McNair Scholar 2020 Nautica Flowers
Nautica N. Flowers is a senior at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with a major in African American and African Studies along with double minoring in both Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies and French. Her research interests surround an examination of Black womanhood in the digital age. Mx. Flowers plans to receive a PhD in Sociology in the near future.
My dream is to receive a PhD so that I can bring my experiences to an international university. I wish to center Black women and Black queerness in my future studies, writing, and media.
Research project
Misogynoir in the Classroom: A Literature Review on the Experiences of Black Girls in Schools
Abstract: Literature about racial bias within the K-12 public school system currently centers the oppression of Black male students as opposed to their White male counterparts. While this discrimination is widespread, the focus on this disparity ignores the reality that Black female students are experiencing unique forms of abuse and discipline in the classroom as well. When examining this under researched phenomenon of increased violence in the schools towards Black girls it became clear that misogynoir, the specific combination of racism and sexism that Black girls and women experience, is an unrepresented issue in almost every conversation surrounding the treatment of students in schools. This literature review questions the disciplinary action taken against Black female students in public schools while ultimately trying to find an answer for why these numbers have been steadily growing.
Faculty mentor
Dr. Keith Mayes is currently a professor within the African American and African Studies department at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Mayes received his Ph.D. in History from Princeton University in 2002. His classes focus on the Civil Rights Movement and the subsequent government policies and activist strategies that followed. The research he conducted this summer examined the special education system in Minnesota public schools as it pertains to discipline and diagnosis of Black students. Dr. Mayes has been a McNair faculty mentor for the past six years.