Examining the Continuum of Black Student Leadership: From Community to College and Beyond

• In Event: 25.085 - Sheraton Roundtable One - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 25.085-7 - Advancing Diversity and Equity in the Context of Higher Education Organizations

Abstract

This comparative case study examines how 11 Black students apply transgenerational leadership knowledge to pursue social change while attending a predominantly White institution. Multiple-tiered frameworks of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological paradigm (1979, 1994, 2005), Peters (1985) and Stevenson (1994) racial socialization models, which occur within parent–child and child–elder relationships as transgenerational knowledge is passed from one generation to the next, were applied to frame how to participants enact leadership. Findings indicated participants’ used communal instruction and home pedagogy to inform what it means to lead while Black. Emergent themes were: 1) Collective Definition; and 2) Self-sacrifice. Participants indicated parents and elders racially socialized them to be leaders who used values, respect, and honor to preserve Black culture, people, and traditions.

Author

• Bryan Hotchkins, Texas Tech University