Learning While Black and Queer: Understanding the Educational Experiences of Black LGBTQ+ Youth

Research-based guidance for educators, teacher educators, and community learning partners to effectively support LGBTQIA+ students of color In Learning While Black and Queer, Ed Brockenbrough outlines common obstacles to educational equity for Black youth in the LGBTQIA+ community and suggests ways for educators to foster the success of Black queer students. This compassionate and actionable work advances what Brockenbrough calls a queerly responsive pedagogy, which addresses the nuances of LGBTQIA+ youths' learning experiences in ways that other assets-based approaches, including culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies, do not. Providing evidence-based recommendations for creating educational spaces and school cultures that promote safety and belonging, Brockenbrough draws on recent empirical studies of urban Black youths aged fourteen to twenty-four who identify as LGBTQIA+, as well as personal accounts of Black queer individuals and his own experiences as a secondary school teacher and teacher educator. Among other suggestions, he advocates the adoption of a queer-inclusive curriculum that covers health and sexuality, queer-affirming classrooms, and access to peer and intergenerational kinship networks for Black queer students. He implores educators to reject the deficit narrative of queer victimhood and instead cultivate youth agency. He shows how Black queer resistant capital can be used to confront systemic oppressions such as anti-Blackness, anti-queerness, and cisheteronormativity in educational environments. The guidance offered in this work gives educators in schools and community-based organizations ways to advocate for educational and social justice with and for Black queer youth.

About the Author :
Ed Brockenbrough is an associate professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. His scholarship examines identity, pedagogy, and power in urban educational contexts, particularly through the lenses of Black masculinity studies and Queer of Color Critique.

Review :
“Brockenbrough’s achievements in the book are truly remarkable. Each chapter delivers new perspectives, offering readers a profound insight into the lives of Black LGBTQ+ youth. As someone who wears multiple hats—as a researcher, scholar, teacher, and parent—I am in awe. Brockenbrough’s writing is imbued with a unique blend of care, fear, tenderness, and integrity, making this book essential reading for educators and parents looking to deepen their understanding, support, and love of Black LGBTQ+ youth.” - Bettina Love, William F. Russell Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University, and author of Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal “Black LGBTQ+ youth as well as their educators, parents, and other supporters will benefit tremendously from this important contribution. It is substantive, helpful, and quintessential Ed Brockenbrough brilliance.” - Shaun Harper, Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership, University of Southern California “In Learning While Black and Queer, Brockenbrough passionately advocates for Black queer youth and queer youth of color to experience the justice and protection from the educational system they deserve. For anyone committed to fostering educational environments where these youth are seen and valued, this book is an indispensable guide.” - Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, professor, Teachers College, Columbia University, and author of Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces “Brockenbrough’s brilliance shines from the opening to the closing vignettes of his conversations with young people in urban high school classrooms. In between, he weaves powerful stories and conjures provocative images of Black queer youth (BQY) engaging in resistance, fugitivity, and intimacy. Thus, he brings to life the commitments of ‘queerly responsive pedagogy’ and offers pedagogical implications for all educators who strive to support BQY and their peers.” - Mollie Blackburn, professor in the Department of Teaching & Learning, The Ohio State University