Fostering deconstructions : urban adolescent girls as researchers of social justice issues.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, 2011.Understanding whether engaging in social justice inquiry helps urban adolescent girls resist society’s ideological construction of them as explicated in the research literature and understanding the implications, both individually and more globally, of such research on five Black adolescent girls as they conducted an ethnographic study of their neighbourhoods as part of their sophomore year of high school is the focus of this study. Data collected included field notes gathered from the daily 45 minute classes attended for 80 days, the work artifacts the girls completed as part of the ethnographic study, video of research training sessions for the class and the ultimate project for the sophomores, and interviews (2 focus group interviews, 10 individual interviews, and an interview with the teacher of the class). Findings indicated that the girls’ self-perceptions (as hardworking, determined individuals who rely on friends and family for support) disagreed with how they thought society perceived them (stereotypically as teen mothers, angry teens, caring little for their education or selves). The girls pointed indirectly to a lack of investment on the part of local and regional governments in the urban areas as causes of the lack of sense of safety they and their families felt and the desire they felt to leave to go to college and pursue their ambitions. The girls also displayed evidence of appropriating funds of knowledge in the form of social processes and practices (González, 1995; González et al., 2005; Wells, 2002) that enabled them to deal with the oppression they experienced and expressed optimism that efforts such as the Ethnography project, through serving to make Black girls more aware of the history and conditions of their neighbourhoods and community, would have a potentially positive influence in altering the perceptions society has of Black girls in general