scholarly journals HerStory: Narrative Journeys of Young Black Women with Eating Disorders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
stephanie hawthorne
Keyword(s):  
Eating Disorders ◽  
Eating Disorder ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Black Females ◽  
Young Black Women

<p></p><p>Little is known of eating disorder (ED) pathology in Black females. It has long been perceived that Black females do not struggle with EDs; yet growing research suggests the opposite in this sub-population. This study explored ED development in three young Black women and uncovered adolescent experiential factors that were significant in their ED journeys. In the form of narrative inquiry, triangulation of interviews, observations, and abstracts were used to restory their ED accounts and glean a deeper understanding of their personal journeys. Findings revealed that preadolescence was a pivotal period when body image became a prominent focus rooted in social criticism that grew more powerful than their self-images could bear, adversely affecting their self-concept as Black girls. Trauma, sociocultural and sociopolitical variables, and comorbid psychological illnesses were instrumental in their ED developments and placed unhealthy emphasis on their bodies and mental states. Conclusions include 1) childhood experiences presented salient triggers for the development of EDs; 2) cultural distinctions influenced ED practices; 3) EDs were systems of control; and 4) salient factors prevented early intervention of EDs. Black women are coming forward to share experiences of conflict and hope to help further understand ED pathology in the Black community.</p><br><p></p>

scholarly journals HerStory: Narrative Journeys of Young Black Women with Eating Disorders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
stephanie hawthorne
Keyword(s):  
Eating Disorders ◽  
Eating Disorder ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Black Females ◽  
Young Black Women

<p></p><p>Little is known of eating disorder (ED) pathology in Black females. It has long been perceived that Black females do not struggle with EDs; yet growing research suggests the opposite in this sub-population. This study explored ED development in three young Black women and uncovered adolescent experiential factors that were significant in their ED journeys. In the form of narrative inquiry, triangulation of interviews, observations, and abstracts were used to restory their ED accounts and glean a deeper understanding of their personal journeys. Findings revealed that preadolescence was a pivotal period when body image became a prominent focus rooted in social criticism that grew more powerful than their self-images could bear, adversely affecting their self-concept as Black girls. Trauma, sociocultural and sociopolitical variables, and comorbid psychological illnesses were instrumental in their ED developments and placed unhealthy emphasis on their bodies and mental states. Conclusions include 1) childhood experiences presented salient triggers for the development of EDs; 2) cultural distinctions influenced ED practices; 3) EDs were systems of control; and 4) salient factors prevented early intervention of EDs. Black women are coming forward to share experiences of conflict and hope to help further understand ED pathology in the Black community.</p><br><p></p>

Black Girls STEAMing Through Dance

2020 ◽  
pp. 198-219
Author(s):  
Ayana Allen-Handy ◽  
Valerie Ifill ◽  
Raja Y. Schaar ◽  
Michelle Rogers ◽  
Monique Woodard
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
After School ◽  
School Program ◽  
After School Program ◽  
Women Professors ◽  
Development Course

Black Girls STEAMing through Dance (BGSD) leverages a transdisciplinary partnership among four Black women professors in urban education, dance, industrial/product design, and computing to engage Black girls in a STEAM-infused program to inspire STEAM literacies, STEAM identities, and positive self-concept. BGSD is in its third year of existence and operates across several contexts, including an after-school program for 7- to 12-year-old Black girls, a co-curricular mini course program for 5th and 6th grade girls, and a professional development course for teachers. This chapter highlights how the program was developed and how the use of dance to integrate STEAM is a promising platform to encourage engaged STEAM participation amongst underrepresented Black girls.

Evidentiality in illness narratives

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Figueras Bates
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Eating Disorders ◽  
Eating Disorder ◽  
Severe Mental Illness ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Illness Narratives ◽  
Epistemic Stance ◽  
Different Sources

Abstract Narratives of severe mental illness can be regarded as the discursive efforts of a healthy self to restore a sense of selfhood disrupted by the illness. Focusing on a sample of 87 unsolicited online illness narratives of eating disorders in Spanish, this article explores how narrators deployed evidential constructions introduced by the perception verb “ver” (to see) to manage identity in the autobiographical telling. The analysis revealed that “ver” indexed information as coming from different sources (perception, mental states, inference). This evidential material was discursively evaluated (via the adoption of a specific epistemic stance) and applied to construe conflicting versions of self in the eating disorder narratives. Resorting to the evidential marking, narrators could rhetorically negotiate the transition from their perceptual self, created during the illness, to their cognitive self, elaborated in the recovery.

Steeped in Shame: An Exploration of Family Sexual Socialization Among Black College Women

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 450-467
Author(s):  
Seanna Leath ◽  
Jami C. Pittman ◽  
Petal Grower ◽  
L. Monique Ward
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
College Women ◽  
Sexual Development ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Black College ◽  
Sexual Socialization ◽  
Young Black Women ◽  
Negative Messages ◽  
Sexual Exploration

Most research on Black girls’ sexuality emphasizes reducing risk behaviors, with less attention to dimensions of healthy and normative sexual development, such as body positivity. To address this gap, we sought to explore the diversity of sexual messaging young Black women received during their formative years. Using consensual qualitative research methods, we explored how 50 Black college women (ages 18–24 years) described their sexual socialization within family contexts in relation to their current sexual beliefs and behaviors. The following themes emerged from the data: messages of discretion, negative messages about physical appearance, messages of deference, messages of abstinence, absence of sexual messages, messages of body positivity, messages of egalitarianism, messages of sex positivity, and messages of sexual distrust and dismissiveness. Black families’ sexual socialization processes were also influenced by ethnicity, social class, and religious orientation. Our findings situate Black women’s family sexual socialization practices within a sociohistorical framework and highlight the need to support Black girls’ healthy sexual development by eliminating fear, shame, or taboo around sexual exploration. Education and advocacy efforts should focus on communicating openly with youth to help them make more positive decisions about sex and bodily autonomy.

Exploring Black Girls’ Subversive Literacies as Acts of Freedom

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-481
Author(s):  
Lauren Leigh Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Racial Equity ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Consciousness Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Young Black Women

Research on Black girls’ and women’s literacies reveals how they utilize literacy practices to resist oppression and define their identities. Yet, these practices are frequently absent from or marginalized in formalized schooling spaces. In addition, Black girlhood is rarely placed at the center of equity interventions in schools. As the history of activism in the United States is tied to Black women’s struggles for freedom, research and practice involving racial equity must be attentive to the literacies and activism of Black girls. Grounded in Black feminist theory, this article describes a longitudinal study of the critical consciousness development of two young Black women as they engaged in distinct literacy practices to navigate and resist racial oppression in high school. The author analyzes interviews as well as literacy artifacts to explore how these girls enacted critical, digital, and subversive literacies to challenge intersecting oppressions of race and gender in a predominantly White, suburban school.

scholarly journals Childhood Memories in Eating Disorders: An Explorative Study Using Diagnostic Imagery

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Basile ◽  
Chiara Novello ◽  
Simona Calugi ◽  
Riccardo Dalle Grave ◽  
Francesco Mancini
Keyword(s):  
Eating Disorders ◽  
Eating Disorder ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Image Description ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Early Parent ◽  
Childhood Memory

Together with socio-cultural components, the family environment and early parent–child interactions play a role in the development of eating disorders. The aim of this study was to explore the nature of early parent–daughter relationships in a sample of 49 female inpatients with an eating disorder. To acquire a detailed image description of the childhood experiences of the patient, we used diagnostic imagery, a schema therapy-derived experiential technique. This procedure allows exploring specific contents within the childhood memory (i.e., emotions and unmet core needs), bypassing rational control, commonly active during direct verbal questioning. Additionally, patients completed self-report measures to assess for eating disorder severity, general psychopathology, and individual and parental schemas pervasiveness. Finally, we explored possible differences in the diagnostic imagery content and self-report measures in two subgroups of patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The results showed that the most frequently reported unmet needs within the childhood memories of patients were those of safety/protection, care/nurturance, and emotional expression, referred specifically to the maternal figure. Overall, mothers were described as more abandoning, but at the same time particularly enmeshed in the relationship with their daughters. Conversely, patients perceived their fathers as more emotionally inhibited and neglecting. Imagery-based techniques might represent a powerful tool to explore the nature of early life experiences in eating disorders, allowing a more detailed case conceptualization and addressing intervention on early-life vulnerability aspects in disorder treatment.

scholarly journals Black girls navigate the physical and emotional landscape of the neighbourhood: Normalized violence and strategic agency

2020 ◽  
pp. 147332502092034
Author(s):  
Claudia Bernard ◽  
Anna Carlile
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Friendship Groups ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
Young Black Women ◽  
Everyday Realities ◽  
Emotional Landscape

This article considers how young Black women living in gang-affected neighbourhoods in an urban area in England, UK navigate their safety in public and private spaces, and how these spaces overlap and intersect. Drawing on a project with 18 participants aged 14–19, the research seeks to understand how the participants inhabit, navigate and strategize for their safety through their narratives of life and survival in an unsafe neighbourhood. Findings indicate that they experience sexual harassment in public spaces and gang-associated sexual and physical violence as common, accepted aspects of their everyday realities, from as young as 12. The narratives suggest that participants navigate complex friendship groups to protect each other and their families through tight codes of trust, secrecy, privacy and conflict-management strategies. This article seeks to bring attention to how young women utilize their agency to illuminate the coping strategies they draw on to navigate their physical environments. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for interventions.

scholarly journals Black Adolescent Girls' Use of Literacy Practices to Negotiate Boundaries of Ascribed Identity

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
LeeAnn M. Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
The Novel ◽  
High School English ◽  
English Class ◽  
Arts Curriculum ◽  
Young Black Women

This qualitative study highlights the interconnectedness of literature, literacy practices, identity, and social positioning within a framework of a common enactment of multicultural education: adding literature by and about people of color to the language arts curriculum. The study provides a window on the meaning-making of six 16-year-old Black girls as they studied The Bluest Eye (Morrison, 1994) in their high school English class. Drawing primarily on group and individual interview data, this research shows participants spending little time analyzing the literature per se. Instead, spurred by incidents in the novel, they used the text as a launching point from which they analyzed their own life experiences. Socially positioned as young Black women, participants have found that they are expected by people in their school, community, and outside their community to behave in particular ways as a reflection of their assumed values and ways of being in the world. They also have experienced the effects of a Eurocentric standard of beauty, so central to the novel, being applied in their own lives. As they read and discussed the text, participants represented and constructed identities as they validated, modified, or contested the ability of others' ascriptions of identity to act as boundaries in their lives. This research shows how ascribed identities serve as boundaries, how literacy practices enable negotiation of those boundaries, and how participants' co-constructed identities as young Black women mattered to them as they studied literature with which they were expected to “connect.”

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