The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Education IN HER OWN WORDS: (DE)MARGINALIZING BLACK IMMIGRANT GIRLHOOD IN AN EMANCIPATORY LITERACY CLASSROOM A Dissertation in Curriculum and Instruction by Wideline Seraphin © Wideline Seraphin Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2019 ii The dissertation of Wideline Seraphin was reviewed and approved by the following: Jeanine M. Staples Associate Professor of Education Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Mark T. Kissling Assistant Professor of Education Dana Stuchul Professor of Education Esther Prins Professor of Education Gwendolyn Lloyd Professor of Education Head of Graduate Program * Signatures are on file in The Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Black Haitian and Haitian American (H/HA) girls exist within multiple intersections that are not adequately addressed in Literacy Studies. This study offers theoretical and pedagogical insights on what it means to teach and study Black girls from transnational communities. The objective was to conceptualize a space which centered the intersectional lives of Black immigrant girls, and create emancipatory learning experiences in reading and writing instruction. The research questions were: How do H/HA girls enrolled in HELP narrate their identities, place, and girlhood in autobiographical writing? In what ways do H/HA girls generate Discourses of race, place, and girlhood through discursive practices in HELP’s classroom? How do the institutional practices of HELP attempt to center the needs and talents of H/HA girls? How does HELP reconfigure learning spaces? This embedded case study examines two units for analysis: the literacies of five H/HA girls, and the institutional practices of the HELP program. New Literacy Studies, Black Feminist Thought, and Critical Literacy construct the conceptual framework of the emancipatory literacy classroom. The methodology blends critical discourse analysis (CDA) and critical race methodology (CRM) for language analysis, and an interdependent model of literacy for curricular design analysis. The methodology queries how Haitian students understand and engage power dynamics in their worlds, as well as how their literacies signal the racial, ethnic, and gendered ideologies they draw on as Black immigrant girls. The girls generated autobiographical texts that mostly reproduced dominant Discourses of place, they negotiated their alignments to dominant Discourses of identities, and situated their girlhood in terms of their talents, agency and relationships. Grappling with race, place, and girlhood produced classroom discussions in which the girls supported each other, challenged iv their peers to think differently, and exemplified vulnerability when bearing uncomfortable truths of themselves. HELP reconfigured learning spaces by functioning as an independent Black Institution exercising decolonizing pedagogy congruent with the African diasporic traditions of literacy as liberation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... x Dedication ................................................................................................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1. Miseducation of Black Girls .................................................................................................. 1 Background and Context .......................................................................................................................... 1 Problem Statement .................................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose Statement and Research Questions ............................................................................................. 2 Overview of Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 2 Organization of Dissertation ..................................................................................................................... 3 Critical Self-Reflection of Identity, Place, and Gender in Urban Schools ............................................... 5 “Serves You Right” .................................................................................................................................. 9 Teacher-With-the-Funny-Sounding-Italian-Name ............................................................................. 13 Laughter ............................................................................................................................................. 14 Academic Texts and Implicit Messages ............................................................................................. 15 “But I Tried So Hard…” ......................................................................................................................... 16 Pedagogical Handcuffs ....................................................................................................................... 20 Implication of Classroom Epiphanies on Study Design ......................................................................... 23 Researcher Bias ...................................................................................................................................... 24 Definitions of Key Terminology ............................................................................................................. 25 Discourse ............................................................................................................................................ 25 Dominant Discourse ........................................................................................................................... 25 White Supremacist Patriarchy (WSP) Ideologies............................................................................... 25 Black .................................................................................................................................................. 27 CHAPTER 2. Conceptualizing an Emancipatory Literacy Classroom for Black Immigrant Girls ............ 28 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 28 The Old School: The “Great Divide” Debates ........................................................................................ 29 Challenges to the Literacy Thesis .................................................................................................. 32 The New School: Literacy as a Social Practice ...................................................................................... 36 Critiques of the Sociocultural Perspective of Literacy Theory ............................................................... 40 The Need for a Critical Sociocultural Approach to Literacy Theory ..................................................... 42 Towards a Critical Literacy Pedagogy ........................................................................................... 43 Literacy Theories by Black Women for Black Women .......................................................................... 45 Why Place Matters in Literacy Research of Black Immigrant Girls ...................................................... 54 The Haitian Diasporic Experience to the US ................................................................................. 55 The Children of Haitian Immigrants .............................................................................................. 56 Place as a Conceptual Framework .......................................................................................................... 58 Little Haiti: A Contested Place ...................................................................................................... 61 Rethinking the Research Paradigms for Haitian Youth .......................................................................... 63 Educational Attainment of Haitian Adolescents as Black Language-Minority Students ............... 64 Misrepresentations/Inadequate Access to Bilingual Education ..................................................... 65 vi Devaluation of Haitian Creole as a Linguistic Resource ............................................................... 66 Racial and Ethnic Positioning of Haitian Adolescent Students ..................................................... 67 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 70 CHAPTER 3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 73 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 73 Research Design Overview .................................................................................................................... 74