<p> African American males are killed by gun violence at a greater risk than any other ethnic group, leaving African Americans mothers to cope with grief at disproportionately high rates. A phenomenological method was used to explore the lived experiences of African American women whose sons were killed by gun violence in Philadelphia using Rando&rsquo;s (1993) six &ldquo;R&rdquo; processes of complicated grief theory as a framework. Six themes emerged from the research: faith and spirituality, giving back to the community, personal relationships with others after the death of a son, connections with son after death, worldview, and double grief. Many of these findings indicate that mothers experience and struggle through the &ldquo;R&rdquo; processes of grief; they also experience a unique conflict the researcher has termed double grief, the phenomenon of grieving for oneself and for the mother of the perpetrator. This new concept emerged from the research and is discussed along with recommendations and ideas for future research.</p><p>

<p> The strong black woman (SBW) phenomenon was explored in college-educated African American women in the Los Angeles region. Quantitative measures indicated that these women averaged high levels of stress, depression, and perceived racism. Qualitative data derived from short open-ended questions yielded eight themes describing both the positive aspects of being a SBW (being a role model for family and community, and feeling empowered), as well as its negative aspects (prejudice, internalized bias, stress, masking, self-neglect, and relational strain). Correlational and regression analyses explored the relationships among the quantitative and qualitative variables. Clinical and research implications and recommendations were discussed.</p>

<p> Literary scholars have been examining and recreating the experiences of &ldquo;bonded&rdquo; female characters within Toni Morrison&rsquo;s novels for decades. However, the distinct experiences of these enslaved women, that are also mothers have not been astutely examined by scholars and deserves more attention. My thesis fleshes out the characterization of several of Morrison&rsquo;s bonded-mothers and identifies them as a part of a developing controlling image and theory, called the bondmother. Situating these characters within this category allows readers to trace their journeys towards freedom and personal redemption. This character tracing will occur by examining the following Toni Morrison novels: <i>Beloved</i> (1987) and <i> Paradise</i> (1997). In order to fully examine the experiences of these characters it will be necessary for me to expand the definition of bondage and mother.</p>

<p> In the past four decades, women and African Americans have made great strides in the labor market, breaking the proverbial glass ceiling as well as climbing the corporate ladder. Despite scholarly studies revealing those strides across work domains, the influences of race and gender that continue to exist for African American women in the workplace&mdash;particularly when it comes to the law enforcement field&mdash;have not been studied extensively. </p><p> The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the influence of ethnicity and gender in African American women who were working as criminal investigators in federal law enforcement through the theoretical lens of identity theory and career decision-making. This study employed a phenomenological approach to capture the rich, thick descriptive summaries of participants&rsquo; experiences and convert those findings into emergent themes that accurately described the participants&rsquo; interpretation of those events. Moreover, the researcher used a modified version of Seidman&rsquo;s (2006) three-interview structure for this study.</p><p> There were six findings in this study. First, perceptions of identity, in terms of race and gender or the combination of the two, did not hinder the participants in succeeding in their role as a criminal investigator. Second, participants experienced a variety of issues and challenges as a result of a combination of race and gender in regards to lack of respect, lack of support, and lack of guidance relevant to completing their duties and responsibilities. Third, five factors influenced participants&rsquo; choice of a career as a criminal investigator. Fourth, participants had a difficult time separating their identity as an African American and as a woman. Fifth, many participants perceived that training was a tool that better equipped them for doing the job. Sixth, and lastly, participants made decisions based on following the rules, regulations, and orders that governed the agency.</p><p> This study contributes to the body of research on African American female criminal investigators (and women as a whole) in federal law enforcement. Furthermore, the findings in this study have given these participants a voice. </p>

<p> Black people's denial of bondage and colonial domination set the tone and frame for much of contemporary resistance to community and state violence. Like then, as it is today many individuals and groups are focused on dismantling the aspects of the system that oppress them. In Oakland Black women are working amongst themselves and in coalitions to dismantle the prison industrial complex, community violence, and other manifestations of institutionalized oppression. These women show a deep commitment to reversing the legitimatized abuse of state power and high instances of community and state violence in Black urban lives. </p><p> Violence, like any other disease, has the potential to seep into the cracks of every community and in the lives of every individual that it touches. Like a virus, violence travels through the various arteries of a family network or city streets and finds one more person to potentially infect with disengagement, a lack of self worth and the perpetuation of violation that plagues the community. In Oakland, the roots of violence are tied to historical realities, social inequity and structural barriers to opportunity that have left low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately experiencing and witnessing high rates of violence. </p><p> Because of this Black women in Oakland are familiar to instances of high murder rates, mass incarceration and racial profiling. In a qualitative research project I (1) explore the impact of state and community violence in the lives of Black women in Oakland; (2) examine the potential social and political conditions that contribute to the perpetuation of these experiences and (3) provide recommendations for community and systems change.</p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative research methods study with empirical phenomenological research design was to explore the lived experiences of the African American females compared to other populations entering engineering or other Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program in colleges. Although African American females have made some strides in educational achievements, there continues to significantly less progress in engineering and other STEM disciplines. Many occupations in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields require degrees in STEM to be considered for interviews and eventual employment. The African American female population in order to be more successful in engineering or other STEM programs it will be necessary to understand what barriers may exist that hinder positive results on an ongoing basis. The general problem of low numbers of female minority college students in STEM programs continues to create concerns for administrators and instructors. Proper evaluation and recommended improvements are needed to improve success rates for the African American female students. The goal of this research was to interview approximately 20 &ndash; 25 African America female college students in engineering and other STEM programs to identify what obstacles may exist that might hinder their success in these programs and make recommendations for improvements in the future.</p>

<p> This dissertation explores the role of critical service-learning from the perspective of urban community members. Specifically, it examines the counternarratives produced by Black women community gardeners who engage in academic service-learning with postsecondary faculty. The study focuses on this particular group because of the women's deep involvement with grassroots organizing that reflects their sense of self and other community members, as well as their personal and political relationships to Detroit, Michigan. Given the city's economic disparities rooted in racial segregation, structural violence and gender oppression, Detroit is a site of critical learning within a postindustrial/postcolonial context. This intersectionalist approach to service-learning is likened to bell hooks's concept of homeplace, a site of resistance created by Black women for the purposes of conducting anti-oppression work. Integrating community member interviews and the author's autoethnographic account to dialogically co-construct meaning, the study employs the womanist epistemological tenet of multivocality through connections to place, community, and activist praxis. Presenting Black female cultural expressions and life stories illustrated in the data, the study identifies holistic community-campus partnerships as those that emphasize environmental insight, cultural representation, reflexive relationships, and collective action. The dissertation has strong implications in service-learning research and practice, advancing an ethos of responsibility that provides a space for unheard voices to speak and for relationships among community members and academics to reflect a model based on solidarity as opposed to traditional paradigms centered on charity. </p>

<p> The increased diversity of students at community colleges makes support and retention of Black women instructional faculty critical. Black women instructional faculty&nbsp;may&nbsp;feel like imposters, receiving messages of inadequacy, despite their achievements.&nbsp;If so, such feelings may impede their ability to serve students and to thrive more generally in their roles.&nbsp;Until now, the question of whether or how Black women faculty working in community colleges experience the imposter phenomenon had not been asked. </p><p> Through 23 in-depth, one-on-one interviews, this qualitative study explored and assessed the presence of and success strategies utilized to counter the imposter phenomenon or other challenges experienced by tenured and tenure-track Black women instructional faculty members employed at California community colleges. Findings revealed contentment and job satisfaction. While participants were familiar with and had experienced the imposter phenomenon, there was a general absence of the phenomenon in their current roles due to positive on-campus relationships with colleagues and students. Microaggressions from colleagues and students related to appearance were reported, but these challenges were mitigated through established mentors and allies and a strong sense of cultural and personal identity. Established expertise and participation in professional development were also strategies that helped participants to navigate, persist, and thrive in their work environments. </p><p> Recommendations for policy include increased state funding for community college faculty members to participate in off-campus professional development training. Practice recommendations include interpersonal skills training for new department chairs and best-practice discussions among continuing department chairs throughout the year. Recommendations for future research include replicating the study in other states and among adjunct faculty in California.</p><p>

<p> Thousands of Black women in America are experiencing upward mobility, defined for the purpose of this study as moving into a higher socioeconomic status than one&rsquo;s parents, guardians, or whomever raised them. As research indicates, these women may experience the strain of upward mobility more acutely than men or those of other races, given their identities as both women and racial minorities. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore Black women&rsquo;s journeys of upward mobility, and to contribute to what we know about their experiences, specifically, any shifts in their perceptions of self resulting from upward mobility. I explored the ways that Black women conceptualize changes in their socioeconomic status alongside potential changes in their identity <i>following</i> a change in socioeconomic status. The sample included ten self-identified African-American women who self-identify as upwardly-mobile. The primary methods of data collection were in-depth interviews, focus groups, limited email exchanges during member-checks, and field notes. Evidence from this study suggests that a part of upwardly-mobile Black women&rsquo;s socialization in Black families and communities was recognizing that their identities had been <i>overdetermined</i>, or determined for them, by others in those communities. The women were expected to be hyper-performers, meeting and exceeding high expectations. Being a hyper-performer would position them for success in new spaces where a different value system prevailed. A critical part of maintaining their sense of self as they pivoted between these differing value systems was, in fact, recognizing that their identity had been <i>overdetermined</i> again, this time by people who did not share the communal, Black values under which they had been socialized. <i> Redetermining</i> their identity for themselves would mean reframing their expectations of themselves and others, and finding ways to attend to their mental, spiritual, and emotional needs in lieu of having ample culturally-sensitive models from which to draw inspiration.</p><p>

<p> This study is an analysis of comments left on the Instagram posts of Black female celebrities, particularly those within Hip-Hop. This analysis put the comments in conversation with Patricia Hill-Collins&rsquo;s theory of the new racism as well as previous scholarship concerning the jezebel stereotype and imagery. Previous research concerning the jezebel stereotype, including Hill-Collins&rsquo;s work Black Sexual Politics, limit their analysis to traditional mass media outlets, including television, news, film, and music. This study was intended to interrogate social media&rsquo;s function as a form of mass media and to analyze how the jezebel stereotype can be seen in interactions therein. A data set of 800 comments, 200 each from four subjects, was created and coded using a grounded theory approach. It was found that all four subjects of the study were associated with the jezebel stereotype, but the commenters&rsquo; responses to the individual women were markedly different along axes of motherhood, class, and status within Hip-Hop. Two significant code families were created through grouping codes together according to place and method of occurrence: Bodily Motherhood and Othering &amp; Affiliation. Within Bodily Motherhood, it was found that pregnancy and motherhood are not only antitheses to the jezebel stereotype, but the subject must be forced back into the jezebel status through regulation of the physical body as well as pejorative acknowledgement of motherhood. The second code family of Othering and Affiliating speaks to the commenters&rsquo; acknowledgement of subjectivity for some of the women, but not all, as well as how the commenters attempted to Affiliate themselves with two of the subjects even though they were relegated to jezebel status. Through these results, this study determined that social media and the interactions within are indicative of the new racism described by Hill-Collins even though they do not function within a traditional mass media platform; the results also show that the jezebel stereotype and those who participate in its evolution work constantly and consistently at all points of a woman&rsquo;s life to relegate her to such status. Through engaging with how the jezebel stereotype, an example of intersectional oppression, functions in current day society, we hope to open possibilities of scholarly thought and actionable change. By acknowledging the methods through which women are successfully fighting or owning the public&rsquo;s perception of them as jezebel, we acknowledge that Black women are neither passive participants in their lives nor passive victims of a racism that attacks their body and attempts to steal their agency.</p><p>