Learning to Resist: Educational Counternarratives of Black College-Reentry Mothers

• In Event: Race, Power, Identity, and Higher Education

Abstract

Black reentry women, many of whom are mothers, are the fastest-growing population in colleges and universities across the nation. Even with educational gains, Black mothers continue to face persisting stereotypes about who they are in our society. Contrary to what most Black feminist research asserts about schools not being spaces where Black women develop a positive sense of self, the reentry mothers in this study viewed their enrollment in college as a crucial step toward positive self-definition, and a way to resist negative images that exist about their mothering.

Author

• Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University