Intersectional Leadership: Black Women's Emboldening of Black Girls in STEM and Beyond

• In Event: The Necessary Work: Research by and for Black Women and Girls

Abstract

The research presented here offers the educational administration perspective on Black girls' education and Black women's work in schools by way of an empirical investigation and proffering a foundational articulation of intersectional leadership. This cross case analysis is rooted in the leadership practices of school principals and school teach leaders in four middle schools in one of the wealthiest Black counties per capita in the United States. It offers an in-depth investigation of what Black educators do on behalf of Black girls to ensure that they receive equitable access to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and training. As a Black woman with higher education training in engineering and a career in K-12 education, the researcher brought an aptly-positioned perspective to this two-year research endeavor. This positionality informed the methodological considerations during the development and execution of this research as well as the implementation of the research practice partnership (Coburn & Penuel, 2016) of which this project was a component.

Set in the context of a National Science Foundation STEM education grant, this research operationalizes the Ontario Leadership Framework (OLF) (Leithwood, 2012) using an intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989;1991) lens to explore the ways that Black girls’ positionality in the STEM pipeline influences school leaders' decision making and practices. As Crenshaw (1991) penned, intersectionality illumines how Black women’s lived experiences “are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism [that are not] represented within the discourses of either feminism or antiracism” (pp. 1243-4). This tendency of exclusion has been perpetuated in educational and professional fields that have been historically male-dominated such as those in STEM disciplines. Therefore, as a Black woman with personal experiences in both educational training and professional development in STEM fields, the researcher drew on her positionality in her approach to gathering data and making meaning of the work that the participating Black women teacher leaders, principals, and STEM professionals did to provide access for Black middle school girls. All of the organizational stakeholders had an affinity with the students for whom this work was established to support, and their aligned knowledge influenced their decisions to dismantle the ostracization they knew Black girls and women experience in the STEM pipeline.

The significance of this research includes the proffering of a definition of intersectional leadership: the operationalisation of visionary strategies that privilege the experiences of followers (e.g., students) who live the realities of more than one historically oppressive identifier (e.g., race and gender) (Author, 2020).

Author

• Angel Miles Nash, Chapman University