Dreaming Together: Co-Constructing Spaces where Black Girls Can Be
Monday, April 6th
12:00pm - 1:00pm
190 Rockefeller Hall
Drawing on community psychology and Black girlhood studies and grounded in her own experiences, Dr. Ailsworth explores what it means to center Black girls as visionaries, knowledge producers, and co-creators of the spaces they inhabit. This talk traces how the Black Girl Magic Crew (BGM), a community-engaged afterschool program in the Southeast, evolved from a single conversation into a sustained community practice in which Black girls named the space, set the terms, and shaped the research agenda. Through detailed vignettes, Dr. Ailsworth introduces Sisterhood in Scholarship (SIS) Methodology — a framework that centers Black girls' ways of knowing, theorizing, and producing knowledge — and demonstrates how it is enacted in practice.
Misha N. Ailsworth, Ph.D. is the Director of the Black Girl Visions Collaborative research team and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. Dr. Ailsworth earned her doctorate and masters in Community Research and Action at Vanderbilt University. She earned her undergraduate degree from Cornell University's Department of Human Development, where she was a Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Scholar. Dr. Ailsworth’s program of research examines the role of cultural narratives and developmental spaces in shaping Black girls’ identity development and mental health using a cultural-assets perspective.
This event is open to faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students. The event page can be found here.
Please RSVP to fgss@cornell.edu.
