Chocolate Cakes and Icing: Narratives of Black Female Educators
Abstract
This narrative exploration of Black female educators explores the role their experiences play in influencing their pedagogical practices and how they understand their roles as protective factors in the lives of their students. The theoretical frameworks for the study are Black feminist thought (Collins, 2000) and resiliency theory (Walsh, 1996; Polidore, 2004). The metaphorical backdrop of baking chocolate cakes and the Sankofian philosophy of looking back to inform the future (Shuuja & Shuuja, 2003) serves as a method to connect the reader to the study.
The study was conducted using the qualitative research method narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), which used the narratives of four Black female educators in Georgia. Findings revealed that the following attributes influenced the way in which these women viewed their roles, experiences and practices, the role of religion in their lives, the ability to defend one’s own knowledge, tenacity, and the innate tendency to be a mother to children other than their own.
Presentation Description
The aim of this research was to acknowledge and center the Black female historical ways of knowing (Collins, 1990; Gary & Pearsall, 1996; Franklin, 1997; Banks Wallace, 2000), to delve into that unspoken language, unwritten knowledge and untapped approaches that only a Black woman understands in order to move past the standard, colonial, and Eurocentric-based required school curriculum and provide curricular sustenance for Black female educators and their students in the present.
Location
Room C
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Sprull, Nakiesha M., "Chocolate Cakes and Icing: Narratives of Black Female Educators" (2018). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 13.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2018/2018/13
Chocolate Cakes and Icing: Narratives of Black Female Educators
Room C
This narrative exploration of Black female educators explores the role their experiences play in influencing their pedagogical practices and how they understand their roles as protective factors in the lives of their students. The theoretical frameworks for the study are Black feminist thought (Collins, 2000) and resiliency theory (Walsh, 1996; Polidore, 2004). The metaphorical backdrop of baking chocolate cakes and the Sankofian philosophy of looking back to inform the future (Shuuja & Shuuja, 2003) serves as a method to connect the reader to the study.
The study was conducted using the qualitative research method narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), which used the narratives of four Black female educators in Georgia. Findings revealed that the following attributes influenced the way in which these women viewed their roles, experiences and practices, the role of religion in their lives, the ability to defend one’s own knowledge, tenacity, and the innate tendency to be a mother to children other than their own.
