Learning Black Language Matters

Abstract

How can and must critical qualitative inquiry be part of ongoing struggles for cultural and educational justice with the communities of our work? We explore this question by reflecting on our collaborative research on culturally sustaining pedagogy centered in the study of Black Language (BL). Building on the core humanizing research notion of dialogic consciousness-raising between researchers and participants, we describe the ways the three of us came to deepened knowledge about the role of BL in our lives and in the lives of the high school students we worked with through a humanizing research as culturally sustaining pedagogy framework. In this framework, the ability to participate in BL, research-based knowledge about BL, and critical collaborative research on BL joined reciprocal inquiry with teaching and learning to center the value of our Black language and Black lives within a schooling and research enterprise that often devalues both.