Mitigating the need for resiliency for Black girls: reimagining the cultural brokering through a lens of science as white property

Abstract

In reading Danielle Ferguson and Catherine Martin-Dunlop’s (2020) “Uncovering stories of resilience among successful African American women in STEM,” we call for an exploration into reimagining the practice of cultural brokering for supporting Black girls’ success in K-12 science and engineering. While none of the participants identified a teacher as a cultural broker, they each mentioned how this support would have contributed to a much different experience in learning science. Unfortunately, institutions such as schools, and their associated institutional agents, often necessitate Black girls to call upon coping strategies for navigating the racialized and gendered components of engaging in science. Sociohistorical and current positionings of Black girls in science learning spaces require their display of resilience, as opposed to spaces that allow them to play, learn, think critically and/or make mistakes without major consequences. In this piece, we ask the question—Are there ways in which to reimagine the process of cultural brokering that provides authentic opportunities for Black girls to succeed in K-12 science learning spaces and mitigate the need for compiling “resiliency stories”?