Portfolio Overview

           I must admit, when I first started volunteering at Girls Incorporated, I was unsure of how it was significantly different than a daycare facility. I was also unsure of how beneficial, if at all, single-sex programming could be for young girls. Essentially, I was rather skeptical and full of preconceptions. Due to my former inexperience with “girls only” after-school programs, my initial observations were filled with intrigue. It has been very difficult to pin down what my most prominent curiosities are, but by analyzing my field notes and completing several smaller assignments, I have come to make a couple of very important discoveries.

I’ve come to realize that my skeptical preconceptions are not just my own, they belong to a considerable portion of society. One of the first things that Lucy Berger, Director of Operations at the Monroe County location, told me was her biggest day-to-day challenge: “Being seen as not ‘cheap daycare’ – that is a constant challenge; that’s not what we do. If kids are here they’re going to participate whether they want to or not. We try to brand ourselves as more than a cheap place to go after school.” This perception is not limited to my own naivety; it contributes to many misconceptions and misrepresentations of promising youth development programs like Girls Inc.

This interest in the misrepresentation of Girls Inc led me to discover two distinguishing characteristics of the organization, which are parts of their mission that often go unnoticed: 1) Girls Inc participates in activities of dynamic community engagement, and 2) operating as a single-sex organization is arguably the most effective way to instill the values of dynamic community engagement to ensure reciprocity and resilience.

The discovery of these two characteristics was slow-going. They are rather subjective, and they rely on careful analysis of powerfully pervasive, yet culturally concealed, social structures. I had to sift through large amounts of information until I found what I thought was the most effective representation of Girls Inc. I still have a long way to go in fully understanding the benefits of Girls Inc

Below, I have listed some of my preparatory assignments, larger assignments, and cultural performances, which all played crucial roles in my understanding of Girls Incorporated.

Major Projects

Experiential, Reciprocal Education -- positioning essay searching for a more complete definition of "service-learning"

Empowering Girls to Empower Others -- verbal visual portrait uncovering the empowerment of Girls Inc. girls

What Girls Need: A Discussion of Single-sex, Liberatory Education -- critical bibliography focusing on the function of liberatory education in a single sex (i.e. "girls-only") environment

In Search of Liberatory Single-sex Education -- final ethnography identifying and defining the distinguishing characteristics of Girls Inc. and how they affect girls' development

Supporting Projects

Youth development programs – nice… AND necessary.

Image manipulation – a portrait of Girls Incorporated.

Finding single-sex, liberatory education.

Artifacts and Cultural Performances

Girls Incorporated of Monroe County
The Supergirl Dilemma
Why Girls Only? Making the Case for Girls Incorporated