Black Women Educators Research Articles

We See You: A Co-Constructed Autoethnography of Black Women Educators Subverting Carcerality in Community with Black Students

This study examines the school experiences of Black students and the perceived impact that we (the researchers) as Black women educators have had on these experiences. We conducted a series of focus groups with thirty-four former and current students, all of whom identify as Black. Our questions centered around various aspects of the students’ high school experiences, specifically as they related to their reflections on their relationships with Black teachers compared to the school community at large. We found that overall, students reported having positive experiences with us as Black women and often felt humanized in our classes. These findings suggest that Black women educators like us, who use their pedagogy (influenced by their positionality) to subvert carceral and antiblack school policy and culture, employ what we have conceptualized as the Core Tenets of Spiritual Nourishment: (1) a sense of belonging, (2) visibility, (3) room to make mistakes, (4) representation, (5) support navigating the pressures of systemic racism and Black fatigue, (6) safe spaces to unpack traumas and (7) love perceived.

When We See Us: A Kitchen Table Talk Exploring the Interior Lives of Black Women Educators Within Carceral Spaces

While there are many studies which examine the symbiotic relationship between schools and prisons, there are very few studies which center the voices and unique perspectives of Black women educators who teach, collaborate with, and learn alongside incarcerated youth and adults. Therefore, this article focuses on our storied lives as three Black women educators in carceral spaces. Utilizing kitchen table talk methodology and the analytical lens of Black Gaze Theory, this article seeks to explore the question: What internal and external factors have made it possible to pursue our work within carceral environments? As such, within this article we share and analyze our personal experiences, our ever-closeness to carcerality, and what continues to draw us to this work—interrogating ourselves alongside each other. That said, this article is also an invitation for educators, administrators, families, and community members to imagine and create liberatory educational experiences alongside, with, and for youth, adults, and community members who have experienced incarceration.

Femmenoir pedagogies: rescripting the reproduction of Black women’s marginalization in education

ABSTRACT Many Black educators have left the profession, a trend often linked to Black fatigue . This study presents findings from qualitative data seeking to understand how Black women STEM educators who stay, respond to the inherently antiblack nature of schooling . Participants of this study illuminate unique and creative approaches to effectively navigate racism and sexism while teaching within the constraints of the educational apparatus. Based on the results of this study, we introduce the term Femmenoir Pedagogies which hones in on three elements that serve to counter the antiblack conditions of schooling. It emphasizes the need to center Black women as experts using their socio-political location to harness their strengths and radically imagine ways to disrupt the oppressive reproduction of schooling. Drawing on the work of Black feminist scholars, we analyze data from personal narratives, in-depth interviews, and focus groups with six self-identified Black women educators.

“I Wanna be Bad”: Black Joy and Deviant Caretaking

The disciplining technologies of schooling overshadow Black women educators’ movement beyond the classroom and shape the logics of spaces meant to encourage their joy and pleasure. A group of Black teachers’ experience negotiating delight while at a strip club inspired the writing of this article. Black queer political theory and Black feminism re-territorialize this moment as both a signifier of Black educators’ erotic embodiment of Black Joy as well as their discursively produced subjectivities as careworkers within the disciplinary arm of schooling. Black Joy is a slippery concept subject to the perniciousness of antiBlack heteropatriarchal capitalism. As a result, conversations about Black Joy in education must include Black educators’ erotic embodiment to confront the traps of capitalism and assimilation that conflate Black Joy with the maintenance of the status quo. Ultimately, Black women educators can practice what I call deviant caretaking to embody new sites and practices of rebellion.

We are transformers: on being black, women, and pedagogues

ABSTRACT Through subversive teaching and learning methods, Black women educators have always been trailblazers and pioneers, creating space for Black students to thrive. This article provides a critical analysis of the liberatory and pedagogical prowess of Black women educators by showing them as Transformers with the ability to create, transmit, and initiate substantial, profound, and fundamental change. Black women’s liberatory practices are recognized as essential for education due to the innovative and culturally relevant approaches to pedagogies that are often undervalued and overlooked. Ultimately, the author asserts that Black women educators are indeed Transformers who transfer liberatory energy to foster dynamic communities of learners.

“It’s How You’re Delivering These Messages”: An Examination of Black Women Early Childhood Educators’ Liberatory Practices Through Poetic Inquiry

ABSTRACT Over the course of 18 months, I found myself on a journey that began with two research questions based on my wonderings and observations about the lives of the women I witnessed engaging with young Black children in ways that the academic literature had not expounded upon. In this article, I use poetic inquiry to elucidate the liberatory practices of five Black women early childhood educators in a southwestern state. Rooted in Black feminist thought and ars spirituality, I analyzed my co-researchers’ narrative portraits to craft found poems that explored the connection between their embodiment of reciprocal authenticity and liberatory practices that further developed young Black children’s critical consciousness. As a means of (re)claiming my responsibility as a scholar and teacher educator, I provide the reader with poetic offerings that speak to the intergenerational freedom dreams of these Black women educators.

“Our Teaching Transcends a Subject Matter”: Learning From Black Women Educators’ Beliefs about Literacy Instruction During Extraordinary Times

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic, the United States’ racial reckoning, and nationwide educational “anti-woke” legislation—along with long-standing accountability policies—acutely constrained teachers’ experiences and have solidified public portrayals of educators as mistrustful and docile. Yet research suggests that, in the face of school and societal constraints, Black women educators develop and enact beliefs about teaching that challenge prevailing opinion to provide equitable and just learning experiences for their students. The 2020–2021 school year, an extraordinary moment in the United States, provided an important context to understand Black women educators’ developing beliefs about teaching secondary literacy, a politicized and contested subject. Purpose: This study builds off of historical and contemporary research on Black women educators to understand how two teachers developed their beliefs about teaching literacy in a middle school with a diverse student population during the Covid-19 pandemic and in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. Drawing on Black feminist theory and asset-based pedagogies, it also sought to understand what individual and collective meaning they made out of their teaching experience. Research Design: The qualitative study centered on two Black women educators who taught seventh-grade English language arts and history during the 2020–2021 school year. The two teachers worked at a suburban middle school serving a racially diverse student population. The study involved three interviews with each participant and seven group discussions with both participants throughout the year. I employed grounded theory methodology to analyze the data and to develop themes about how the teachers developed their beliefs about teaching literacy. Findings: During an extraordinary moment in the United States—characterized by the Covid-19 pandemic, hybrid instruction, and a countrywide racial reckoning—the participants felt empowered to call out the deficit ideologies that their colleagues voiced. Calling out deficit ideologies informed three beliefs about teaching literacy: upholding students’ humanity, elevating classroom discussion, and teaching a complex narrative of people of Color. These findings affirm the mutuality between action and beliefs and emphasize a more socially and politically oriented conceptualization of literacy pedagogy. Recommendations: This study informs how educational leaders can support Black women educators with professional learning that positions culturally affirming school expectations and critical self-reflection as a precedent to the empowering literacy instruction teachers could enact in classrooms. Future research can examine school-level and social factors shaping teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices.

“The Classroom is a Reflection of the Real World”: Black Women Urban Teachers’ Activist Pedagogy and Leadership

This article utilizes narrative inquiry and a Black feminist lens to explore the political and social justice orientation of Black women educators and their commitment to students in urban schools. Three Black women teacher leaders explain their pedagogy and leadership during a period of heightened sociopolitical tension, including racial violence and legislative censorship. Analysis of semistructured interviews revealed three themes: (1) facilitating conversations about race-related current events, (2) de-centering whiteness and teaching the truth, and (3) promoting student safety and wellbeing amidst isolation. The article concludes with recommendations to support Black women educator activists and a more diverse teacher workforce.

Teach Like a Black Woman: A Trauma-Informed Black Feminist Praxis

When considering the traumatic, racialized educational landscape of the U.S., we turn our attention to the revolutionary consciousness that Black feminism provides in our conceptualization of trauma, suffering, and healing. Ultimately, we maintain that Black women educators (BWEs) enacting Black feminist pedagogies in their classrooms are uniquely positioned to advance our collective discourses, practices, and research on trauma and healing. Utilizing qualitative inquiry, we examine interviews from BWEs through the lenses of Black feminism and our holistic trauma framework. Findings reveal BWEs’ tools—love lessons and proactive, interactive, and reactive healing pedagogies. We conclude with recommendations for urban teacher education programs.

Black women educators’ stories of intersectional invisibility: experiences of hindered careers and workplace psychological harm in school environments

ABSTRACT Current research that specifically examines the racialised experiences of Black women school educators in England at different stages of their careers is scarce, creating a vacuum of understanding that can challenge barriers to their recruitment and retention. This article focusses on how race and gender identities mutually and simultaneously hinder and harm Black women as education professionals and sustain their inferiority in the eyes of whiteness through intersectional invisibility. Findings are drawn from personal stories of four Black women educators, shared through narrative inquiry methodology, to illuminate ways in which androcentric and ethnocentric prototypical social group members maintain dominant power structures and reinforce the subordination of Black women educators as non-prototypical to manifest as experiences of invisibility and harm. Individual stories illustrate experiences of the invisible/hyper-visible dichotomy impeding career progression, of undertaking invisible work, of assumptions about their legitimacy in school spaces and of wellbeing concerns. From the standpoint of intersectionality’s ability to create critical citizenry, this article raises awareness of the need for action by senior leaders in English schools and beyond, to challenge and eliminate the intersectional invisibility experienced by their Black women staff. Conclusions signpost to actions that can shape localised policy and practices to improve Black women educators’ experiences. As Black women educators contribute to the success of underrepresented learner groups, there are significant institutional benefits to reducing Black women educator attrition, increasing representation at all levels and improving their wellbeing.

From critical to extraordinary: a narrative analysis of a black woman educators’ extraordinary literacies

Critical literacies theory is a useful construct for examining language, power, and social context. However, it may take a rationalist approach that obscures the socio-emotional and spiritual impact of oppressions. This study seeks to address the call for critical literacies studies to take an affective turn to investigate the relationships between power, social context and “interior lives.” Therefore, I conducted a qualitative study framed by Black feminist thought to examine how two Black women educators experienced privilege and resisted oppression through their uses of “extraordinary literacies.” I used narrative methods and Black feminist theorizing to investigate and analyze Black women teachers’ stories of literacy practices in personal and professional settings. This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of examining literacy practices using more inclusive methodologies, and the promise that it holds for revealing more expansive iterations of social justice work, which is necessary to truly work towards equity and liberation.

The Returns to Education and the Determinants of Race and Gender Earnings Gaps Using Self-Reported versus Employer-Reported Earnings Data

There are wide and persistent gender and race differences in wage and salary incomes. Much of the literature attempting to explain these differences relies on self-reported earnings. Many self-reported wages and salary incomes differ, however, from those reported by employers. These errors can bias the measurement of the returns to education and the decomposition of racial and gender earnings gaps. This article examines the implications of using selfreported data for measuring gender and race disparities in earnings. We find that relative to employer-reported data, self-reports understate the wage and salary incomes of black women with low educational levels and overstate the returns to higher education for black women. These previously unexplored and unrecognised findings of bias in the estimation of the returns to black women’s education and the large understatement of earnings among less-well educated black women have implications for interpreting the sources of race and gender earnings inequality.

Towards a Bad Bitches’ Pedagogy

In this paper, I present a personal narrative approach, grounded in Connelly and Clandinin’s ontological and epistemological stance that “humans are story-telling organisms”1 to discuss my construction of a uniquely working class Black feminist educator identity. This narrative inquiry is an adapted counter-methodological researcher approach that was born out of an interlinkage of my explorations into the histories of Black women educators, hip hop feminisms, and Higginbotham’s respectability politics,2 as it is understood in popular cultural terrain, and as the concept contrasts with and complements notions of (dis)respectability. I situate the paper within a critical hip hop feminist framework and access raunch aesthetics’ use of the sartorial and performative bad-assedness to understand how I have come to craft a transgressive teacher identity. By embracing a vernacular transgressive archetype of the bad bitch pedagogue, I analyze and complicate my own intersectional identity as a working-class Black woman who navigated an adversarial bourgeoisie traditionalist educational system as a teacher, unwed custodial parent, cultural worker and advocate for Black youth.

The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century ed. by P. Gabrielle Foreman et al.

Reviewed by: The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century ed. by P. Gabrielle Foreman et al. Nicole Myers Turner (bio) The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century. Edited by P. Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey, and Sarah Lynn Patterson. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. 392. Cloth, $95.00; paper, $29.95.) The brilliant Black digital humanities project the Colored Conventions Project (www.coloredconventions.org) now has a print companion that both extends its work and demonstrates how the digitized Colored Conventions minutes can be used in new ways. Building on the now out-of-print archival and interpretive work of Howard Holman Bell, Philip S. Foner, and George E. Walker, as well as the many studies that have drawn on the antebellum and postbellum convention minutes, this volume advances arguments about nineteenth-century African American politics [End Page 393] and the Colored Conventions themselves. Specifically, pushing against what coeditor and author P. Gabrielle Foreman describes as an overemphasis on abolitionism as the core political project of Black people of the antebellum era, it nudges readers to consider the uniquely Black political projects that twinned the goals of abolition of slavery and full freedom for free Black people. Beyond these broad arguments, each essay is an argument about the nature, purpose, and operations of the Colored Conventions and invites readers and researchers to reevaluate the relationship between the national and local conventions (Carla L. Peterson), the significance of the conventions' record-keeping practices (Sarah Lynn Patterson), and the scope of Black convention culture—of which church conventions were a part. This book advances our understanding of conventions as a Black strategy of demonstrating political capacity and data gathering for political claims-making. The Colored Conventions Movement's seventeen essays are divided into four parts that highlight methods of reading the minutes, the operations and inner workings of the conventions, Black convention minutes as elements of Black print culture, and new analytical frameworks. Historians will recognize in part 1, "Critical Conventions, Methods, and Interventions," with essays by Foreman, Eric Gardner, Pysche Williams-Forson, and Peterson, suggestions for good historical methodology. Recommendations to triangulate sources will feel familiar—to look for Black women less so. As the essayists reveal, the latter may be accomplished by acknowledging the wives and daughters of the men or, as Williams-Forson does, by using a single acknowledgment of women's hospitality to explore Black women's contributions to commensality. These essays may be useful for introductory-level history courses, as they spell out a variety of approaches to historical research. Part 2, "Antebellum Debates: Citizenship Practices, Print Culture, and Women's Activism," features essays by Derrick R. Spires, Erica L. Ball, Joan L. Bryant, and Jewon Woo on the practices of the conventions. Together they highlight how the conventions excluded women (Woo) and addressed issues of participation (Ball) and racial identification (Bryant). In sum, they show the conventions as spaces of community making, a point that Spires reveals in his illuminating reading of how Henry Highland Garnet's 1843 "Address to the Enslaved" through its reprintings exemplified communal authoring practices. Additionally, Spires argues that Garnet's brief reference to his wife Julia Williams Garnet's agreement with his sentiments was a retort to a critic and indicated Williams's involvement in the larger community of Black activists. [End Page 394] Essays in part 3, "Out of Abolition's Shadow: Print, Education, and the Underground Railroad," by Benjamin Fagan, Patterson, Kabria Baumgartner, and Cheryl Janifer LaRoche, read the minutes serially, following key themes or issues through the conventions. All demonstrate how, because of the shifts in attendance and frequency of the meetings at the national level, attitudes changed toward creating a national Black press, Black women's education, gathering data about Black people, and participating in the Underground Railroad. All likewise underscore both the centrality of Black print culture in identity formation and the claim that the conventions were a uniquely Black political action. Essays in part 4, "Locating Conventions: Black Activism's Wide Reach and Unexpected Places," by Jim Casey, Selena R. Sanderfer, Andre E. Johnson, Daina Ramey Berry and Jermaine Thibodeaux, and Jean Pfaelzer, invite readers to...

Centering Black women’s ways of knowing: A review of critical literacies research in early childhood

In the most recent edition of the Handbook of Reading Research, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and colleagues (2020) identify the need to recontextualize critical literacy pedagogy and research in ways that center Black and Indigenous communities. Although critical literacy has a rich tradition in emancipatory work (e.g. Freire, 1996), Thomas et al. argue for the need to begin elsewhere, with the knowledge and traditions of Black and Indigenous communities, to produce literacy research and pedagogy that is more responsive to current social issues and iterations of racism. In this article, I combine their insights with those of early literacy researchers, such as Candace R. Kuby and Tara Gutshall Rucker, (e.g. Kuby, 2013; Kuby and Rucker, 2020) to suggest that the shifting of theoretical framings may be a useful way of broadening the context of critical literacies research and scholarship. Kuby and Rucker’s (2020) examination explores offerings from postructural and posthumanist theories for expanding conceptions of literacy in efforts to challenge our ideas of literacies, inequalities, and justice in early literacy research. Similarly, I analyze the affordances of Pro-Black and marginalized theories in critical literacies research, such as Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 2002), for understanding and expanding how we attend to positionality in early literacy educational research. Grounded in Black Feminist theories (Collins, 2002) and methodologies (Evans-Winters, 2019) as well my own positionality as a Black woman, this article takes up one specific concern from the call for this special issue, that is to address the lack of Pro-Black research in early literacy education. In so doing, I aim to broaden the ways that a historically praxis-oriented body of research in early childhood and elementary education, critical literacies research, is theorized and enacted by integrating more thoroughly Black women’s ways of knowing. I explore how to leverage our individual and combined perspectives, which are grounded in our rich history of resistance and thriving in the face of adversity, to produce knowledge and literacy practices useful for justice-oriented education. Through an analysis of academic literature related to critical literacies research and Black women educators in early childhood and elementary education, I address the question: How are Black women’s ways of knowing integrated in early childhood and elementary critical literacies research with participants who are Black women educators? I offer a sense of the extent to which Black women educators’ ways of knowing are associated with the term critical literacy and also identify fruitful strategies that critical literacies researchers can use to integrate Black women’s ways of knowing into the knowledge base and practices of critical literacies in early literacy research. Some strategies include integrating Black women educators' emotions and spiritual knowledge into the research and co-researching with Black women who are also participants.

Celeste Parrish and Educational Reform in the Progressive-Era South by Rebecca S. Montgomery

Reviewed by: Celeste Parrish and Educational Reform in the Progressive-Era South by Rebecca S. Montgomery Sarah Case Celeste Parrish and Educational Reform in the Progressive-Era South. By Rebecca S. Montgomery. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2018. Pp. xii, 237. Paper, $30.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-7693-1; cloth, $47.50, ISBN 978-0-8071-6978-0.) In this well-researched book, Rebecca S. Montgomery employs the life of educator and reformer Celeste Parrish as a lens through which to analyze changes in gender relations, education, and politics in Virginia and Georgia between the Civil War and World War I. Montgomery makes a compelling case for Parrish's significance and her contribution to the education of southern women, as well as to expanding opportunities for women educators. Born in 1852 in southern Virginia into a family of tobacco growers and small-scale slaveholders, Parrish was orphaned by 1863 and began teaching a few years later. As Montgomery shows, the demographic and economic changes of Reconstruction pushed many white women of Parrish's background into paid employment, especially as teachers, and yet they found their own education inadequate to prepare them for this work. A new opportunity came in 1869 with the Republican-backed Virginia state constitution that included a provision for a universal public education system, a reform that Montgomery notes linked the expansion of education for Black women and men to that of white women. For Parrish and other single white women, it offered a chance to attend a public normal school and new possibilities for employment. Despite the opening of the normal school and her securement of a position at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Parrish continued to face discrimination in education and professionally. Shut out of university-level education in her home state and with the need to remain employed in order to support an extended family, Parrish used summer breaks and semester leave to attend the University of Michigan and then Cornell University (from which she graduated in 1896). Despite the difficulties, Parrish found the academic rigor of these institutions thrilling and was especially drawn to the field of psychology. She then attended the University of Chicago for graduate work, studying with John Dewey and meeting the Progressive women associated with Hull House. Her years in Chicago solidified her commitment to the Social Gospel, the new social science, and Progressive reform. In 1901, increasingly resentful about the lower pay given to female faculty and other discriminatory practices, Parrish left Randolph-Macon Woman's College to take a position teaching psychology and pedagogy at the coeducational Georgia State Normal School in Athens. Although a popular mentor and an effective supervisor of an affiliated model school, Parrish continually clashed with male leadership, often over Parrish's support for Black education. The conflict entwined support for Black education and support for white women's professional opportunities. Montgomery astutely notes that although the hostile [End Page 579] racial climate of the early 1900s made even moderate support for interracial cooperation controversial, at heart the dispute was over Parrish's authority as a woman and her unwillingness to defer to male colleagues or otherwise conform to gender norms. Because of ongoing hostility from the leadership of the school for her assertion of authority, Parrish created an alternative network in women's clubs in Georgia, which proved essential in her later career. After she was dismissed from her teaching position in 1911, Governor Hoke Smith appointed her to a position overseeing rural schools. She stayed in that position until her death in 1918. Although attentive to the context of racial politics in Georgia, the book could more fully develop race as a theme; in particular, it might have engaged in a more nuanced analysis of Parrish's racial beliefs and her racialized gendered identity. On the whole clearly written and thoughtfully argued, the book makes a compelling case for the importance of Parrish and contributes to the history of southern education and especially white women's centrality to the expansion of post–Civil War education. Sarah Case University of California, Santa Barbara Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

Abstract 1019: Address breast cancer equity through virtual community oncology navigation and engagement (vCONET)

Abstract The objective of this study is to develop and test a culturally sensitive, inclusive, and accessible virtual navigation model for Black women to promote and improve breast cancer screening behaviors. Breast cancer is among the leading causes of cancer morbidity and mortality globally, and there is a wide range of racial and ethnic disparities across the cancer continuum. Black women continue to have disproportionately high mortality rates compared to Whites, and are more impacted by triple-negative breast cancer and inflammatory breast cancer earlier in their lives and at more advanced stages. Patient navigation, particularly when culturally tailored to the intended population, is highly effective in reducing the complexity of access to care for cancer prevention and treatment. The growing momentum and usage of telehealth and virtual care has significant potential to reach Black women, to promote higher mammography screening and early detection of breast cancer. Virtual patient navigation can provide a safe, engaging, and accessible space to accelerate the application of practical approaches to address health disparities and increase preventive behaviors in underrepresented community. However, limited information exists on specific factors which impact the design, implementation, and receptivity of virtual navigation in Black communities. This study aims to: 2) Develop and test a culturally-adapted prototype of a virtual patient navigation intervention tool for increasing access to breast cancer screening education and promotion for Black women. 1) Use qualitative focus group methodology to explore the beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and receptivity of community members of program usability and breast cancer awareness, prevention and screening behaviors among Black women. The study will examine social determinants of health that impact potential challenges to access utilization of mammography screening services. Qualitative focus group discussions will be conducted to guide the details of the virtual patient navigation, such as communication channels, specific messaging approaches, and sociocultural factors to integrate, as well as addressing current challenges and needs faced by the community. The results of this study can provide valuable insight to specific needs regarding outreach and access to screening mammography services to underrepresented communities of color to ultimately reduce breast cancer rates. Data collection is ongoing and preliminary results will be presented. Citation Format: Manisha Salinas. Address breast cancer equity through virtual community oncology navigation and engagement (vCONET) [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 1019.

Voices in the Desert

The experiences of Black women educators are important, and yet their personal and professional experiences are rarely included as part of the faculty narrative at most North American higher education institutions. The continued normalization of White Supremacy and androcentricity, within North American higher education, maintain systems of oppression that perpetuate the systematic marginalization of Black women within the faculty ranks. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of Black women educators in New Mexico's higher education institutions. With a grounding in Black Womanist and Critical Race Theories, this qualitative research study employed snowball sampling as a means to engage ten Black women faculty members, via semi-structured interviews, in critical inquiry about their professional experiences with higher education. Study participants testified about experiences with microaggressions, discrimination, and racial battle fatigue as well as feeling intellectual, campus, and community isolation.

A charge to keep I have: Black women teachers’ spirituality and the implications for educational leadership

ABSTRACT Black educators represent a small percentage of the educator workforce. In this manuscript, we examine the institutional and leadership conditions which contribute to the liminal presence of Black women educators specifically. We nuance the discussion about Black women educators to help educational leaders gain a deeper understanding of their: commitments to Black students, experiences with organizational oppression, and navigational techniques. We outline the ways that four Black women educators center religio-spiritual praxis in their classrooms. We use a phenomenological case study design to explore the narratives and religo-spiritual perspectives of four Black women educators. The authors leverage womanist theology to examine Black women educators’ work, commitments and ways of knowing. This manuscript utilizes interviews, artifact and document collection to paint a holistic picture. There are three major themes: strength, peace and womanist activism. These findings suggest that Black women educators are uniquely positioned to navigate, and help their Black students navigate, oppressive schooling conditions. This manuscript nuances the discussion about Black women educators in three key ways: (1) repositions their expertise in supporting Black students, (2) can increase educational leaders’ understanding of their commitments and realities, and (3) expands the teacher turnover discussion.

The Workings and Effects of Precarious Employment on Black Women Educators in Development Studies: An Autoethnographic Account of an International Fieldtrip

This observation is an autoethnographic contribution to understand the epistemological complexities of being employed on a precarious contract and challenging racialized abuse in a higher education institution. I ask the following question: What does it mean for precariously employed Black staff to face and challenge racialized acts and have their expertise questioned by students? This observation draws on my experience of teaching and accompanying students on their compulsory overseas field study. A key finding is the implication that precarious employment practices perpetuate inequality in the discipline of development studies by limiting the ability of Black educators to confront or challenge abuse.