49.059 - Upsetting the Myths of Blackness: (Re)claiming When and Where We Enter Womanhood

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The metanarrative concerning African American women suggests that their very existence contributes to broken families, underachieving students, and a government-dependent progeny Upsetting the Myths of Blackness: (Re)claiming When and Where We Enter Womanhood disrupts and challenges literature that dramatizes these women’s purported weaknesses and miscalculates their strengths. Adopting a Critical Race Theory approach, we upset the metanarrative while (re)claiming and reconstructing truth for the African American woman. As such, this symposium adopts an anti-deficit perspective to address African American women’s: 1). ways of negotiating hegemonic masculinity and racial tensions; 2). racial-identity development; 3). socio-economic oppression, and 4) use of the aforesaid factors to achieve educational excellence. Essentially, we anticipate leading an enlightened dialogue regarding their social stratification and resilience.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Education

Chair

• Johnitha Watkins Johnson, University of Houston

Papers

• Diasporic Black Identities and the Engagement of Black Female Students in U.S. and Canadian Higher Education - Alana C. Butler, Cornell University

• Lifting as We Climb: Messages Influencing African American Women's Postgraduate Degree Attainment - ReShanta Hazelbaker, University of Kentucky

• Doing Just Fine: Black Women in College and the Model Minority Myth - Jennifer Michelle Johnson, Temple University

Discussant

• Kyra Tynisha Shahid, Mount St. Mary's University