Representations of black female sporting bodies, when taken as what Susan Bordo (1997) refers to as “texts of culture,” operate as sites for an interrogation of the production and maintenance of ideologies of race, gender, sexuality and deviance in the context of Western society. The purpose of this thesis was to interrogate these ideologies within the context of sport by focusing specifically on media representations of three black track and field athletes—Florence Griffith Joyner, Marion Jones, and Caster Semenya. Using an ethnographic approach to content analysis this thesis shows the ways in which the bodies of black female athletes function as commodities, as well as they ways in which they become representations of deviance in sport. / text

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This qualitative phenomenological research study explored the role balance experience of five Black female counselor education doctoral students who were balancing education, full-time employment, and significant relationships. Purposeful and snowball sampling were used to elicit participants who met these criteria: enrolled as a full-time doctoral student, employed full-time (30 or more hours weekly), and involved in a self-defined significant relationship. The participants in this study individually provided insight into their respective perceived role balance experiences of balancing education, work, and significant relationships. The primary research question for the study was: “What is the role balance experience of Black female counselor education doctoral students maintaining full-time employment and significant relationships?” A review of the literature examining the roles of Black women in U.S. society, Black women and significant relationships, and Black women in higher education provided the foundation for the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in person and via Face time to collect data. Interviews were recorded and transcribed by a third party provider. The transcription and initial analysis was sent to each respective participant for member checking and a follow-up interview was scheduled to address any participant concerns or questions. The data were open coded and then clustered into themes. A cross-case analysis was completed and themes were merged into superordinate themes. Superordinate themes were used to answer the primary research question. Three superordinate themes emerged: past influences present, struggle to have it all, and how to balance. Implications for counselor education programs and students are presented along with recommendations for future research. Personal reflections of the researcher were provided.

Living and working abroad is one of the best ways to grow and learn about who you are and who you can become. The purpose of the project is to develop and articulate a radical reflexive praxis within the paradigm of the lived experiences of a Black female expatriate Christian mathematics educator. Grounded in the epistemological tradition of Black feminist thought, this study defines the intersectionality of my identity as a Black woman mathematics educator and explores ways it informs my interaction with students, parents and colleagues and inspires the quality of my instruction delivered in and out of the classroom setting. Through the qualitative practice of autoethnography, the use of personal narratives and field notes tell the story because storytelling adds context and allows the reader to both comprehend and participate in the experience. These narratives of re-reflection are used to explain how each of these identities were parlayed from a place of knowing and being known. Teaching is largely a white female Christian dominated profession and the tendency of the profession to propagate the traditional white male leader prototype confirms the need for more research for and by Black women educators. The rate of Black women yielding a productive gap between living in a culture but not being fully of that culture further confirms the need for more research. Ours is an experience that offers a refreshing sense of agency and opportunity, the characteristics of sound pedagogy and the expected outcomes of robust, dynamic classroom experiences.

I argue that to understand the gender dynamics of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and the storm's aftermath, one must interrogate the cultural conflation of the black female body and the city's legacy to explore what it means and how it situates real black women in social, cultural, and physical landscapes. Using a hybrid theoretical framework informed by Black feminist theory, ecocriticism, critical race feminism, and post-positivist realism, I explore the connections between New Orleans' cultural and historical discourses that gender the city as feminine, more specifically as a black woman or Jezebel, with narratives of real black females to illustrate the impact that dominant discourses have on people's lives. I ground this work in Black feminism, specifically Hortense Spillers's and Patricia Hill Collins's works that center the black female body to garner a fuller understanding of social systems, Kimberlé Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality, and Evelyn Hammonds's call for a reclamation of the body to interrogate the ideologies that inscribe black women. In addition, I argue that black women should reclaim New Orleans' metaphorical black body and interrogate this history to move forward in rebuilding the city. As an ecocritic and feminist, I understand the tension involved with reading a city as feminine and arguing for this reclamation, as this echoes colonial and imperialist discourses of conquering land and bodies, but I negotiate these tensions by specifically examining the discourse itself to expose the sexist and racist ideologies at work. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this qualitative study was to give voice to the experiences of African American female pastors of African American churches and their perceptions of gender and equity as it pertains to their role in the pastorate. This phenomenological study identified the lived experiences of each participant through her personal narrative, which reflects her path from birth to present. Participants’ experiences as a senior pastor provided a personal historical path of the journey of female pastors for a span of four decades. This dissertation shares the challenges, barriers, and support to female pastors. This study examined personal characteristics, acts of leadership, and acts of negotiating the system within the African American church. The participants’ ages ranged from 40-70+. The findings of this study indicated that there has been a slow change in the acceptance of female pastors. Female pastors have been a part of our culture since biblical times, but resistance is still present.

The following project serves to question the effects of capitalism upon modes of eroticism, misogyny and sexism by focusing upon the black masculine female (butch/stud) within Street Lit. Chapter one defines Street Lit, its importance, and Trick(Ster)ing as a concept. Chapter 2 is a close analysis of two primary texts utilizing Trick(Ster)ing as a method of survival and resistance in a capitalist society. The final chapter discusses the relationship between black female masculinity and misogyny. / text

A viewpoint of the intersectional and complex nature of identity is seen to be integral to the understanding of the identities of black female students. ‘Identity constructions of black South African female students’ is an exploratory study with a view to understand the identities of black South African women in institutions of higher learning and education. The study investigated the experiences of 16 female South African black students; with a focus on their race category, gender as well as class subject positions. The study is placed within the context of the Historically White University (HWU) and was specifically conducted in a HWU situated in Johannesburg. The students’ articulations of their university experiences were explored qualitatively, within three focus group discussions through an open-ended interview guideline. Results show that their education is accounted for as a significant influence in their subjectivity given the social mobility it grants as the women’s experience of self shifts as does their position in society. Furthermore it was found that with the cultural capital attained through education, notions of class, racial and gender identities are affected and a multiplicity of identities exists as a result.

Nesta tese de doutorado, apresentamos e examinamos memórias de escritoras negras brasileiras e moçambicanas. Além disso, fazemos uma aproximação entre temas enfrentados por depoimentos e por textos literários das escritoras. As entrevistadas, a pesquisadora e os autores eleitos para a pesquisa emergem ali como diferentes vozes, mas de mesma dignidade comunicativa, todas participando do diálogo estabelecido na tese. Foram, portanto, duas nossas fontes de dados. De um lado, a pesquisa organizou-se pela análise conteudista de obras literárias, quatro livros de contos As andorinhas (Paulina Chiziane), Insubmissas lágrimas de mulheres (Conceição Evaristo), Malungos e milongas (Esmeralda Ribeiro) e Ninguém matou Suhura (Lilia Momplé) , aí privilegiando a atenção ao quadro social dos textos tal como se deixou apanhar no interior de cada obra (o contexto político, cultural e histórico das tramas) e aos seguintes temas: a pobreza, a condição dos negros, a subordinação da mulher, as respostas de mulheres a eventos ou circunstâncias de racismo e sexismo (respostas ao rebaixamento econômico-político longamente formado contra mulheres negras, o que necessariamente incluiu respostas à opressão e reificação da mulher negra, respostas à subordinação e aos atributos de coisa que lhe foram historicamente impingidos). Por outro lado, a pesquisa recorreu a entrevistas semidirigidas e ao exame de depoimentos: os mesmos temas, primeiro tirados da literatura, foram retomados em conversas diretas com cada uma das quatro escritoras / In this Doctorate thesis, we present and examine memories of Brazilian and Mozambican black female writers. Furthermore, we make an association between themes faced by the authors testimonies and literary pieces. The interviewees, the researcher and the authors chosen for the research emerge as distinct voices, but of equal communicative dignity, all of whom taking part in the dialogue established in the thesis. Therefore, there were two data sources. On one hand, the research was organized by content analysis of literary works, four short-story books As andorinhas (Paulina Chiziane), Insubmissas lágrimas de mulheres (Conceição Evaristo), Malungos e milongas (Esmeralda Ribeiro) and Ninguém matou Suhura (Lilia Momplé) , favoring attention to the texts social picture as apprehended from within each work (the political, cultural, and historical context of the plots) and to the following themes: poverty, the condition of the black people, womens subordination, womens responses to events or circumstances of racism and sexism (responses to the economic and political demotion long formed against black women, which necessarily included responses to the oppression and reification of black women, responses to the subordination and to the thing attributes that were historically imposed on them). On the other hand, the research resorted to semi-guided interviews and to the examination of testimonies: the same themes, first taken from the literature, were recovered in direct conversation with each of the four writers

As indagações que orientam este trabalho tiveram início quando, observando o universo da Educação Infantil na Rede Municipal de São Paulo, não encontrei documentos suficientes que atestassem a presença das mulheres negras neste nível de ensino. A partir de uma investigação de campo em todas as trinta escolas municipais de Educação Infantil, em uma das treze diretorias de Educação da cidade, localizada em região considerada periférica, tive contato com estas mulheres, que se declararam negras, classificadas racialmente através de questionários enviados às mesmas. Realizei entrevistas com oito delas, colhendo material para o registro de suas histórias de vida e trajetórias profissionais. Apresento as experiências sensíveis das mulheres negras entrevistadas, suas relações com o trabalho pedagógico, bem como suas percepções sobre o racismo, o sexismo e o conhecimento. A partir de suas falas, a compreensão compartilhada ao final desta pesquisa, afirma a importância do magistério para as mulheres negras na atualidade, este sendo mais um lugar possível de atuação para as mesmas, naturalmente vinculadas a trabalhos vistos como inferiores na escala de prestigio social, a saber, empregadas domésticas ou lavadeiras. Esta pesquisa assinala a importância de, apesar de o racismo colaborar para o confinamento de mulheres negras em posições consideradas como subalternas em nossa sociedade, tornar-se professora de crianças pequenas, guarda outros significados, possíveis de serem entendidos somente quando mulheres negras falam sobre suas próprias vidas. Este trabalho ousa reivindicar o poder ainda presente nesta profissão, para a população negra de baixa renda, sendo este um modo possível de dar sentido à vida destas mulheres que, a despeito da falta de oportunidades, seguem sobrevivendo e negociando como podem sua existência. / The questions that oriente this work first started when, observing the universe of Childhood Education in the Municipality of São Paulo, I did not find sufficient documents that attested the presence of black women at that level of education. From a field research in all thirty municipal schools of Childhood Education, in one of the thirteen directories of Education of the city, located in an area considered in the periphery, there was a contact with these women who declared themselves black, racially classified through questionnaires that had been sent to them. I realised interviews with eight of them, collecting material for the record of their life stories and professional trajectories. I introduce the sensible experiences of the black women interviewed and their relations to pedagogical work, as well as their perceptions about racism, sexism, and knowlegde. From their words, the shared understanding at the end of this research states the real importance of professorship, this being an additional possible area of performance for them, \'naturally\' linked to jobs seen as inferior in the scale of social prestige, namely, domestic or cleaning employment. This research notes the importance of, despite the knowledge of how much racism contributed to the confinment of black women in positions considered as subordinate in our society, becoming a teacher for young children keeps other possible meanings to be understood only when black women talk about their own lives. This work dares revindicating the power still present in this profession, for a black population of low income, which is a possible way to give sense to the life of these women who, regardless of the lack of opportunities, follow surviving and negociating life how the can.