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Abstract

Issues facing Black girls are continually dismissed and superseded by the struggles of their Black male peers. Black girls deserve to have their issues acknowledged and addressed, with the urgency society affords others. The relentless racialized gendered oppression experienced by Black girls, has become evident within their educational experiences and encounters with discipline. This dissertation centres the voices of Black girls, by exploring the discipline disparities between Black and white female students, within UK state secondary schools. By building on previous studies, as well as primary qualitative data, this research will highlight the calamitous effects of unfair and harsh disciple for Black girls, as well as how discriminatory discipline impacts the perpetuation of untruthful and prejudicial narratives.
Using theoretical concepts such as intersectionality, Black Feminism, Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Feminism Theory (FemCrit) and Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), this research has been able to adopt an interpretive paradigm through semi-structured interviews. The 8 participants were current female university students and were critically reflecting on their secondary school experiences and encounters with discipline. Second to this, participants had to self-identify as female, as well as either Black Caribbean, Black African or white British. This enabled the stark differences in the disciplinary treatment of Black and white girls within secondary schools, to be revealed. Analysis of the data confirmed that although Black and white girls are co-existing within secondary schools, their experiences could not be any more contrasting. The findings show the critical nature of this issue and uncover what secondary school discipline is truly like for Black girls. More attention and research is needed regarding this issue, so that significant changes can be made across the UK, to improve the experiences Black girls have within their secondary schools and in regards to discipline.

Course: Sociology - BSc (Hons) - C0315

Date Deposited: 2022-05-16

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13907.html