Creating Identity-Affirming Spaces as an Act of Justice in Educational Spaces

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

Abstract

This paper explores how a virtual race-conscious and gender-conscious professional development program for Black doctoral and postdoctoral engineering and computing scholars interested in academic careers served as a counterspace within this predominantly White, male field. The program paired one Black engineering faculty member with one Black social science (e.g., sociology, mathematics education, psychology) faculty member who coached 2-3 participants. We performed a thematic analysis of qualitative data from 8 participants that explores how the coaching program created a successful counterspace. This analysis explores how Professoriate Bound was a space where students were affirmed in their identities and experiences within academia. In addition, we explore how the intentional elements of the coaching framework created a unique structure of counterspace construction.

Authors

• Ann Varnedoe, Vanderbilt University

• William H. Robinson, Vanderbilt University

• Ebony O. McGee, Johns Hopkins University