FromBlack Girl ExclusiontoBlack Girl Empowerment: Understanding One Black Girl’s Digital and STEAM Literacy Practices As Empowering, Liberatory, and Agentic

In this article, we use the framework knowledgeable agents of the digital to understand the agentic experiences of one adolescent Black girl's digital and STEAM literacy practices. After discriminatory acts deterred Star's interest in exploring STEAM literacy practices in school, her involvement in a digital application workshop for Black girls and their fathers and a robotics club for Black girls reshaped her understanding of herself as a leader and innovator. Through qualitative data sources, including surveys, interviews, observations, photos, audio/video recordings, focus groups, vision boards, and digital app making, we explore her actions as a knowledge maker, creator, and producer. These roles (re)affirmed her interests in STEAM and her racialized and gendered identities as a Black girl. This study is important for rethinking collective educational efforts to disrupt systems that discourage and marginalize Black girls and women of varying identities in digital and STEAM literacies.