"A Little Louder Now": Exploring Voice for Black Women Graduate Students at Predominantly White Institutions Combating Silencing and Invisibilization

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session Two
  In Roundtable Session: Examining Perceptions and Sense of Belonging for English Learners and Students of Color in Education Contexts (Table 6)

Abstract

Black women in higher education are situated in a hegemonic, white, patriarchal context of academia. As a result, student development theories utilized in the field of Student Affairs and Higher Education originally situated its foci on the experiences of white, homogenous, undergraduate students. Despite staff and faculty attempts to support Black women students utilizing foundational theories of student development, these efforts still reinforce corrosive stereotypes of Black women and (re)subjugate them to a tumultuous existence in the academy as "others." Scholarship and theories alike that do center Black collegiate women places emphasizes the narratives about what Black women (often undergraduates), experience. The changing landscape and demographics of higher education has evolved ongoing practice to supporting Black collegiate women in higher education should as well. This study is a utilizes Black Feminist Theory and portraiture methodology which centers voice and participant context. In doing so, this study contextualizes Black women beyond the monolith to which they are conflated and instead contextualizes them beyond the academia. Through centering graduate students, this study homages the intersecting and multiplicity of identities of Black collegiate women despite age, life experiences, caregiving and other roles, etc. by focusing on the complex positioning of Black women graduate students and their dynamic positioning with society as Black women and the university sandwiched between faculty/staff and undergraduate students. In doing so, this study implores methods such as Sista Circle and the Marco Polo app(lication) to explore how Black women graduate students exist, resist, and persist in the academy through development and usage of their voice.

Author

• Ahjah M Johnson, Miami University (OH)
  Presenting Author