Understanding the Racialized Experiences of Female Leaders of Color in an Urban School District

• In Event: Understanding and Supporting the Well-Being of Underrepresented Educators: Perspectives Across Identity Locations

Abstract

Objectives:
High administrative turnover has been connected with high staff and faculty turnover (Carver-Thomas, 2017) all of which is intertwined with negatively impacting student outcomes (Goldring & Taie, 2018; Ingersoll & Smith, 2004). And, high minority, high poverty, low performing schools often experience the greatest rates of leader turnover which ultimately impacts student learning (Goldring & Taie, 2018; Ingersoll & Smith, 2004; Hanushek et al., 2004). Importantly, a 2016 study (Cherng & Halpin) also suggests that all students, regardless of race and ethnicity, react positively to faculty of color. This case study seeks to understand the sense-making of school leaders of color in an urban school district in California. By examining their racialized experiences, we seek to describe how racialized professional experiences mediate the practices, labor, and self efficacy of under represented leaders. Ultimately, the experiences of leaders of color informs how to diversify the educator workforce.

Theoretical Framework:
This study is guided by multiple frameworks. Omi & Winant (1994) posited that race needs to be examined with both social-structural and cultural representation understandings together. Such a lens requires that research make sense of both the broader social structures that surround individuals in the education field as well as how those individuals are signified within a long history of evolving racial identities. Further, Fine & Weis (2012) provide a framework for understanding the ways in which an individual’s experience are both imbued by and mediated through multiple layers. Critical Bifocality leverages the tradition of critical theory to examine the ways that intersecting forces and layers converge on the experience of an individual within those systems and structures.

Methods and Data Analysis procedure
This is a case study of 4 leaders of color in one urban school district. The study leveraged a professional development series already in process to find participants. Each participant was interviewed twice. Further, leaders were observed as they participated in parts of their role as well as through notes taken during the aforementioned professional development.

Results:
All participants noted emotional/psychological labor that is racialized by their environment as well as the other actors within the field of education itself. Additionally participants noted the direct impact on their sense of professional efficacy as they navigate multiple daily consequences of racialization related to their identity and role. Lastly, participants highlighted tools and strategies employed to combat the felt effects of racism and racial microaggression as well as to project positive traits that are grounded in their own understanding of their cultural and ethno-racial funds of knowledge and wealth. Participants did so while navigating multiple layers and levels in a day-to-day struggle to persist in their foundational motivation to pursue their line of work.

Scientific Significance:
Ultimately, this research contributes to the identification and illumination of strategies used by educational leaders of color to both foster resiliency and efficacy while highlighting the potentially precarious ways in which the racialization of school leaders may mediate their professional efficacy. Qualitative research on the lived racialized experiences of underrepresented leaders complement the emerging quantitative research on the positive effects of a diverse workforce.

Author

• Aukeem A. Ballard, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author