Brothers In Grief: Nora Gross On Cumulative Loss & Gun Violence

What happens when grief isn't an exception, but a constant presence?

In this episode, Jana talks with researcher and educator Nora Gross about her book, Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools, which follows the two years she spent embedded in a Philadelphia boys' high school where students were grieving repeated losses from gun violence. Through interviews, observation, and simply showing up, Nora witnessed how grief shapes friendships, school life, ideas about the future, and the social constraints Black boys face when it comes to grief.

Nora also shares how her own experiences of grief - including the death of her mother from cancer while Nora was finishing her Ph.D. program and the deaths of three students in her first year of teaching—influenced the questions she researched and continue to shape her understanding of grief today.

We discuss:

• How cumulative loss changes young people's expectations for the future.
• Why grief often remains invisible in schools, even when nearly everyone has experienced loss.
• The unique pressures Black boys face around expressing - and not expressing - emotion.
• The difference between the "easy hard," the "hard hard," and the "hidden hard" phases of communal grief, particularly in a school setting.
• Why curiosity, rather than fixing, may be one of the most powerful ways we can support young people who are grieving.
• How listening deeply can become an act of care.

Nora Gross is a sociologist of youth, race, and education and a documentary filmmaker. She is Assistant Professor of Education at Barnard College, Columbia University and received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Sociology and Education.

Nora uses qualitative, multimodal, and participatory methods to understand the ways youth develop and protect their inner lives in the face of external constraints. She has published on issues related to racialized masculinity for both Black and white boys, grief and loss, political polarization in schools, teens' social media use, youth resistance and emotional solidarity, and school supports for vulnerable youth. She has also produced several documentary films focusing on the lives of Black boys and men.

Nora is the author of the award-winning ethnographic book, Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2024), as well as co-editor of Care-Based Methodologies: Reimagining Qualitative Research with Youth in US Schools (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

You can learn more at www.noragross.com & https://www.brothersingrief.com/