HOLDING SPACE FOR BLACK GIRLS: LEVERAGING INSTITUTIONAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES FOR BELONGING AND MAPPING AS A METHOD TO UPLIFT BLACK GIRLS’ INTERPRETATIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF BELONGING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

This dissertation of practice offers a humanizing research approach to interrogating school spaces for belonging through the lens of adolescent Black girls, a community of students that have been historically marginalized, pushed out, and silenced in school spaces. Despite the efforts to cultivate physical and psychological spaces in schools, student sense of belonging remains relatively low. Patterns of race neutrality in school spaces have perpetuated policies and practices that hinder opportunity structures for belonging for adolescent Black girls which shape how they perceive and interpret their school terrain. This study organized and positioned Black girls as co-researchers in interrogating their school spaces through mapping and narrative inquiry which served to amplify their voices and experiences navigating the educational survival complex. Grounded in critical antiracist theory, Black girl cartography and opportunity structures for belonging, this work explores the intersection between race, space, and belonging that allows Black girls to contest traditional definitions of belonging and ways of being through refusal, resilience, and reimagination.