Race-Based Epistemology

Since the early stages of the desegregation of United States schools in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the unique challenges of black females have given researchers unique challenges, posed fundamental questions, and necessitated debate over the treatment of gender and race-based two-tiered patriarchies (Fordham 3). Despite the increased focus on the black experience in public schools due to the civil rights movements of the 1960s and increasing focus on racial equality in United States public schools, black females were often either misrepresented or unclassified as a distinct group. Because feminist epistemologies tend to be concerned with the education of White girls and women, and raced-based epistemologies tend to be consumed with the
In 1993, she published a scholarly article that focused on the consequences of a fundamentally discriminatory school system for black females. Directly, she finds that the existence of a subversive, diverse womanhood among African-American women, juxtaposed with a two-tiered dominating patriarchy, influences and often adversely affects academic achievement (Fordham 5). She justifies this assertion through the line of reasoning that gender is repeatedly constructed and negated in culturally and racially stratified social systems. The desire for academic success combined with the negation or suppression of gender diversity among African-American females at Capital High compels them to silence and/or emulate the male dominant “Other” (Fordham 6). Fordham is arguing that because of the social stigmas, misrepresented archetypes, and fundamental patriarchies surrounding black females in United States schools, they are compelled to “pass”, or to impersonate White males and females, to achieve academic
Morris in Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. Black girls are seen as “bad girls” because of what they wear, how they speak, and how they behave. In a 2013 scholarly article, Morris further articulates that the struggle to remove the vestiges of segregation fro US schools often under-theorizes the separate and unequal nature of education for youth in secure confinement, and the potential relationship between these facilities and the school push-out that occurs among youth of color in district and community schools (Morris 5). She elucidates this dichotomy by arguing that while academic underperformance and zero tolerance policies are certainly critical components of the pathways to confinement for Black girls, a closer examination reveals that Black girls may also be criminalized for qualities that have been long association with survival (Morris 5). Because of the social stigmas, misrepresented archetypes, and fundamental patriarchies in existence in United States schools, black females are disproportionately disciplined because they exhibit characteristics correlated with “bad