“Othermothering in Crisis: Women of Color Leading K-12 Schools with Care in COVID-19” (Stage 2, 4:47 PM)

• In Event: e-Lightning Ed-Talk Session 9 - Stage 2

Abstract

This study examines how four Women of Color (WoC) K–12 school leaders in the U.S. South
enacted othermothering as care-centered leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. Grounded in
the womanist ethic of care (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2002), this paper explores how WoC
administrators drew on cultural, spiritual, and intergenerational knowledge and othermothering
practices to sustain their school communities. Preliminary findings reveal that participants extended
care beyond professional expectations, embracing leadership as emotional, political, and communal
labor. They displayed care through institutional resistance and collective survival, disrupting
dominant, patriarchal leadership norms. This work contributes to scholarship on race, gender, and
leadership by demonstrating how WoC school leaders engage care as a transformative, culturally
rooted, and politically meaningful practice.

Authors

• Barbara Mensah, University of Alabama

• Shena Sanchez, University of Alabama