Graduate Student Research Symposium 2025

Since its birth, the education system in the U.S. has focused on eliminating Black girls’ and women’s accessibility to educational success through policing of self-agency and cultural expression. “Black-colonial educational frameworks emphasize the historical function of public education in the United States as a mechanism to stifle Black agency” (Ray, 2022). In this research study I will utilize semi-formal interviews to collect stories, statements, and positionalities from Black women of UH Mānoa about their racialized experiences in education that are influenced by hair politics. What I hope to express through this qualitative research pilot is how early encounters of Black hair politics influence Black women’s feeling of belonging in their higher education spaces, and how they sense make about their experiences through storytelling and analyzing their thoughts, feelings, and responses using personal narrative analysis.