Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Manifesting Black Joy in science learning

  • Forum
  • Published:
Cultural Studies of Science Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Building on Miles and Roby’s notion of a Black liberatory education where freedom includes experiencing Black joy, this forum article further articulates BlackJoy as a framework for designing research-to-practice spaces that centre Black liberation and flourishing for authentically equitable learning engagements and to counter ongoing deficit narratives and corresponding oppressions that Black and other racialized/minoritized learners experience in schools and other learning environments. The BlackJoy heuristic has four key tenets: Black Excellence, Black Inventiveness, Black Kinship and Black Aesthetics. Data and vignettes from prior research projects will be described of examples of BlackJoy in education and used as a point of departure discussions about the design of research and learning environments that cultivate BlackJoy and expanded ways to think about evidences of learning.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adams, J. D. (2019). WhatsApp with Science? Emergent CrossActionSpaces for Communication and Collaboration Practices in an Urban Science Classroom. In Emergent Practices and Material Conditions in Learning and Teaching with Technologies (pp. 107–125). Springer, Cham.

  • Adams, J. D. (2018). Creative Critical Inquiry: Transforming Our Understandings of and Engagements in the World. In Critical Issues and Bold Visions for Science Education (pp. 157–170). Brill Sense.

  • BBC Ideas (2019, Sept 3). What is ‘black joy’ and why do we need it in our lives? [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/SQlEpjZXfRU

  • Castillo-Montoya, M., Abreu, J., & Abad, A. (2019). Racially liberatory pedagogy: A Black Lives Matter approach to education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(9), 1125–1145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz, K. (2017). Black joy is resistance: Why we need a movement to balance Black triumph with trials. Retrieved from http://blackyouthproject.com/black-joy-resistance-need-movement-balance-black-triumph-trials/

  • Davies, C. B. (2013). Caribbean Spaces: escapes from twilight zone. University of Illinois Press.

  • Dumas, M. J. (2016). Against the dark: Antiblackness in education policy and discourse. Theory Into Practice, 55(1), 11–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giorgis, H. (2019, June 03). 'When They See Us' and the Persistent Logic of 'No Humans Involved'. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/06/when-they-see-us-and-persistent-language-black-criminality/590695/

  • Hartman, S. (2008). Lose your mother: A journey along the Atlantic slave route. Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holm, J. A. (2000). An introduction to pidgins and creoles. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ideland, M. (2018). Science, coloniality, and “the great rationality divide.” Science & Education, 27(7–8), 783–803.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, J. (2015). Black joy in the time of Ferguson. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 2(2), 177–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu, J. H., & Steele, C. K. (2019). ‘Joy is resistance’: Cross-platform resilience and (re) invention of Black oral culture online. Information, Communication & Society, 22(6), 823–837.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Medin, D. L., & Bang, M. (2014). Who’s asking? Native science, western science, and science education. MIT Press.

  • MelVee, X. (2020, May 31). Do not police how Black people are grieving and reacting to collective injustice right now. For some of us, grief is our rage; unapologetic, piercing and refusing to be silenced or halted. For some of us, we gravitate stubbornly to our joy and light. Our Black joy illuminating in a hostile and unforgiving universe [Facebook status update]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/melveepoetry

  • Morton, T. R., & Parsons, E. C. (2018). # BlackGirlMagic: The identity conceptualization of Black women in undergraduate STEM education. Science Education, 102(6), 1363–1393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morton, T. R., Gee, D. S., & Woodson, A. N. (2020). Being vs. becoming: Transcending STEM Identity development through Afropessimism, moving toward a Black X consciousness in STEM. The Journal of Negro Education, 88(3), 327–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mutegi, J. W. (2013). “Life’s first need is for us to be realistic” and other reasons for examining the sociocultural construction of race in the science performance of African American students. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50(1), 82–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perry, I. (2020, June 15). Racism is terrible. Blackness is not. The Atlantic. Retreived from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/racism-terrible-blackness-not/613039/

  • Poteat, T., Millett, G., Nelson, L. E., & Beyrer, C. (2020). Understanding COVID-19 risks and vulnerabilities among black communities in America: The Lethal Force of Syndemics. Annals of Epidemiology., 47, 1–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes, M. V. (2020). The disproportional impact of COVID-19 on African Americans. Health and human rights, 22(2), 299.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, N. (2020, May 30). The white dog walker and #livingwhileblack in New York City. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/nyregion/central-park-video.html

  • Stewart, S., & Haynes, C. (2019). Black Liberation research: Qualitative methodological considerations. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(9), 1183–1189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winford, D. (2005). Ideologies oflanguage and socially realistic linguistics. In S. Makoni, G. Smitherman, A. Ball & Spears, A. (Eds.), Black linguistics: Language, society and politics in Africa and the Americas, 21–39.

  • Wynter, S. (1994). No Humans Involved: An Open Letter to My Colleagues. In Forum NHI Knowledge for the 21st Century, Knowledge on Trial (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 42–71).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jennifer D. Adams.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This review essay addresses issues raised in Monica L. Miles and ReAnna S. Roby’s paper entitled: Black liberatory science education: Positioning Black youth as science learners through recognizing brilliance (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-022-10109-4).

This manuscript is part of the special issue “Science education and the African Diaspora in the United States”, guest edited by Mary M. Atwater and Jomo W. Mutegi.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Adams, J.D. Manifesting Black Joy in science learning. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 17, 199–209 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-022-10114-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-022-10114-7

Keywords

Navigation