Black Womanist perspectives on curriculum

Document Type

Presentation

Presentation Date

4-4-2014

Abstract or Description

Presentation given at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting.

Black women make significant contributions in terms of service and advocacy in both formal and informal educational contexts (Hill, 2010). As educational innovators, and moral activists, Black women educators occupy leadership roles that contradict the social relegation associated with their race and gender; as such, Black women educators are “living oppositional framework[s]” (Baszile, 2004, p. 164) whose social justice work holds significance for curriculum study. The social justice work of Black women educators’ within contexts of racial and gender oppression remains under-theorized in curriculum studies. Theories provide specific ways of looking at and making sense of the world by linking ideas about the social world to the experiences of individuals interacting in it (Crotty 1998; Dillard 2006; Blaikie 2007). Sabrina Ross uses a womanist perspective inspired by the writings of Black women ethical and religious scholars to theorize the ways in which the social justice work of Black women educators can contribute to greater understandings of curriculum research and praxis. Womanist ethical and religious scholars use Black women’s writings and sacred texts as sources of inspiration for racial uplift and community healing (Townes 2002; Cannon 2003). Given the theoretical and pragmatic connections between critical pedagogy, liberation theology, and Womanist perspectives (hooks 1993; Pinar, Reynolds et al. 1995; Kanpol 1996) and between critical pedagogy and the work of Black educators (e.g., Lynn 2006; Hill 2010), womanist ethical and theological reflections, which emphasize the interconnected struggles for individual and community liberation (Williams 1993; Townes 2002), are useful in understanding the experiences of Black women who work for social justice within formal and informal educational contexts and extending those understandings to curriculum theorizing. By focusing on the work of Black women educators within contexts of racial and gender oppression, Sabrina intends to enter the complicated conversation (Pinar, 2004) of understanding curriculum as racial and gendered text (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995) and also contributes to the browning of curriculum studies (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2006).

Sponsorship/Conference/Institution

American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting

Location

Philadelphia, PA

Source

http://tinyurl.com/pqcqs8v

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