“They Do Us Wrong”: Bringing Together Black Adolescent Girls’ Voices on School Staff’s Differential Treatment

Abstract

During adolescence, Black girls face the developmental task of achieving a positive identity while developing skills to navigate hostile contexts, including schools. This study brings together quotes on student-staff interactions extracted during a qualitative meta-synthesis (n = 64 quotes) to discuss how Black adolescent girls interpreted being treated differently by staff. Black adolescent girls described differential treatment occurring because of one’s (a) race such as Black students being treated less humanely and punished more severely; (b) gender such as staff inadequately responding to sexual harassment; (c) intersection of race and gender such as staff inequitably applying the dress code; and (d) perception of the individual such as staff viewing one as a “bad” student. It appeared that differential treatment largely rooted in their perceived racialized/gendered identity negatively impacted Black girls and simultaneously provided little recourse for addressing differential treatment, likely undermining their sense of school belonging. This study brings together the voices of Black adolescent girls published across articles to focus specifically on the process of differential treatment within student-staff relationships.