Centering “Grace”: Challenging Anti-Blackness in Schooling Through Motherwork

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 142-157
Author(s):  
Terri N. Watson ◽  
Gwendolyn S. Baxley
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Black Children ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Racial Biases ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
Patricia Hill Collins ◽  
Educational Advocacy

Anti-Blackness is global and present in every facet of society, including education. In this article, we examine the challenges Black girls encounter in schools throughout the United States. Guided by select research centered on Black women in their roles as mothers, activists and school leaders, we assert that sociologist Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of Motherwork should be an essential component in reframing the praxis of school leadership and in helping school leaders to rethink policies, practices, and ideologies that are anti-Black and antithetical to Blackness and Black girlhood. While most research aimed to improve the schooling experiences of Black children focuses on teacher and school leader (mis)perceptions and systemic racial biases, few studies build on the care and efficacy personified by Black women school leaders. We argue that the educational advocacy of Black women on behalf of Black children is vital to culturally responsive school leadership that combats anti-Blackness and honors Black girlhood. We conclude with implications for school leaders and those concerned with the educational experiences of Black children, namely Black girls.

Pens Down, Don’t Shoot: An Analysis of How Black Young Women Use Language to Fight Back

2020 ◽  
pp. 004208591989373
Author(s):  
Sherell A. McArthur ◽  
Gholnecsar E. Muhammad
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Literacy Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Current State ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
Historical Literacy

Media culture is exploitative and damaging. It reinforces both racist and sexist stereotypes, which places Black young women’s unique racialized gender in a position to be overidentified in derogatory ways. The bodies of Black young women, as an example, are labeled with social stigmas that make them identifiable to society at large as deficient. Furthermore, their lives have been devalued and dehumanized in the public eye as their stories are often left untold, falsely reported, or overlooked in the wider media landscape. Using qualitative interview methods, we examine the current state of Black girlhood and womanhood and the racism that pervades their lives in the United States. With this backdrop, we also investigate the ways in which Black young women have responded with their writings when we, as Black women researchers, created spaces for them to use language to fight back and resist assaults against their humanity. Specifically, we illustrate the historical literacy practice of (re)claiming print authority through writing and how Black young women used their pens as a means to claim authority of language in ways to assert their voices, ideals, and truths. We conclude with a discussion of how educators can advance print authority within learning spaces for identity meaning making and empowerment so that Black girls and young women have an expressed voice in our current social and political context.

The Impact of Identity and Culturally Responsive School Leadership: Leaders of Schools and Programs for the Deaf

2019 ◽  
pp. 120-144
Author(s):  
Catherine A. O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Deaf Culture ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf Students ◽  
Schools For The Deaf ◽  
Almost All

This chapter explores the relationship between culturally responsive school leadership and school culture in schools for the deaf. The author demonstrates how Deaf culture, identity, and culturally responsive school leadership intertwine and influence each other. This chapter reports on observations of and interviews with leaders in six schools for the deaf in the United States. Many current school leaders serving Deaf children lack knowledge and understanding of Deaf culture and Deaf identity. Culturally responsive leaders in the schools for the deaf that were studied were almost all part of Deaf culture. If school leaders are to better meet the needs deaf students’ education and identity development, they must recognize the students’ cultures and identities. The author makes a plea for better equipping potential principals and other leaders of schools for the deaf.

Black Girl Thought in the Work of Ntozake Shange

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
Naila Keleta-Mae
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ntozake Shange ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Black Girlhood

In this article I examine the performances of black girlhood in two texts by Ntozake Shange—the choreopoem “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf” (1977) and the novel Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo (1982). The black girls whom Shange portrays navigate anti-black racism in their communities, domestic violence in their homes, and explore their connections with spirit worlds. In both these works, Shange stages black girls who make decisions based on their understanding of the spheres of influence that their race, gender, and age afford them in an anti-black patriarchal world dominated by adults. I draw, too, from Patricia Hill Collins’s work on feminist standpoint theory and black feminist thought to introduce the term black girl thought as a theoretical framework to offer insights into the complex lives of black girls who live in the post-civil rights era in the United States.

Black Women Remember Black Girls

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Nicole Brown
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Made In

This chapter shows how Black girlhood must be made—in SOLHOT the space of Black girlhood is made through time, a timing that is infused with the sacred and spirit. In SOLHOT, to “homegirl” means engaging Black girls in the name of Black girlhood as sacred work that implicates time. Sacred work acknowledges the ways spirit moves one to act, often beyond the material conditions of one's immediate circumstance. The chapter considers how homegirls remember SOLHOT as a sacred experience that makes Black girlhood possible. It then features a creative and collective memory constructed from the interview transcripts of eight SOLHOT homegirls and M. Jacqui Alexander's (2005) Pedagogies of Crossing: Mediations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. The memory shows how homegirls' labor constructs SOLHOT as a methodology and cosmology that makes Black girlhood possible, affirms Black girls' lives, and enables personal and collective transformation.

Tiara

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Nicole Brown
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
After School ◽  
School Program ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
After School Program ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Women And Girls

This chapter features a scene from a play entitled Endangered Black Girls (EBG), based on the lived experiences of Black girls the author has worked with in an after-school program (not SOLHOT) and has learned about through news stories. Theorizing the process of writing and performing EBG on through to subsequent productions made possible only because of the show's original cast, this chapter illustrates how creative means of expression make it possible to fully capture the complexities of Black girlhood and that attending to the complexities of Black girlhood is necessary to affirm Black girls' daily lives. Importantly, performances of EBG generated new ideas for ways Black women and girls could be present with each other, and the play was a primary catalyst for suggesting and co-organizing Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT) as transformative collective and creative work.

School Leadership of a One-to-One Laptop Initiative

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie B. Milman
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Laptop Initiative ◽  
Limited Bandwidth ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
One To One ◽  
The Impact

This qualitative case study examined school leaders’ roles, perceptions, and challenges leading a one-to-one (1:1) laptop initiative in a coeducational, independent middle, and high school in the United States. The findings revealed how the school leaders led the school’s 1:1 laptop initiative through collaborative, yet differentiated roles and responsibilities. Together, they established the school’s vision, planned and implemented the initiative, supported teachers and students, reflected on their practice, and made changes as needed. Generally, the school leaders regarded the 1:1 laptop initiative as having a positive impact on teaching and learning by increasing student collaboration and access to information, as well as fostering teachers’ reconceptualization of their practice. However, the impact on student achievement was inconclusive; they explained it was too early to gauge its impact. Challenges the school leaders experienced involved limited bandwidth, printing problems and students’ off-task behaviors. They addressed them as they would any nontechnology challenge through problem-solving, shared decision-making, and fidelity to the school’s mission and goals.

Experience-Based Leadership Training: Reflections of African-American School Leaders

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maenette K. P. Benham ◽  
Edward Shepard
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Leadership Training ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
The United States ◽  
American School ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Professional Experiences

A variety of innovative pedagogues focused on improving school leadership preparation programs are currently under way throughout the United States. Coupled with these fresh approaches to teaching and learning that center on exploring the professional knowledge of the practitioner, more institutions are actively recruiting school leaders who represent a range of ethnic backgrounds. The intent of the following paper is to examine the usefulness of one innovative instructional approach, an experientially-based leadership retreat, for five African-American school leaders. The stories presented in this paper attempt to link the participants’ lives and professional experiences to the leadership retreat to answer the question “What did they learn about themselves through this experience?” The emergent themes have universal value and positive implications for current and future leadership preparation programs.

The criteria and training for the position of school leadership in the United States of America and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Kenan Ozberk ◽  
Gulsun Atanur Baskan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Data Collection Process ◽  
Northern Cyprus

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the procedure of choosing and appointment of school leaders in the United States of America and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and make suggestions regarding the procedures to be followed in TRNC. In the data collection process, the qualitative research method document analysis was used. Dissertations, scientific articles, laws, regulations and websites were searched to collect the data. The training, selection and appointment of school leaders in the United States of America, which has a deep-rooted past regarding the training of school leaders’ and the procedures followed by the TRNC regarding the appointment of school leaders were studied. The procedures followed by the two countries were compared and the dissimilarities were detected. Suggestions were made to the Ministry of Education and Culture of the TRNC for the changes to be made in the appointment of school leaders. Keywords: School, school leader, the United States of America, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, document analysis.  

Exploring Black Girls’ Subversive Literacies as Acts of Freedom

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-481
Author(s):  
Lauren Leigh Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Racial Equity ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Consciousness Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Young Black Women

Research on Black girls’ and women’s literacies reveals how they utilize literacy practices to resist oppression and define their identities. Yet, these practices are frequently absent from or marginalized in formalized schooling spaces. In addition, Black girlhood is rarely placed at the center of equity interventions in schools. As the history of activism in the United States is tied to Black women’s struggles for freedom, research and practice involving racial equity must be attentive to the literacies and activism of Black girls. Grounded in Black feminist theory, this article describes a longitudinal study of the critical consciousness development of two young Black women as they engaged in distinct literacy practices to navigate and resist racial oppression in high school. The author analyzes interviews as well as literacy artifacts to explore how these girls enacted critical, digital, and subversive literacies to challenge intersecting oppressions of race and gender in a predominantly White, suburban school.

Learning From the Experiences and Development of Latina School Leaders

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Martinez ◽  
Marialena Rivera ◽  
Jocabed Marquez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Population ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
District Administrators ◽  
Career Trajectories ◽  
Leadership Pipeline

Purpose: With the rise of the Latinx student population in the United States and the urgency to meet the needs of this diverse community, there has been an increased concern and interest in preparing more Latinx educators and school leaders. This study contributes to this knowledge base by centering the voices and experiences of four Latina school leaders in the United States. All of the school leaders were current or former school principals and/or assistant principals at the time of the study, with three being from Texas and one from California. Research Approach: Drawing on the methodological tenets of testimonio, this study asked: What are Latina school leaders’ professional experiences like, both positive and negative, given the intersectionality of their social identities? Utilizing intersectionality as a theoretical framework provided the means to analyze and understand Latina school leaders’ multiple social identities and the role that such identities played in their professional roles and career trajectories as school leaders within the larger context of educational politics and systemic inequities. Findings: Testimonios of participants centered on four themes related to how they confronted gender roles and expectations of motherhood, the criticality of mentorship, how they confronted and addressed racism and sexism, and harnessed bilingualism to empower self and others. Implications: Findings help inform those seeking to meet the needs of our growing Latinx student population, including school district administrators, current and upcoming school leaders, and those working to prepare a more diverse school leadership pipeline.

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