Centering Voice and Perspective: Exploring Liberatory Research Methods for Working with Black Girls

This work recognizes the legacy of deficit-based research practices used in working with black girls along with the inequitable treatment girls receive in schools, and argues for a liberatory and intersectional approach to research and practice. While deficit ideologists have continued to attribute disparate educational outcomes for black girls to cultural deficiencies within the black community, research has found that various systemic issues of racism, sexism and classism, seriously affect black girls in schools. Through a focus on a qualitative study conducted with black girls, this work discusses the necessity of using liberatory research methods to address the multitude of oppressions black girls experience. Using a critical raced-gendered epistemology, grounded in critical race theory, Black feminism, and womanism, this study explores black high school girls’ experiences and resistance strategies in a predominately white suburban public school. Through an examination of the data results, the author explains how foregrounding black girls’ understanding of their educational experiences by centering voice and perspective in the research process, created a space to conduct equitable and liberatory research with this population. In this way, the author illustrates how research can serve as a platform for resistance for marginalized populations and a tool for social justice