ERIC Number: ED675157
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2025-May
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Black Girl Brilliance: Using Data to Catalyze Change for California's Black Girls. Research in Brief
Faheemah N. Mustafaa; Tadria Cardenas; Kiara M. Jones
EdTrust-West
When it comes to Black youth, narratives about educational outcome gaps are often deficit-focused and incomplete, reifying notions of immovable racial inequities rather than uplifting evidence of students excelling when afforded the opportunities they deserve. There is a need to access data that tells a fuller and more nuanced story of students' experiences across intersections of identity, like race and gender, to tailor school improvement efforts effectively. In this research brief, school-level data from the 2017-2018 Civil Rights Data Collection was utilized to examine the relative representation of Black girls across various opportunities that have been proven to promote academic success and college-going, known as "promotive opportunities," in 8,234 K-12 public schools serving Black students in California. By doing so, the authors hope to shift deficit narratives that often stem from extrapolations of state-level aggregate data, and identify precisely where targeted, school-level interventions may have significant potential to improve access to promotive opportunities for Black girls. The findings show that Black girls are proportionately represented or better on several promotive opportunities like advanced placement course enrollment and advanced math classes in just a quarter of California's public schools, demonstrating that there are schools successfully breaking from historical trends and creating conditions that nurture rather than stifle Black girls' brilliance. Recommendations are provided to shift deficit narratives about Black girls (and Black youth more broadly) and to address state-level educational inequities by race and gender. [Additional funding provided by the AIR Equity Initiative.]
Descriptors: African American Students, Females, Womens Education, Elementary Secondary Education, Public Schools, Educational Opportunities, Success, Equal Education, Advanced Placement Programs, Advanced Courses, Disproportionate Representation, Gifted Education, College Preparation
EdTrust-West. 1814 Franklin Street Suite 220, Oakland, CA 94612. Tel: 510-465-6444; Fax: 510-465-0859; Web site: https://west.edtrust.org/
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Authoring Institution: EdTrust-West
Identifiers - Location: California
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A


