Shamari Reid, Assistant Professor of Teaching and Learning, has recently published two articles, “Exploring the Agency of Black LGBTQ+ Youth in Schools and in NYC’s Ballroom Culture,” in Teachers College Record and “Using a Queer of Color Critique to work toward a Black LGBTQ+ inclusive K-12 curriculum” in Curriculum Inquiry.
As a scholar, Dr. Reid’s work explores how Black trans and queer youth and their communities sustain themselves amidst oppression, as well as how we can collaborate with these communities to better transform schools into sites of equitable opportunities for Black LGBTQ+ youth. Dr. Reid joined NYU Steinhardt and the Institute of Human Development and Social Change (IHDSC) research community this Fall as an inaugural member of the Faculty Cluster Hiring Initiative with the Justice and Belonging in Development and Education Hub, or The Hub. Prior to joining NYU, Dr. Reid was an Assistant Professor of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Oklahoma.
In “Exploring the Agency of Black LGBTQ+ Youth in Schools and in NYC’s Ballroom Culture,” Dr. Reid examines youth agency and LGBTQ+ youth of color by exploring the following research question: How do eight Black LGBTQ+ youth who are active members in New York City’s ballroom culture make sense of their agency in school and in out-of-school ballroom spaces? Using Seidman’s (2013) interview process, three separate interviews were conducted with all eight youth. In addition, all eight youth participated in two focus groups. Results suggest that Black LGBTQ+ youth are always practicing agency, albeit to work toward different ends, such as occulting or exploring their LGBTQ+ identities. Findings suggest that schools can learn from ballroom spaces how to better invite Black LGBTQ+ youth into schools in humane and educative ways, encourage their agentive imaginations within education spaces, and promote liberatory school environments that recognize and embrace these youth’s racial, gender, and sexual identities.
Dr. Reid’s latest article, published this September 2022, “Using a Queer of Color Critique to work toward a Black LGBTQ+ inclusive K-12 curriculum”, draws on Queer of Color Critique (QOCC) to analyze the practices of ballroom educators and present their approaches to curriculum as a guide to designing LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum that responds to the realities of Black LGBTQ+ youth. As a framework, QOCC requires researchers to: (a) explore the resilience of queer people of color and their communities as they navigate oppression, (b) rely on the experiential knowledge of queer people of color as a primary source of knowledge production, and (c) examine how queer people of color use their agency to defy the constraints of queer of color marginalization.
We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Shamari Reid to NYU Steinhardt and IHDSC.
