Kitchen Table Mentorship: Black Feminist Dialogues on Radical Care, Resistance, and Academic Thriving

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Mentoring for Teacher Preparation and Practitioner Development

Abstract

This conceptual paper explores radical care as a liberatory framework for Black women doctoral student-faculty mentorship at Historically White Institutions (HWIs). Grounded in Black feminist theories and the lived experiences of Black women at HWIs, we critique Eurocentric models of mentorship that prioritize productivity over well-being. Using Black feminist autoethnography and kitchen-table dialogue, we reflect on how radical care, rooted in healing, nurturance, and agency, can transform mentoring into a practice of collective liberation. We offer a conceptual model that reimagines mentorship as care work, resisting systems of exclusion. This paper contributes to a vision of educational research that centers Black women’s knowledge, honoring our full selves, and imagining an educational future grounded in justice, healing, and radical possibility.

Authors

• Dawn Stephens Jenkins, University of Texas - Arlington

• Ericka Roland, University of Texas - Arlington