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School counselors and school psychologists are charged with supporting the holistic development of students with disabilities. They often collaborate with educational enterprise to improve educational outcomes and implementation of special education services to support student success and postsecondary transitions. However, historically underserved students, particularly Black girls with disabilities, have unique challenges that impact their overall success and preparedness for postsecondary educational opportunities. As such, the purpose of this chapter is to examine these challenges and provide strategies for school counselors and school psychologists to promote college and career readiness among Black girls with disabilities.

The proliferation of zero-tolerance behavioral policies and the presence of school resource officers (SROs) are receiving justifiable scrutiny for the deleterious effects they have on students’ functioning. While many have argued the convergence of these policies thwart the development of Black and Latino boys, critiques examining the experiences of Black girls are scant. Disaggregated disciplinary data from across the country reveal “… black girls are suspended at higher rates (12%) than girls of any other race or ethnicity and most boys …” (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014, p. 1) suggesting that when it comes to schooling, Black girls are, indeed, “pushed out, overpoliced and underprotected” (Crenshaw, Ocen, & Nanda, 2015, p. 1). The authors of this chapter argue that youth advocates can use hip-hop culture, a tradition rich with resistant prose, to develop critical consciousness and engage Black girls in discussion about socially contrived binaries that reinforce the STPP. The authors demonstrate how the anti-oppressive lyrics of women emcees (e.g., Rapsody, Sa-Roc) can foster therapeutic alliances and dialogues with young Black girls, and how these lyrics might serve to inspire Black girls in composing their own counterhegemonic autobiographical narratives to resist the school-to-prison pipeline.

Considering the widespread focus on the academic achievement and social behavior of Black boys, there has been a limited focus on Black girls. Recent data from the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights show disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates for girls with Black girls suspended at higher rates (12%) than girls from other racial groups, and boys, of any other race/ethnicity. However, there has been limited discourse and attention about this disproportionality in suspension and expulsion, and other exclusionary practices experienced by Black girls. We frame this chapter through the lens of the bio-ecological systems and Integrative Model for the Study of Developmental Competences in Minority Children, and more importantly Critical Race Theory and FemCrit framework. We seek to make visible how the multiple systems that directly and indirectly influence and impact young Black girls' development, learning, and school and life success must be examined through the intersectionality of race and gender. Using national data we present some descriptive information on Black girls' home and early education environments, as well as their academic, socio-emotional, and health development in the early years. We also explore extant literature to connect how young Black girls' educational experiences must be intentionally attended to as it is damaging for their educational and life success. We provide practice, policy, and research implications and the importance of examining and addressing the unique experiences of Black girls and the pernicious impact of disparities and inequities in education.

Despite the recent increase of segregated neighborhoods and schools (Schmitt, 2001), many children find themselves playing with others from different racial and/or ethnic background (Nieto, 2000). Within social science literature, there are a number of studies that explore social interactions and youngsters’ friendship groups (Adler & Adler, 1998; Corsaro, 1985; Eder, 1995; Rizzo, 1989). While instructive, too few analyze what occurs among and to students of color (for exceptions, see Fordham, 1993; Goodwin, 1990, 1998; Grant, 1984). As a consequence, intragender distinctions remain misunderstood and White girls’ group dynamics often eclipse or trivialize the cultural happenings of their racial opposites – African-American girls.

Identity construction is a dynamic process that encompasses a variety of factors such as commonalities, loyalties, power struggles, and survival instincts (Lei, 2003). The complex dimensions of Black identity are influenced, in part, by community, comfort, and acceptance which at times imposes fixed categorizations, characteristics, and singular depictions. Recent research suggests that more attention be paid to the needs of Black adolescent girls and how their race and gender impact what happens in schools (Koonce, 2012). Moreover, it challenges and influences academic success, as it is challenging and difficult to excel in environments that fail to value every aspect of one's identity or identities (Rollock, 2007).

Black girls' interaction with each other, especially in urban schools, can also be problematic and resemble “relational aggression,” when in fact it is a form of posturing to increase their social status. Contextual factors (e.g., culture, school climate) can serve as risk or protective factors for involvement in posturing, relationship aggression, or increasing one's social status. Research focused on peer relationships has found differences in friendship patterns among ethnically and socioeconomically diverse youth, suggesting the importance of examining friendships within the context of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity (see Brown, Way, & Duff, 1999; Crothers, Field, & Kolbert, 2005). Sisterhood among Black girls can serve as a supportive network that enhances the “Black girl experience” as well as promote wellness and healthy identity.

This paper aims to argue that culturally responsive approaches to literacy instruction are necessary not only to celebrate Black girl literacies but to also expose, challenge and disrupt antiblackness in English education. However, without explicit exemplars to guide classroom practice, this type of instruction will remain elusive. The present paper expands upon the original conceptualization of Counter Fairy Tales (CFT) by further explicating the framework and providing recommendations to inform culturally responsive literacy practices to disrupt antiblackness.

The question that drives this study asks how can the CFT model be applied as a form of culturally responsive literacy instruction to best teach Black girls?

The CFT framework places value on Black girls’ ways of knowing and gives primacy to their voice and unique experiences through culturally responsive literacy instruction.

The larger implication of this research is for teachers to begin to create culturally responsive literacy instruction that honors the lived experiences of today’s Black adolescent girls, particularly those in young grades. Inclusive and affirming literary practices must be established, an environment in which Black girls can share their voices and visions as they explore themselves through writing.

This conceptual paper is one of few that specifically focuses on how teachers can use CFTs to facilitate the inclusion of Black girls’ experiential and communal ways of knowing to support culturally responsive literacy instruction in younger grades.

This paper aims to contribute to a growing body of work (re)imagining the future for Black girls by calling Western notions of time into question. At its core, this paper argues that all Black girls are imaginative beings and that it is essential that Black girlhood imagination as a mode of future-making praxis be considered an integral component in the pursuit of Black liberation. To do such the author engages Black feminist futurity Campt (2017) and Black Quantum Futurity Phillips (2015) to illuminate ways a reconceptualization of time provides us with an analytical tool to amplify Black girls’ liberatory fantasies.

A literature review was conducted to synthesize Black girls’ freedom dreams (Kelley, 2002) across time in an effort to demonstrate that Black girls, despite their conditions, are experts in self-defining their dreams of the future. It also highlights methods that researchers use to elucidate the freedom dreams of Black girls years past.

This paper underscores the urgency in applying future-oriented research practices in the attempt to create a new world for Black girls. It also demonstrates that Black girls have always been and always be, imaginative beings that engaged in future-making dreaming.

The author offers a conceptual framework for researchers committed to witnessing Black girl imaginations and in an effort to work in concert with Black girls to get them freer, faster.

This paper makes the argument that studying the imaginations and freedom dreams of Black girls requires the employment of future-oriented theories that have a racial, gender and age-based analysis.

The underrepresentation of Black girls in gifted programs has received attention in both education and counseling literature. Nevertheless, scholars have given less emphasis to the intersections of intellectual ability, race, gender, social class, and place, particularly the idiosyncratic experiences of gifted Black girls from rural, economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The authors of this chapter discuss this unique positionality, with a focus on historical segregation and exclusionary practices within the American educational system. The authors discuss the tenets of critical race feminism and identify factors that may foster educational resilience for Black girls from rural, low-income communities. Recommendations are provided to address pertinent issues related to structural educational reform and inclusive gifted education. The chapter concludes with a call for education and counseling professionals to fundamentally change the systems and processes that perpetuate systematic inequity for this underserved population.

Recent scholarship has focused on the schooling experiences of Black boys in early childhood; however research on the experiences and outcomes of Black girls in early childhood remains virtually nonexistent. More research is needed to ensure that every Black girl excels in early childhood education. Through three reflections from Black early educators, written iteratively through a process of reflection, discussion, writing, and revision, this chapter highlights aspects of Black girls' schooling that can promote Black girls' rapidly developing social, emotional, regulatory, and moral capacities. Within each reflection, the educator's advance our understanding of culturally relevant pedagogy by showing how educators can “teach to and through” Black girls’ funds of knowledge. Additionally, the reflections highlight the powerful role schools play in the lives of Black girls, underscoring the need to more deeply investigate teacher's perceptions of Black girls in addition to the positive and the negative policies and practices enacted in classrooms. The chapter concludes with critical and timely recommendations for research, practice, and policy.

With heightened national attention placed on race and gender identity, the ability and preparedness of students to engage in critical conversations on such topics and with diverse groups is of much concern to educators. High school student-athletes are frequently thrust into the spotlight on topics related to race and racial identity, due to their hypervisibility and role as representatives of their schools. This chapter uses current events involving Black girl, high school, student-athletes to demonstrate how racialized and gendered experiences may shape how they understand themselves as well as their school and non-school environments. Further, this chapter includes a study that highlights the narratives of two Black female college athletes who, when prompted to discuss racialized and gendered experiences, shared stories that highlighted their primary and secondary educational experiences. These narratives identify school diversity and fitting in, and the coach as influencer as salient themes from the study. This illuminates the influence of early racialized encounters and the salience of those occurrences in shaping the way Black girls think about their own racial and gender identity development. In closing, this chapter calls on educators to prepare themselves to facilitate conversations about race through the use of equity audits, effective programming for Black girls, and a call for education advocates for Black girls in preK-12 environments.