Listen to Black Women: Overcoming Superficiality with a Centuries-Old Womanist Approach to Justice-Centered Teacher Education

• In Event: Black Scholars Experiencing and Resisting Superficial Institutional Commitments to Social Justice

Abstract

Purpose:

Many institutions have redesigned academic programs as an effort to demonstrate their stated commitments to social justice. However, without actively addressing the reality of Black students and educators, such gestures remain symbolic, both distracting from and perpetuating antiblackness within higher education (Tichavakunda, 2021). When such superficialities happen within teacher education programs, pre-service teachers become primed to further spread antiblack ideology into P-12 settings. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how Black women can drive material change within racially symbolic settings by drawing on guidance of other revolutionary Black women. This presentation highlights the journey and impact of a Black teacher educator who employed a womanist pedagogical framework modeled after the philosophies of Dr. Anna Julia Cooper to guide white pre-service teachers in directly confronting the foundation, manifestation, and consequences of their antiblack ideologies.

Theoretical Perspectives:

This study is anchored in womanism, a framework that centers the experiences and perspectives of Black women, and uplifts the intrinsic value of their distinct ways of knowing (Collins, 2000; Walker, 1983). Womanism supports praxis-oriented intellectual curiosity, which leads to thorough understandings of complex issues that are leveraged to transform oppressive social structures (Davis, 1981). A womanist perspective recognizes superficiality in institutional gestures, and positions Black women as more likely catalysts for social progress (Cooper, 1892).

Given the pedagogical focus of this study, it is framed by Anna Julia Cooper’s Womanist Pedagogical Framework (WPF; citation omitted). This framework echoes the principles of womanism with its tenets rooted in Cooper’s revolutionary and foundational scholarship in activism, pedagogy, and feminism (Cooper, 1892). The WPF characterizes womanist pedagogy as a reflection and extension of Black women’s identity, social responsibility, located knowledge, activism, accountability, and sustainability.

Methods and Data:

This research follows a case study design, contextualized within a graduate-level teacher education program that emphasizes social justice. The course met weekly to prepare pre-service teachers for urban education settings. The instructor, a Black woman, used the WPF to structure and lead the course, which was primarily enrolled by white women. Students’ weekly responsibilities included participating in a race affinity group, engaging with two race-centered texts, contributing to whole-group discussions, and completing reflective journaling. Upon the course’s conclusion, a content analysis was conducted on these and other assignments.

Conclusions:

Pending IRB approval, preliminary examination of students’ progression through the course suggests a compelling story of personal transformation, including distinct moments of resistance, struggle, tension, breakthrough, and sustained commitment to disrupting antiblackness. By centering the traditions and scholarship of Black women, the instructor effectively guided students into critical levels of self and societal understanding—a new and unanticipated experience among the students, despite being enrolled in a justice-focused program.

Scholarly Significance:

Alongside research highlighting the superficiality of institutional commitments to justice, this study demonstrates how Black educators maintain their personal devotion within these settings and avoid being reduced to racial symbols, themselves. Additionally, this study contributes to the body of literature that affirms the efficacy of Black women’s pedagogical activism and positions them as the catalysts for social change.

Author

• Shanique Lee, Rutgers University