Understanding Influences of Development on Black Women’s Success in U.S. Colleges: A Synthesis of Literature

The purpose of this study was to illuminate how and to what extent Black women’s developmental processes have influenced their success within their respective U.S. college environments. Crenshaw’s three dimensions of intersectionality guided our analysis. We synthesized 38 peer-reviewed articles and interpreted five themes: (a) navigating the educational matrix, (b) sense of belonging, (c) perceptions of (lack of) institutional support, (d) living and learning at the margins while combating stereotypes, and (e) need for counterspaces and counternarratives. Implications of our findings include expanding definitions of student success, intersectionality and identity development, and equity-driven institutional practices.

Instruction from the margins: Giving voice to community college librarians

This study explores the experiences of community college librarians in the United States with instructional responsibility, as they negotiate professional guidelines that challenge their existing practices. Community college environments, students, and programs differ significantly from those typically explored in information literacy research. Thus, the study gives voice to a relatively marginalized set of librarians, many of whom struggle to implement instructional approaches perceived to be more suitable for university contexts.

(Dis)Embodied Disclosure in Higher Education: A Co-Constructed Narrative

In this paper we use co-constructed autoethnographic methods to explore the tensions that animate the meaning of “disclosure” in university and college environments. Drawing insight from our embodied experiences as graduate students and university/college course instructors, our collaborative counter-narratives examine the ordinary ways that disclosure is made meaningful and material as a relationship and a form of embodied labour. Our dialogue illustrates the layered nature of disclosure—for example, self-disclosing as a disabled student in order to access academic spaces but not self-disclosing to teach as an instructor. Katie uses phenomenological disability studies to analyze disclosure at the intersection of disability and pregnancy as body-mediated moments (Draper, 2002). Nancy uses Hochschild’s (1983) notion of “emotional labour” to explore how socio-spatial processes of disclosure can be an embodied form of “extra work” (e.g., managing perceptions of stigmatized identities).

(Dis)Embodied Disclosure in Higher Education: A Co-Constructed Narrative

In this paper we use co-constructed autoethnographic methods to explore the tensions that animate the meaning of “disclosure” in university and college environments. Drawing insight from our embodied experiences as graduate students and university/college course instructors, our collaborative counter-narratives examine the ordinary ways that disclosure is made meaningful and material as a relationship and a form of embodied labour. Our dialogue illustrates the layered nature of disclosure—for example, self-disclosing as a disabled student in order to access academic spaces but not self-disclosing to teach as an instructor. Katie uses phenomenological disability studies to analyze disclosure at the intersection of disability and pregnancy as body-mediated moments (Draper, 2002). Nancy uses Hochschild’s (1983) notion of “emotional labour” to explore how socio-spatial processes of disclosure can be an embodied form of “extra work” (e.g., managing perceptions of stigmatized identities).