Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Educational Policy Studies Dissertations Department of Educational Policy Studies Winter 12-14-2017 (Bad) girls: Black girls' and school administrators' perceptions of re-entry after exclusionary discipline through a womanist approach to narrative inquiry Erica B. Edwards Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/eps_diss Recommended Citation Edwards, Erica B., "(Bad) girls: Black girls' and school administrators' perceptions of re-entry after exclusionary discipline through a womanist approach to narrative inquiry." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2017. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/eps_diss/180 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Educational Policy Studies at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Policy Studies Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ACCEPTANCE This dissertation, (BAD) GIRLS: BLACK GIRLS’ AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS’ PERCEPTIONS OF RE-ENTRY AFTER EXCLUSIONARY DISCIPLINE THROUGH A WOMANIST APPROACH TO NARRATIVE INQUIRY, by ERICA B. EDWARDS, was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s Dissertation Advisory Committee. It is accepted by the committee members in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, Doctor of Philosophy, in the College of Education and Human Development, Georgia State University. The Dissertation Advisory Committee and the student’s Department Chairperson, as representatives of the faculty, certify that this dissertation has met all standards of excellence and scholarship as determined by the faculty. _________________________________ _________________________________ Janice B. Fournillier, Ph.D. Jennifer Esposito, Ph.D. Committee Chair Committee Member _________________________________ _________________________________ Layli Maparyan, Ph.D. Joyce King, Ph.D. Committee Member Committee Member _________________________________ Date _________________________________ William Curlette, Ph.D. Chairperson, Department of Educational Policy Studies _________________________________ Paul A. Alberto, Ph.D. Dean, College of Education and Human Development AUTHOR’S STATEMENT By presenting this dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the advanced degree from Georgia State University, I agree that the library of Georgia State University shall make it available for inspection and circulation in accordance with its regulations governing materials of this type. I agree that permission to quote, to copy from, or to publish this dissertation may be granted by the professor under whose direction it was written, by the College of Education and Human Development’s Director of Graduate Studies, or by me. Such quoting, copying, or publishing must be solely for scholarly purposes and will not involve potential financial gain. It is understood that any copying from or publication of this dissertation which involves potential financial gain will not be allowed without my written permission. ERICA B. EDWARDS NOTICE TO BORROWERS All dissertations deposited in the Georgia State University library must be used in accordance with the stipulations prescribed by the author in the preceding statement. The author of this dissertation is: Erica B. Edwards Educational Policy Studies College of Education and Human Development Georgia State University The director of this dissertation is: Janice B. Fournillier Department of Educational Policy Studies College of Education and Human Development Georgia State University Atlanta, GA 30303 Curriculum Vitae Erica B. Edwards EDUCATION Ph.D. Educational Policy Studies, Georgia State University, December 2017 M.S. Ed. Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, 2006 B.A. History Spelman College, 2004 PUBLICATIONS Owens, L., McArthur, S., & Edwards, E.B., (under review). Black women researcher’s path to breaking silence: Three scholars reflect on voicing oppression, self-reflexive speech, and talking back to elite discourses. Paper submitted to Meridians. Edwards, E. & Esposito, J. (under review). Clarity in the matrix: Intersectional analysis of popular culture texts. Book proposal submitted to Routledge Series on Qualitative Ap- proaches to Data Analysis. Edwards, E. & Esposito, J. (in press). Reading the Black woman’s body via Instagram fame. Feminist Media Studies. Edwards, E., Esposito, J. & Evans-Winters, V. (in press). Does Beyoncé’s Lemonade really teach us to turn lemons into lemonade? Exploring the limits and possibilities through Black feminism. Taboo: The Journal of Education and Culture. Esposito, J. & Edwards, E. (in press). When Black girls fight: Interrogating, Interrupting, and (Re)Imagining Dangerous Scripts of Femininity in Urban Classrooms. Education & Ur- ban Society. Edwards, E., McArthur, S. & Russell, L. (2016). Relationships, being-ness, and voice: Exploring multiple dimensions of humanizing work with Black girls. Equity and Excel- lence in Education, 49(4), pp.1-11. Edwards, E. & Esposito, J. (2016) “Where is the love? An interrogation of love in VH1’s Love and Hip Hop New York and a call to educators to respond to anti-love messages,” Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, 38(2), pp.124-140. Edwards, E. (2016). “It’s irrelevant to me!” Young Black women talk back to VH1’s Love and Hip Hop New York, Journal of Black Studies 47(3), pp. 273-292. CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS Edwards. E.B. (2018, April). (Bad) Girls: Black girls’ school re-entry experiences after exclusionary discipline. A paper accepted for presentation at the American Educational Research Association Conference, New York, NY. Edwards, E.B. & Esposito, J., (2016, November). Future texts or same old stereotypes? Reading the Black woman’s body via Instagram fame. A paper presented at the American Educa- tional Studies Association Conference, Seattle, WA. Edwards, E.B. (2015, April). Radical youthwork as a site of liberatory potential. A paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, Chicago, IL. Edwards, E.B., McArthur, S.A., & Russell, L. (2015, April). Emancipatory Research Methods for Black Girls. A paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, Chicago, IL. Edwards, E.B., (2014, October). “It’s irrelevant to me!” Young Black women talk back to VH1’s Love and Hip-Hop New York. A paper presented at the American Educational Studies Association Conference, Toronto, Ontario. Edwards, E.B. (2014, November). Racial subjugation and the neoliberal educational project: Institutional violence at play on Black bodies. A paper presented at the International Conference on Urban Education, Montego Bay, Jamaica. Edwards, E.B. (2014, May). Transformative action research toward the amelioration of power dynamics in classrooms: An approach to caring for African-American girls. A paper pre- sented at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois at Ur- bana-Champaign. Esposito, J. & Edwards, E.B. (2014, April). Where is the love? An interrogation of love in VH1’s Love and Hip-Hop. A paper presented at Sources of Urban Excellence Confer- ence, Atlanta, GA. Edwards, E.B. (2014, February). “School ain’t my life” The impact of corporate education reform on impoverished Black communities. A paper presented at the meeting of the Southeast Philosophy of Education Society, Decatur, GA. McArthur, S. & Edwards, E.B. (2013, November). Beyond your perception: Bridging the gap between African-American girls and their teachers. A paper presented at the American Educational Studies Association Conference, Baltimore, MD. (BAD) GIRLS: BLACK GIRLS’ AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS’ PERCEPTIONS OF RE-ENTRY AFTER EXCLUSIONARY DISCIPLINE THROUGH A WOMANIST APPROACH TO NARRATIVE INQUIRY by ERICA B. EDWARDS Under the Direction of Dr. Janice B. Fournillier ABSTRACT Black girls are over-represented among suspended, expelled, or arrested youth (Blake 2011; Perry & Morris, 2017) and are punished more harshly for the same misbehaviors other girls and non-Black boys commit. Still, their experiences are under-explored in the literature. Recognizing that school to confinement processes are multiple and complex (Morris, 2016; American Bar Association, 2016), this study focused on school re-entry after exclusionary disci- pline to understand the on-going role schools play in Black girls’ disciplinary experience. Rather than addressing why and how Black girls enter the school/prison nexus, this study worked to un- derstand the effects of a (bad) girl reputation in the long-term. Using narrative inquiry through a womanist worldview, the school re-entry experiences of five Black girls were collected and com- pared to the perspectives of five school leaders. Thematic analysis showed the stigmatizing ef- fects of a (bad) reputation, their sense of personal resignation in a (bad) girl performance, and certain “null” experiences that had no effect on their educational well-being. These results are in contradistinction to the perceptions of the administrators who described their interventions as caring. They also shared their reluctance to use and considerable power to resist exclusionary discipline. The tension between perceptions suggests that further work in research, policy, and practice will ensure the creation of safe and engaged learning communities for Black girls who show behavioral difference.