Black Girls' Reading Motivations: Centering Their Perspectives and Experiences to Redefine a Hegemonic Construct.

This article examines how a group of adolescent Black girl readers describe and enact reading motivation, highlighting tensions between dominant research conceptualizations and their lived experiences. Using a grounded theory qualitative approach within a summer reading program, the study identifies three key domains of Black girls' reading motivation: meaning-oriented (effort, growth, and use of reading strategies to make sense of texts and self), collaborative (reading with and to others to build community), and liberatory (reading to understand identity, social justice, and enact change). Drawing on Black Girlhood Studies, Historically Responsive Literacies, and Black Girls' Literacies frameworks, the study argues for reconceptualizing reading motivation to center Black girls' perspectives and sociocultural contexts, challenging whiteness-centered models that emphasize competition and individual achievement. The findings suggest implications for research and educational practice, advocating for culturally responsive approaches that recognize diverse motivations and support humanizing pedagogies.