Thriving Together: How Students of Color Create Intentional Communities in Doctoral Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Lifting While We Climb: Graduate Student Experiences With Mentors and Counter-Spaces (Table 12)

Abstract

Research on the experiences of students of color in graduate education exposes the intersections of racism, sexism, and classism that students of color experience in their graduate programs and as faculty members (Gardner, 2008; Gildersleeve, Croom &Vasquez, 2011). While the experiences of racism, sexism, and classism are important to acknowledge, I posit that they are not the only experiences that need to be examined. Current research on doctoral education typically focuses on how students of color experience and survive the interlocking forms of oppression they face in the academy (Gildersleeve, Croom & Vasquez, 2011). In this study, I use Critical Feminist Theory and Methodologies to understand how students of color thrive together in their doctoral programs.

Author

• Jenelle Nila, Claremont Graduate University