Abstract:

This study explores the thoughts and lived experiences of a two groups of black adolescent girls, as they create and enact their class, race, and gender identities, at an urban and suburban high school.

The project, a qualitative study using participant observations, and individual and focus group interviews, reconstructed how the participants' gender and racial identities are shaped within their respective educational institutions and how their interactions within their high schools become a part of their identity development.

This study contributes to the research literature in that there is limited research that solely focuses on black teenage girls' gender and racial identity construction within educational institutions. When black females have been included in studies it has been in relation to their black male and white female counterparts; and often from white scholars' viewpoints.

The results showed that the black female participant's gender and racial identities are affected academically and socially by attending an urban and a suburban public high school. This study gave voice to black adolescent females attending an urban and suburban high school and demonstrated that there is a need for this type of research not only in public schools, but in private educational institutions where black female's voices have been silenced and still continues in the twenty-first century.