Pushout (32 page)

While the undertheorization of gender-responsive, restorative practices in traditional and alternative learning environments has provided a limited scope by which to examine its promise, particularly for Black girls, an awareness of intersections between race, ethnicity, and class has been observed to improve group dynamics in circle sharing among African American girls. In this research, Black facilitators helped to create a safer space in which the young women were able and willing to share their experiences and generate an authentic healing of relationships. According to Gaarder and Hesselton, “The black facilitator lived in the same neighborhood as some of the girls, which seemed to make it easier for African American girls to share their stories in the circles.”
⁶⁰

This is the connection that Yejide observed once she was able to establish a relationship with the young women that she has worked with in the past. “Teachers are human too and they need to process their stuff too. I think restorative justice and its utility made it so that I could build
relationships
and there was no one like me on campus. I looked like them and I was giving them something different,” Yejide said. “I wish that the world would acknowledge that women hold a lot. Black girls are our future women, and if we do not invest in them, our communities will never be healthy and strong. . . . When I look at these Black girls, I want them to know that they are that important, that powerful. Adults are not pouring that energy back into them; they are not appreciating how important Black girls are to this culture . . . When I look at our girls struggling to be who they are, struggling to fit into these false stereotypes, I just think that they know that these things are false, and yet they don't always have the tools and support to see something else out there. We need to pour more money, more humanity, more passion, more spirituality into our Black girls. For me, the work is very personal in that way.” She is not alone.

School-based interventions should prioritize engaging Black women in the development of specific conditions that provide Black girls with the opportunity to engage their healing with dignity—and remove themselves from an external gaze that has miscast them as attitude-bearing, “incorrigible” young women.

Considerations

While largely examined in the criminal justice context, critiques of restorative practices are largely informed by popular notions of crime, justice, and historic interpretations of how to address culpability in modern society.
⁶¹
Within the school context, there have been fewer debates about the usefulness of restorative justice.
⁶²
The primary debate with respect to its use centers on the philosophy of school leadership and whether there is a prevailing sentiment of punitive responses being more effective at curbing juvenile delinquency than conversational, restorative, or other alternative practices.

It is also important to note that not all programs or strategies labeled as “restorative” are consistent with its alternative paradigm of justice. In some jurisdictions and school districts, restorative practices are little more than carefully implemented mediation programs that still adhere to a punitive construct wherein the primary objective is not to repair relationships but rather to satisfy the requirements of institutions tasked to maintain public safety. For example, some school districts have experimented with school-based youth courts, wherein discipline is handled through a mock court, in which students assume the roles traditionally held in the U.S. paradigm of justice, such as a judge, attorney, bailiff, and so on.
⁶³
While not characterized as authentically restorative, youth courts have functioned as an alternative to more punitive responses to negative student behaviors.

The intentional use of restorative approaches to reduce contact with the justice system might also be viewed as inherently contradictory, since the primary purpose of restorative justice is to repair
relationships, not necessarily to remove or deter children from contact with the juvenile justice system or formal disciplinary boards in school.
⁶⁴
However, it is worth noting that repairing relationships is considered an important protective factor against antisocial behaviors associated with youthful acts of aggression. There is also the question of how transferrable the findings from previous studies are to more urban and racially diverse areas in the United States.
⁶⁵
There are smaller studies that reveal the promise of restorative practices with youth of color.
⁶⁶
However, the absence of research and data on the outcomes associated with programs in these areas—and their impact on girls of color, specifically Black girls, who experience pushout more frequently than other girls—prevents a rigorous analysis of the successes and challenges associated with implementing restorative practices among girls.

Another critique of restorative justice is that it fails to recognize that not all individuals are seeking to have relationships return to where they began (if they were negative); rather, some prefer to transform the nature of these relationships.
⁶⁷
Some might consider this an issue of semantics.
⁶⁸
But others view this as an important distinction associated with the use of restorative approaches to address the root causes of conflict and harm that produce pathways to poor academic performance, educational marginalization, and incarceration.
⁶⁹

METHODOLOGY

The study upon which this book is predicated collected narratives from Black girls regarding their experiences in education—including schools in the community and schools in carceral settings—toward the goal of identifying potential policy and infrastructure improvements to support the learning of Black girls in schools. The primary research methods that I implemented for this study were qualitative, phenomenological, and action-oriented, using critical narrative inquiry to explore and describe the educational experiences of Black girls that may facilitate, or reflect, criminalization. Quantitative methods are collected from previously published reports and data sets, and percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

Phenomenological research elevates the meaning of the “lived experience” of those at the center of the inquiry. In this study, I employed qualitative research methods, because they are best suited for inquiries that seek to describe and present a deep understanding of an issue.
¹
The intensive nature of the inquiry allowed me to develop relationships of meaning and other patterns that informed how Black girls articulate their understanding of their educational experiences and how I have ultimately interpreted their narrative descriptions of these experiences.
²
As a critical tool in qualitative research, the interview offers an opportunity for the interviewer to explore the phenomenon through the lens of the affected person.
³
Methodologist John Creswell added that interviews allow for the researcher to “control” the line of questioning
and possibly steer the person toward providing historical information that may be useful for the researcher.
⁴
I also note that interviewing allowed for a dialogical engagement that can be liberative and therapeutic for the person being interviewed (i.e., the “storyteller”), particularly if she has not previously been able to release her thoughts and feelings about the phenomenon under study. A similar dynamic was present for the focus groups.

In writing this book, I used a composite narrative method, which represents narrative data and research from my study in a manner that blends the voices of participants with those of the researcher in order to demonstrate our “connectedness.”
⁵
Narratives in this book were collected from intensive interviews and focus groups with girls, young women, educators and justice professionals in California (Northern and Southern), New York, Louisiana, and Illinois. These interviews and focus groups allowed the Black girls at the center of this inquiry to share their educational experiences from
their
perspectives, and in their own words. Specific scenes are described from observations that I conducted in classrooms throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California between November 2011 and July 2014. The majority of these girls—more than 60 percent, identified as Black, alone or in combination with at least one other race.
⁶
In the facility in which I located my in-depth interviews, where the length of stay ranged from one day to several months, girls were required to attend school for at least 240 minutes each day. Girls who experienced longer than average stays typically remained in custody because they were awaiting a court-ordered placement, sometimes in another city or state. Academic institutions, school districts and administrators, and the appropriate government and nonprofit agencies that helped to coordinate participants for this work granted permission. Unless already a matter of public record, all names and other personal identifying information have been changed to protect the identity of participants.

A Note on Key Terminology

Black/African American:
In this book, people of African descent are referred to as
Black
and
African American
. While
African American
refers to people of African descent who reside in the United States,
Black
is a larger umbrella term that captures individuals throughout the African diaspora (e.g., those of Caribbean and/or Latino descent who belong to the racial group indigenous to Africa). In this document, I prioritize the use of
Black
but also occasionally use
African American
, as data sources use these terms interchangeably.

Culturally competent:
Joseph Betancourt, Alexander Green, J. Emilio Carrillo, and Owusu Ananeh-Firempong define cultural competency as acknowledging and incorporating “at all levels—the importance of culture, assessment of cross-cultural relations, vigilance toward the dynamics that result from cultural differences, expansion of cultural knowledge, and adaptation of services to meet culturally unique needs.”
⁷
They also note that a culturally competent system has as its foundation, “an awareness of the integration and interaction of health beliefs and behaviors, disease prevalence and incidence, and treatment outcomes for different patient populations.” While cultural competency has largely been framed in the health context, its usage has greatly informed the discussion about organizational responses to people of color in other disciplines, particularly in education and juvenile justice.
⁸
For this study, I use cultural competency as a measure by which strategies, programs, or individuals consider and reflect the cultural needs of the population they serve.

Gender-responsive:
Stephanie Covington and Barbara Bloom define gender responsiveness as a systems response “that, in both context (structure and environment) and content, are both comprehensive and relate to the realities of [women's] lives.”
⁹
The gender responsiveness of criminal justice programs and interventions
is also characterized as those that “target women's pathways to criminality by providing effective interventions that address the intersecting issues of substance abuse, trauma, mental health and economic marginality,” according to Barbara Bloom, Barbara Owen, Stephanie Covington, and Myrna Raeder.
¹⁰
While this definition was developed in the context of building responses to
women
in the criminal justice system, studies find that gender-responsive programs for adolescent girls should also include responses to sexual identity, self-esteem, relationships and relational aggression, health concerns, and victimization.
¹¹

Juvenile hall:
In this book, this term is used interchangeably with “juvenile detention facility.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, giving honor to the Creator, I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to the ancestors and elders who struggled for human dignity and racial justice. Our work is to carry forward your legacy in the spirit of the liberation and uplift of our people and our nation.

I would also like to thank my family for their unwavering support and understanding during the research and writing phases of producing this book. Together, you all provide a foundation more powerful than anything. I love you.

To the many girls and young women who were fearless enough to share their narratives for this book, I offer you my heartfelt thanks and commitment to use your stories as a springboard for change. With love, this book is dedicated to you.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Marie Brown, who has so graciously guided and supported my work. I am equally grateful to my very talented editor, Tara Grove. I am so lucky to work with you two!

As one can imagine, this book is the product of hours and hours of thought partnership over the past four years with many of this nation's most dedicated investors in the lives of Black women and girls. There are many people that I would love to thank for their participation in this project—the administrators, teachers, students, probation staff, juvenile court(s), and law enforcement professionals—but in order to protect their
identities and those of the girls that I spoke with, I will not name them here.

To compile and respond to the questions in Appendix A, I consulted with a diverse group of committed people whose personal and professional engagement with and love for our girls and young women is unwavering. These people include Dereca Blackmon, Falilah Aisha Bilal, Isis Sapp-Grant, Nola Brantley, Fran Frazier, sujatha baliga, and Wes Ware. Thank you, friends, for your guidance. Additionally, I am so grateful for the conversations, consultations, and general support that the following individuals have offered me on elements of this project: Fania Davis, Anna Deavere Smith, Celsa Snead, Joanne Smith, Nakisha Lewis, Avis Jones-DeWeever, Susan Burton, Tracey Robertson Carter, Nola Brantley, Larita LaFlotte, K. Jones, Stephanie Bush-Baskette, Alvin Starks, Yejie Ankobia, Shawn Ginwright, Charity Tolliver, JoHanna Thompson, Marlene Sanchez-Roy, Zandra Washington, Camisha Fatimah Gentry-Ford, Mariah Landers, Timothy McCarthy, Geoff Ward, Sonia Kumar, Maria Casey, Lenneal Henderson, Kitty Kelley Epstein, Kathy Tiner, Douglas Paxton, Irma Herrera, Jolon McNeil, Francine Sherman, Lesleigh Irish-Underwood, Erika Irish Brown, Stefanie Brown-James, Cedric Brown, Hector de Jesus, Berta Colon, Jeanette Pai-Espinosa, Agape Adams, and the community of scholar-advocates who refuse to leave our girls behind, including (but certainly not limited to) Angela Y. Davis, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Beth Richie, Coramae Ruchey Mann, Vernetta Young, Stephanie Sears, Elaine Richardson, Jamilia Blake, Simone Drake, Brittney Cooper, Nikki Jones, Priscilla Ocen, and many others upon whose shoulders I stand.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to the Open Society Foundations Soros Justice Fellowship; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the Akonadi Foundation; Fielding Graduate University; Girls for Gender Equity; the African American Policy Forum; the Schott Foundation for Public Education; the Advancement Project; the
National Council on Crime and Delinquency; the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; the National Women's Law Center; Impact Justice; the National Urban League; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality; the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University; and other institutions, collaborative efforts, and coalitions that support this work and the public discourse it seeks to engage at the national level.