety
Do you feel safe? Everywhere? Why/why not?
If you have a problem, is there an adult at school you would like to talk to?

Family
Where did you grow up?
How is your family life? Why is it that way?
How do your parents feel about your school and teacher?
Does your school/teacher talk to your "guardians"? About what? Vice versa?
What does your family say about school? Teacher?
Do you plan to go to college?
What do you want to do after college?
Do you and your parents talk about school? What parts of school?

School Culture
Are there special ceremonies or activities that celebrate students? Have you
ever won anything?
Do you have any friends at school?
Do you feel comfortable outside of the classroom?
What kinds of activities or lessons help you learn the best?
What makes you want to try harder?
How do you feel about school?
Do you feel comfortable participating in class?
Do adults at school listen to your opinions?
What is your favorite thing about school?
What is your favorite thing to do?
Why do you hang out with the people you do?

Resiliency
What problems are you dealing with currently in your life?
What good things are you experiencing currently in your life?
How did you get to where you are today?
What are your feelings about God?
What do you believe in?
Do you have any academic struggles?
What has been your most painful experience in life? How did you get
through it?
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 176
What has been your greatest struggle in life?
Who is your role model?
BLACK FEMALE STUDENTS’ IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 177
Appendix D
Observation Protocol
Minutes Student Teacher

Abstract (if available)

Abstract A qualitative study of seven African American female first- and second-year undergraduate students attending a top-tier predominately White institution is the focus of study. The effects of middle school and high school experiences on positive identity development are examined. The Bronfenbrenner Ecological Theory (1986), Erikson Psychosocial Stages of Development (1968) and Bourdieu Social Capital Theory (1986) are used to describe the influences of environment, personal crises, and social capital on positive, healthy identity development of the African American female students. Focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and observations were used to measure the convergence of information for data analysis and triangulation of collected data (Creswell, 2014

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Asset Metadata

Creator Jefferson, Khalisha Nicole (author)

Core Title Young, Black, and female: the education of Black female students and effects on identity development

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 07/28/2016

Defense Date 06/20/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Black,Female,High School,identity development,institutional agents,middle school,mother's messages,OAI-PMH Harvest

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Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Rousseau, Sylvia (committee chair), Dugal, Nisha (committee member), Green, Alan (committee member)

Creator Email khalishajefferson@gmail.com,kjeffers@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-284341

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