New research on Black girlhood expands developmental science
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teen girl
Key points
Researchers are expanding science on Black girls by treating them as knowledge producers, not just subjects of study.
Emerging methods help researchers gather richer data that challenge long-held assumptions about Black girlhood.
Black girls share their own experiences of joy, thriving, and colorism in research settings where they feel safe and can develop supportive peer bonds.
In the summer of 2023, 10 Black teen girls gathered at the RiseBoro Community Partnership in Brooklyn to build a first-of-its-kind catalog of the various microaggressions Black girls face because of colorism. Gina Sissoko, PhD—now a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Public Health—put the girls in an unfamiliar role: the driver’s seat. They detailed the ways colorism, a preference for lighter skin tone, operated in their lives and how to measure it. They then developed a plan to research the topic and fanned out across their community to survey more than 100 other Black girls.