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Abstract
According to the Civil Rights Data Collection, during the most recent data collection for 2020-2021, Black girls were nationally represented in gifted education at 9%. While White girls were defined at 55%, Hispanic/Latina girls at 19%, and Asian girls at 10%, Black girls appear in gifted education as the most underrepresented major subgroup in the United States of America. As Black girls appear as minorities in gifted classrooms, they navigate gifted settings from a lens that is not common or widely known by others who do not share similar demographics. Black girls and Black women experience intersectionality as they encounter oppression at the points of being Black and female. Many of them are often either the only Black girl or one of a few in gifted spaces, and their experiences with academically rigorous environments are usually marked by isolation, battling stereotype threat, and being exceptional (Harmon and Ford, 2013). Though there is a wealth of literature that explores the schooling experiences of gifted Black girls, the research is underdeveloped for the schooling experiences of gifted Black girls in White-dominated settings. This research team conducted a qualitative study using Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model and Critical Race Theory (CRT). Positioned as a social justice study, the lived experiences of this research population gained visibility through data analysis from Clark Moustakas’s 1994 model that revealed the essence of this population's lived experiences. The findings of this study explore the lived experiences of gifted Black girls in White-dominated academic spaces and summon educators to enhance the schooling experiences of gifted Black girls.