“Black Girls, Since We Struggled So Hard, We Push to Get More”: Adolescent Black Girls’ Awareness of Intersectional Oppression

As Black girls make sense of their identities in the context of racial, gender, and intersectional oppression, they also develop an awareness of the system of inequality and oppression in society. However, with in the growing body of research in developmental science focused on adolescents’ awareness of structural oppression in society, or “critical consciousness,” there remains a gap in listening to Black girls and their unique intersectional identity experiences to understand how adolescents are aware of oppression. The current qualitative analysis uses in depth interview data to examine whether and how adolescent Black girls discuss oppression in the context of their racial, gender, and intersectional identities. Analysis reveals that adolescent Black girls ( N = 60; M age = 16.17; SD = 1.23) display an awareness of oppression through: (a) Stereotypes and (b) Hierarchies. Patterns of awareness were high and similar for race (“Black”) and intersectionality (“Black girl”) but lower for gender (“girl”). We discuss contributions for studying identity, critical consciousness, and intersectionality during adolescence, and prioritizing the knowledge of Black girls.