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The Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Education on Black Girls in K-12 Schools

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The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Leadership and Management Discourse

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Abstract

In 2016, the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights reported that Black girls were overrepresented among students who face discipline that excluded or criminalized them. Although Black girls constituted only 8% of K-12 students nationwide, 14% had received one or more out-of-school suspensions. Out-of-school suspensions often lead to interactions with the criminal legal system, increasing the likelihood of imprisonment and often beginning the school-to-prison pipeline for the most vulnerable youth. Data from 2011 to 2012 showed that Black females constituted 31% of public-school girls who were referred to law enforcement but represented a staggering 43% of those arrested on school grounds for school disciplinary reasons. These trends are paralleled in the criminal legal system. It is thus imperative to explore why the basis of Black girls’ discipline is less on their behavior and more on how they are portrayed in society. In this presentation, we use the theoretical frameworks of racial and gender identity, along with Critical Race Feminism, to explain the disproportionality in suspension and expulsion rates for Black girls.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stout School of Education, Department of Educational Leadership, High Point University, High Point, NC, USA

    Tawannah G. Allen

  2. William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Patricia Hilliard

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  1. Tawannah G. Allen
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  2. Patricia Hilliard
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Correspondence to Tawannah G. Allen .

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Allen, T.G., Hilliard, P. (2021). The Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Education on Black Girls in K-12 Schools. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Leadership and Management Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39666-4_27-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39666-4_27-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-39666-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-39666-4

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