It’s Hot in the Shade: Racial Comparative Content Analyses of Microaggressions Facing Women Faculty

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 9:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Equity: Addressing Racism and Social Justice in Education (Table 2)

Abstract

Women faculty endure the Herculean task of advancing in the male-dominated higher educational environments. Further, women of color simultaneously cope with racism and sexism. We invoke the colloquial phrase “throwing shade” to refer to the enduring disrespect that women in general, especially women of color face in academia. In particular, we argue that women of color experience “shade” (microaggressions) more frequently. Guided by a theoretical approach of critical intersectional tokenism, we used a comparative content analysis to address the central research question: What are women faculty’s experiences regarding microaggressions comparatively by race? With a sample of n= 234, we identified two emergent themes for white women faculty and five emergent themes, respectively, for Hispanic/Latina and Black women faculty.

Authors

• Leah P. Hollis, Pennsylvania State University

• Gala Sofia Campos Oaxaca, Pennsylvania State University