Intersectional Barriers to Learning

Sor Juana navigated intersecting oppressions—she was a woman, mestiza, poor, and intellectually ambitious in a colonial system designed to restrict her on every front. Her struggle illuminates how barriers to knowledge are never single-layered but compound when children embody multiple marginalized identities. A girl child in poverty facing gender discrimination experiences a different educational landscape than a wealthy boy; a disabled child of color faces distinct obstacles. Intersectional analysis of learning barriers demands we examine how systems of power overlap to exclude certain children more thoroughly than others. This framework moves beyond seeing children's educational challenges as individual deficits and instead reveals structural injustices: funding disparities, curricula that erase certain histories, classroom cultures that alienate some students, discipline policies that disproportionately harm children of color. Addressing children's rights requires understanding these intersecting barriers—that a child's access to intellectual development cannot be separated from their gender, race, class, disability status, and other identities. Through this Sophianic perspective, we commit to dismantling the multiple systems that block certain children's paths to knowledge.