{"id":10,"date":"2020-02-27T20:42:49","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T20:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020\/?page_id=10"},"modified":"2020-05-16T14:45:25","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T18:45:25","slug":"syntheses","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/syntheses\/","title":{"rendered":"Synthesis of Scholarly & Practitioner Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pedagogical Love and Empowerment: Girls of Color in Urban Classrooms<\/strong><\/p>\n

Girls of color in urban schools face emotional and physical pain, apathy, criminalization, and a lack of role models especially in the field of STEM. In order to counter this problem so that girls of color can thrive academically, the articles discussed below encourage teachers to value girls\u2019 cultures, experiences, and voices as an effort to help them empower themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First, these articles focus on the lack of empowerment of girls of color in STEM. A scholarly article titled \u201cGirls Explore Math Careers by Making 3D-Constructions of Diverse Women Mathematicians\u2019 Lives\u201d by Audrey Rule, Dana B Blaine, Clayton Edwards, and Mindy Gordon emphasizes that even with similar numbers and achievement for boys and girls in Kindergarten through twelfth grade, girls pursue STEM at one fourth the frequency as males (Rule et al., 2019, p. 542). The researchers asked twenty-four racially diverse fifth grade girls to creatively research a set of racially diverse women mathematicians with whom the students could identify. The students gained \u201cknowledge, encouragement, and satisfaction\u2026 from hearing the stories of these women mathematicians and the challenges they faced and overcame\u201d (Rule et al., 2019, p. 568). According to this study, effective solutions include providing girls with career role models, a culturally relevant and reflective education, and growth mindsets. In the practitioner article \u201cReshma Saujani on Getting Girls Into Computer Science,\u201d Saujani (the founder of Girls Who Code) recommends safe, \u201cgender-specific spaces\u201d so girls can \u201clearn to love computer science\u2014and then change the world,\u201d echoing the importance of girls\u2019 empowerment in STEM\u00a0 (\"Reshma Saujani,\" 2019, para. 4).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More broadly, girls of color lack empowerment in the classroom. In \u201cSchoolin\u2019 Black Girls: Politicized Caring and Healing as Pedagogical Love,\u201d scholars Sherell McArthur and Monique Lane state that black girls experience \u201cemotional, physical, and intellectual violence\u201d as a result of \u201ccriminalization,\u201d \u201capathetic educators, deficit teacher ideologies, and culturally irrelevant pedagogies\u201d (McArthur & Lane, 2018, pp. 66, 69). Based on two studies, the authors recommend \u201cpedagogical love,\u201d or \u201cteaching and learning in the name of love,\u201d as well as a \u201cBlack feminist <\/span>pedagogy<\/span><\/i>\u201d that is both \u201canti-deficit and anti-pathological\u201d (McArthur & Lane, 2018, pp. 66). The authors declare that \u201cpedagogical love liberates and transforms young learners, and lies within them as they are emboldened to transform the world (McArthur & Lane, 2018, pp. 67, 78). Curriculum changes focusing on \u201ccritical consciousness\u201d and \u201ccritical media literacy\u201d also help black girls understand the systematic oppression that they face and decode messages about black girlhood. Together, these strategies lead to \u201ccollective empowerment among Black girl learners\u201d (McArthur & Lane, 2018, pp. 68, 73, 70). In Larry Ferlazzo\u2019s practitioner article \u201cResponse: \u2018There is Still a Lot of Work\u2019 Schools Need to Do in Supporting Black Girls,\u201d Gholdy Muhammad, Shannon Waite, Marquitta Speller, and Valerie Kinloch add examples of \u201ca pedagogy of love\u201d (Ferlazzo, 2019, para. 17). After repeating similar pedagogical ideologies, such as \u201ccentering\u201d and \u201cempowering black and Latinx girls to understand that they do, in fact, matter, have agency, and have a voice,\u201d as well as helping girls develop a critical mindset by studying systematic oppression, the authors provide practical solutions for schools. These include promoting \u201cculturally relevant professional development,\u201d \u201chiring and supporting black women teachers and leaders,\u201d and fighting \u201cagainst the criminalization of black girls\u201d (Ferlazzo, 2019, para. 20).<\/span><\/p>\n

These articles advocate for a more empathetic learning environment so that teachers and girls of color can reach mutual respect, understanding, and love. Pairing this loving learning environment with empowering and culturally conscious curricula will help girls of color empower themselves academically\u2014both specifically in STEM and more generally in their academic and future professional careers.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/span><\/p>\n

Ferlazzo, L. (2019, February 25). Response: \u2018there is still a lot of work\u2019 schools need to do in supporting\u00a0<\/span>black girls. <\/span>Education Week Teacher<\/span><\/i>. Retrieved from <\/span>https:\/\/blogs.edweek.org\/teachers\/classroom<\/span><\/a>_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo\/2019\/02\/response_there_is_still_a_lot_of_work_schools_need_to_do_in<\/span><\/a>_supporting_black_girls.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

McArthur, S., Lane, M. (2018, October 31). Schoolin\u2019 black girls: politicized caring and healing as\u00a0<\/span>pedagogical love. <\/span>The Urban Review<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>51<\/span><\/i>(1), 65-80. doi:10.1007\/s11256-018-0487-4<\/span><\/p>\n

Reshma Saujani on getting girls into computer science. (2019, February). <\/span>Educational Leadership, 76<\/span><\/i>(5),\u00a0<\/span>10-11. Retrieved from <\/span>http:\/\/web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.bowdoin.edu\/ehost\/pdfviewer\/pdfview<\/span><\/a>er?vid=8&sid=c4e9b2f0-d05a-4e70-b328-5c8024af6d8a%40sdc-v-sessmgr02<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Rule, A., Blaine, D., Edwards, C., Gordon, M. (2019). Girls explore math careers by making\u00a0<\/span>3D-constructions of diverse women mathematicians\u2019 lives. <\/span>The Mathematics Enthusiast<\/span><\/i>,\u00a0<\/span>16<\/span><\/i>(1,2,3), 541-578. Retrieved from <\/span>https:\/\/search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bowdoin.edu\/education\/d<\/span><\/a>ocview\/2172581279\/fulltextPDF\/E699898A253B42ACPQ\/11?accountid=9681<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pedagogical Love and Empowerment: Girls of Color in Urban Classrooms Girls of color in urban schools face emotional and physical pain, apathy, criminalization, and a lack of role models especially in the field of STEM. In order to counter this problem so that girls of color can thrive academically, the articles discussed below encourage teachers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-1015-spring-2020-jsher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}