Black and Brown Women Fostering Authentic Activism in Counseling Programs Amid Social Unrest

Author(s):  
Monique Willis ◽  
Jotika Jagasia ◽  
Ada Robinson-Perez

The COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, and civil unrest of 2020 disproportionately impacted Black and Brown communities jolting “progressive” academic systems and exposing inherent inequities. Such inequality warrants authentic activism to promote social awareness and facilitate a culture of collaboration, respect, and inclusivity. This chapter centers on three early-career Black and Brown women leaders associated with counseling programs who voice their positionality statements, experiences, and views to align with relevant theoretical concepts. Black feminism, postcolonial feminism, and critical race theory pedagogies serve as the authors' foundation, highlighting race, culture, gender, and intersectionality to unmask cultural oppression in higher education. Committed to their lives' work as academics, researchers, and mental health practitioners, the authors assume substantial professional responsibilities and engage in emotional labor adopting a sense of family and mothering to support students. Finally, the authors provide suggestions to undo injustices during turbulent times.

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 639-644
Author(s):  
Michelle Newcomb

During the COVID19 pandemic, emotional labor has become an indispensable resource in social work, providing comfort, strength, and focus for many. Within the social work academy, emotional labor has been required to support students, especially as education has moved quickly into online and remote teaching modes. For the majority female social work educators, the pandemic has also led to a rise in caring responsibilities, especially for children. This personal essay explores the experience of a female, early career social work academic in negotiating the use of emotional labor simultaneously in paid and unpaid roles during the pandemic. This exploration is contextualised within the neoliberal university and its expectation of how emotional labor should be used to meet student and business needs. The essay questions the individualized practice and responsibility of emotional labor and questions alternative ways to meet the emotional needs of individuals, families, and universities during the COVID19 pandemic.


2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos R. Mccray

This article attempts to provide some transparency with regard to how the intersection of race and class negatively affects African Americans in their effort to fight for social justice with regard to classism. Based on the explicit historical attempt to definitively make race and class synonymous, such a manufactured intersection is powerfully ingrained within the American psyche, and it has successfully created a quagmire with middle-class Blacks in their effort to fight against class injustice—specifically, those who are discriminated against in our society because of their lack of educational pedigree, economic standing, and job occupation. Thus, this article attempts to infuse sociological theoretical concepts with strands of critical race theory to provide insight into the potential barriers of middle-class Blacks’ amalgamation with African Americans of lower-wealth communities.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Reena Biju ◽  
Atul Arun Pathak

Purpose Faced with dynamic and challenging environments, organizations today expect all their leaders, including their women leaders, to be highly intrapreneurial. However, intrapreneurship is traditionally perceived to be a masculine activity. In order to appear intrapreneurial, women leaders consciously behave like men and suppress their feminine characteristics. This results in “emotional labor” that causes undue stress, emotional exhaustion, and burnout. Organizations can help intrapreneurial women leaders succeed by a combination of gender-related sensitization, focused training, setting up sharing and communication platforms, encouraging self-support groups and providing formal and informal mentorship to their women employees. Design/methodology/approach We carried out qualitative research which involved 31 in depth semi-structured in-person interviews (including 11 repeat interviews) with 20 women leaders from seven large organizations from the Indian IT industry. The interviewees had 15 years of average work experience, were in the 35-50 years age group, and held senior management functional or project management responsibilities. The interviews were typically 60 minutes each. The researcher took detailed notes, and subsequently, manually carried out multiple levels and multiple rounds of coding (initially open-coding followed by focused coding) to identify and abstract the themes and categories. Findings Our study identified that women leaders who are expected to behave as intrapreneurs, face “emotional labor” which results in stress, emotional exhaustion and burnout. To help women leaders succeed, a well-defined set of organizational interventions including gender sensitization, training, sharing & communication platforms, self-support groups, and formal and informal mentoring are useful. Research limitations/implications To increase the generalizability of our study beyond the Indian cultural context and beyond the IT industry, future researchers may carry out both qualitative and larger sample quantitative studies in other countries, and draw upon data from multiple industries. The issues arising out of emotional labor of women intrapreneurial leaders are likely to be present in a wide range of industries and cultural contexts. However, there may be nuanced contextual differences that need further exploration. Future research can build on our findings and explore moderators, contingencies, and boundary conditions that affect the suitability of organizational interventions that we have suggested. Practical implications Emotional well-being of women intrapreneurial leaders would help them take innovative organizational initiatives, and make the organization strategically agile. To help women leaders be intrapreneurial, organizations need many interventions and need to provide the required supporting infrastructure. Social implications Ways to resolve gender-related issues in workplaces are suggested. Originality/value Our study is valuable as it simultaneously considers two strategic organizational objectives of intrapreneurship and gender diversity of leadership teams. The paper provides useful prescriptions for organizations to help women intrapreneurial leaders succeed. This will help organizations that are facing dynamic external environments become innovative and strategically agile.


2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-47
Author(s):  
Mary Grigsby

This article presents the results of a grounded theory study of mentoring experiences of domestic Ph.D. students in programs recognized by the National Research Council (2010) as being among the top Ph.D. programs at the public comprehensive doctoral-granting land grant research university where the research was conducted. A typology of Ph.D. student motivations for pursuing higher education that is connected in patterned ways to those features of mentoring students emphasized as important is described. The four ideal types that emerged from the data are: academic, careerist, creative, and credentialist. The research provides a view of what is important for differently motivated Ph.D. students in mentoring, from their perspectives, and concludes that one important way to support students in developing as engaged mentees is to provide early career professional development that fosters self-reflection designed to empower them to negotiate mentoring relationships that support their progressive development.


Author(s):  
S. K. Kwedi Nolna ◽  
P. E. Essama Mekongo ◽  
R. G. F. Leke

Attracting and retaining women in health research is crucial as it will maximize creativity and innovation as well as increase gender competency and expertise in the field. To help address the gender gap in the research for health field in Cameroon, some women research scientists formed the Higher Institute for Growth in HEalth Research for Women (HIGHER Women) consortium to support and encourage the growth of women research scientists through a training institute with a Mentor–Protégé Program (MPP). The consortium set up a MPP aiming at providing professional guidance to facilitate protégés' growth and emergence in health research. The consortium has conducted two workshops aiming at increasing the early-career women's skills needed to launch their career and focusing on proposal writing with the aim of producing a fundable project. Since 2015, the consortium has brought together approximately 100 women comprising of 80 protégés. The most significant outcome is in the protégés' feedback from their annual evaluations. The protégés are now more likely to submit abstracts and attend international conferences. Some grants have been obtained as a result of the working relationship with mentors. The HIGHER women consortium works to develop a pipeline of women leaders in health research by fostering growth and leadership culture through their MPP.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Covadonga Blanco

The lives of immigrants are forever changed by the many losses that they leave behind during their migration journey. Through the use of poetry, this qualitative research draws upon narrative and art-based approaches to explore the effects of cultural bereavement and migratory grief on the identity and well-being of Latinas Immigrants. Three Latina women shared their grief stories through poetry, disrupting preconceived notions of representation in Canada. Under the lens of Latino critical race theory, issues of race, culture, and gender that intersect to dictate Latinas experiences with migratory grief were analyzed. Findings yielded five theoretical concepts: The cumulation of grief, losses and stress guides process of acculturation, cultural values dictate Latinas settlement, changes in identity, struggle with oppressive systems and resistance and resilience. The result of this research will guide the reader to understand immigrants' experiences with the invisible yet powerful pain of grief associated with migration. Keywords Migratory grief, cultural bereavement, Latinas, Latin America, poetry, Immigration, losses. Migration, identity ABSTRACTO La vida de los inmigrantes cambia para siempre debido a las pérdidas que enfrentan al dejar sus lugares de origen y por las dificultades que enfrentan durante su camino migratorio. Mediante el uso de la poesía, esta investigación cualitativa usa una combinación de arte con narrativa para explorar los efectos del duelo cultural y el luto migratorio en la identidad y el bienestar de los inmigrantes Latinos. Tres mujeres Latinas compartieron sus historias de duelo a través de poemas, rechazando ideas preconcebidas acerca de la representación en Canadá. Bajo la lente de la teoría crítica de la raza Latina, se analizaron la interseccionalidad de raza, cultura y género y su influencia en dictaminar las experiencias de las mujeres Latinas con el duelo migratorio y el luto cultural. Los resultados arrojaron cinco conceptos teóricos: la acumulación de pérdidas y el estrés guían el proceso de aculturación, los valores culturales dictan el asentamiento de las Latinas, existen cambios en la identidad, hay lucha con sistemas opresión y la resistencia y la resiliencia. El resultado de esta investigación guiará al lector a comprender las experiencias de los inmigrantes con el invisible pero poderoso duelo asociado con la migración. Palabras clave Dolor migratorio, luto cultural, Latinas, América Latina, poesía, inmigración, pérdidas. Migración, duelo cultural, identidad.


Author(s):  
Shane Pill

This chapter offers a clear and convincing argument for reconceptualising current approaches and dominant paradigms at play in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). Throughout the study reported in this chapter, the author draws on his experience as an early career academic that came to PETE with 18 years of experience in teaching and developing Physical Education (PE) curricula in schools. This research is, therefore, an example of reflection in action requiring a reflexive standpoint acknowledging that he is included in the subject matter that the author was trying to understand. As he interrogated the autobiographical data and research literature, theoretical concepts emerged to inform his theorising and to expand his thinking about the practice of sport teaching in PE. The author confronts the models, metaphors, and images that had been part of his apprenticeship of observation and pre-service teacher training.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Covadonga Blanco

The lives of immigrants are forever changed by the many losses that they leave behind during their migration journey. Through the use of poetry, this qualitative research draws upon narrative and art-based approaches to explore the effects of cultural bereavement and migratory grief on the identity and well-being of Latinas Immigrants. Three Latina women shared their grief stories through poetry, disrupting preconceived notions of representation in Canada. Under the lens of Latino critical race theory, issues of race, culture, and gender that intersect to dictate Latinas experiences with migratory grief were analyzed. Findings yielded five theoretical concepts: The cumulation of grief, losses and stress guides process of acculturation, cultural values dictate Latinas settlement, changes in identity, struggle with oppressive systems and resistance and resilience. The result of this research will guide the reader to understand immigrants' experiences with the invisible yet powerful pain of grief associated with migration. Keywords Migratory grief, cultural bereavement, Latinas, Latin America, poetry, Immigration, losses. Migration, identity ABSTRACTO La vida de los inmigrantes cambia para siempre debido a las pérdidas que enfrentan al dejar sus lugares de origen y por las dificultades que enfrentan durante su camino migratorio. Mediante el uso de la poesía, esta investigación cualitativa usa una combinación de arte con narrativa para explorar los efectos del duelo cultural y el luto migratorio en la identidad y el bienestar de los inmigrantes Latinos. Tres mujeres Latinas compartieron sus historias de duelo a través de poemas, rechazando ideas preconcebidas acerca de la representación en Canadá. Bajo la lente de la teoría crítica de la raza Latina, se analizaron la interseccionalidad de raza, cultura y género y su influencia en dictaminar las experiencias de las mujeres Latinas con el duelo migratorio y el luto cultural. Los resultados arrojaron cinco conceptos teóricos: la acumulación de pérdidas y el estrés guían el proceso de aculturación, los valores culturales dictan el asentamiento de las Latinas, existen cambios en la identidad, hay lucha con sistemas opresión y la resistencia y la resiliencia. El resultado de esta investigación guiará al lector a comprender las experiencias de los inmigrantes con el invisible pero poderoso duelo asociado con la migración. Palabras clave Dolor migratorio, luto cultural, Latinas, América Latina, poesía, inmigración, pérdidas. Migración, duelo cultural, identidad.


2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862110551
Author(s):  
Denetra Walker ◽  
Allison Daniel Anders

The researchers designed a critical race case study to represent media coverage by and experiences of Asian American1 journalists during the first months of COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. After analyzing data inductively, the researchers drew upon critical race theory scholarship to apply the theoretical concepts of race consciousness, whiteness as property, and the hegemony of racial hierarchy to analyze Asian American journalists’ experience during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers used the Asian American Journalists Association’s repository of news coverage, webinars, and panels written and presented by Asian American journalists; in-depth interviews with Asian American journalists; and their social media posts about Asian American experience and the pandemic as data sources. Triangulated across the data sources, the following themes are represented: (a) Asian American Journalists: Living and Reporting Multiple, Intersecting Crises; (b) Anti-Asian American Discrimination and Racism; and (c) The Paradox of Asian American hypervisibility and invisibility; the subtheme is “Calling for Diversity, Equity, and Transformation in the Newsroom.”


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jada Phelps Moultrie ◽  
Paula A. Magee ◽  
Samantha M. Paredes Scribner

During a student teaching experience, teacher education candidates affiliated with an urban School of Education school–university partnership witnessed a disturbing interaction between an early career White male teacher and a first-grade Black male student at an assigned elementary school. The subsequent interactions among the teacher, principal, district administrators, and university partners illumine the racial implications at varying levels from the individual to the structural level. The ways in which race is centered, yet is evaded by school actors, raises important considerations for leadership. Authors suggest combining critical race theory with organizational narratives to explore the dilemmas at various structural levels, but in particular for the principal and district-level administrators.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document