Imagine paying for a course, then you end up teaching: Black woman doctoral students in equity, social justice, and diversity courses.

Abstract

There has been an increasing emphasis on equity, social justice, and diversity (ESD) curriculum in higher education graduate programs. Nevertheless, Black women in doctoral programs at historically white institutions (HWIs) often experience various challenges in classroom environments and with various curriculum and instruction approaches that distort their intelligence and preserve the myth of racial and gender inferiority. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework and methodology was employed to understand Black women’s experiences as students in Higher Education Administration doctoral courses with espoused ESD learning outcomes and objectives. Findings for this study suggest that Black women doctoral students served as both learners and educators in these classroom spaces; they had to navigate surveillance and stereotypes from both peers and professors; and (non)critical classroom communities created challenges and opportunities for deepening their learning on ESD. Implications for doctoral courses with espoused ESD learning outcomes and objectives are to center subjugated knowledge that honors different ways of knowing and being by creating genuinely inclusive learning experiences to foster all students’ development of critical consciousness.

Shining the light: Black women thriving in graduate school

“…Embedding typically subjugated viewpoints into curricula can signal their relevance, create room for students to share experiential and analytical ways of knowing, and enhance students’ overall engagement (hooks, 2014). To counter the experiences of Black women graduate students who are often tokenized within classrooms as equity experts, faculty must take ownership in educating themselves and expanding curricula to not shift responsibility to the communities they seek to support (Roland et al., 2021).…”

Black Women Navigating the Doctoral Journey

“…We are championed for gaining grants, fellowships, and publications in top-tier journals. Our institutions maintain their power off of the sweat and blood of our work and the work of our ancestors continuously (Boss et al, 2021;Nzinga, 2020;Roland et al, 2021). Our advisors barely have time to advise us because they are being beaten down by the neoliberal wheel of global capitalism that higher education is complicit in.…”

Structural acuity: Black women undergraduate students in cross-racial intergroup dialogues.

“…Many Black women, however, have faced marginalization throughout such events (Roumell & James-Gallaway, 2021). This issue also occurs in higher education (Patton & Ward, 2016), where social justice education and broader, popularized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts like intergroup dialogue (IGD) rarely reflect Black women's interests or needs (Roland et al, 2021), raising questions about their experience therein.…”