Teaching While Black, Oh and a Woman

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to draw attention to the intersection of racism and sexism in the life of a Black woman teacher educator and how these systems operated to disempower her. The chapter highlights research on the experiences of Black women in higher education and chronicles the author's personal story of pedagogy and practice as a Black women teacher educator. The chapter also details how she navigates societal oppression within the classroom and how her work reflects social justice pedagogy where oppression is examined and challenged through professional risk-taking. While conservative norms serve as a means to marginalize her experience, the author documents how she navigates systems of oppression and how she continues to survive as she pushes against the status quo and towards personal and professional liberation. The hope is that in sharing this autoethnographic counternarrative, readers will gain insight into the systemic and microaggressive experiences of Black women teacher educators who seek to make the academy a more inclusive place.

The state of Black women in higher education: A critical perspective 20 years later

“…Black women scholars also edited special issue journals (see Patton et al., 2016, 2017), and edited and authored books (Banks, 2009; Bertrand Bertrand Jones et al., 2012; Bush et al., 2009; Chambers & Sharpe, 2012; Commodore et al., 2018; Esnard & Cobb‐Roberts, 2018; Patton & Croom, 2017) solely focused on the experiences of Black women in higher education. The publication of our monograph coincides with a flourish of books centering Black women and girls by illuminating how they experience mentoring in the academy (Kelly & Fries‐Britt, 2022), “find their versions of success” in historically white institutions (Logan & Good, 2022), navigate the educational pipeline (Patton et al., 2022) in preK‐12 schools and beyond (Mayes et al., 2022) and in doctoral programs (Bush et al., 2023), and embody Black feminism to thrive in academia (Porter et al., 2023). Our work adds to this body of scholarship as a critical and timely 20‐year anniversary follow up to Howard‐Hamilton's (2003) pivotal contribution.…”