Schoolin’ Black Girls: Politicized Caring and Healing as Pedagogical Love

Abstract

This article explores Black feminist pedagogical practices as a viable intervention alternative to traditional methods of educating Black girls. The authors highlight two qualitative research studies that applied Black feminist praxis to non-traditional urban classroom contexts, in order to facilitate the social and intellectual empowerment of young Black women. Through an explicit focus on love as a central tenet of authentically caring and healing pedagogies, this article seeks to facilitate a more complex understanding of how entangled social identities influence learning. Moreover, by situating the analyses of Black young women at the center of each study, the research described in this article positions youth as experts of their sociopolitical location, and empowers them to push conversations around educational equity forward in the service of all learners who are marginalized within the public education system.