Valuing Black Boy Joy: Liberating the literacy experiences of Black boys by leveraging their literacies

Black Boy Joy is a phrase that celebrates the proper fullness of being a Black male in the United States. The Black boys within this study described their Black boy Joy as experiencing happiness, Black consciousness, perseverance, confidence, uniqueness, and dream chasing. This inquiry aimed to bring about a heightened awareness of the necessity of imagining literacy experiences that respect the humanity of Black boys. The researcher used a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) methodology and multimodal analysis methods to conceptualize literacy experiences that pursued social justice topics while centering the voices of Black fourth and fifth-grade boys. Critical Race English Education (CREE) theory and the histories, identities, literacies, and liberation (HILL) model offered a lens to conceptualize how the co-researchers collectively generated knowledge. The findings from this investigation revealed that the Black boys experienced a sense of liberation participating in an after-school book club that offered critical discourse to grapple with the complexities of social issues. Ultimately, a supportive space was developed where the co-researchers described their perspectives of Black Boy Joy while having their literacies affirmed. Implications of the study show how using liberatory practices to teach literacy has the potential to encourage student agency while nurturing the sense of mattering and belonging for Black boys in elementary classrooms. This investigation highlights the importance of selecting high-quality literacy curricula that center the voices of Black boys' and integrate Black boys’ literacies to eventually lead to this counter-narrative of Black boys becoming the dominant narrative of Black boys.