The purpose of this study is to examine the work-life balance experiences of Black females school leaders. Due to the inherent intersectionality of race and gender that is experienced by Black females, a study of their unique experiences with work-life balance is valuable to the field of educational leadership. The responsibilities associated with school leadership positions are extensive and those school leaders who also have spouses and children must figure out a way to fulfill responsibilities associated with each role. Work-life balance is important to understand for school leaders whose career responsibilities may interact with those associated with their personal lives. The theoretical framework, Black Feminist Thought, guided the data collection and analysis processes, and provided the basis for the resulting narrative findings. This study gave voice to an otherwise silenced, marginalized group, Black female school leaders. All data was synthesized into narratives and from these narratives came six themes: (1) Familial Sacrifice; (2) Servant Leadership; (3) Informal and Formal Work-life Balance Policies; (4) Notion of Self-Care; (5) Upbringing and Black Females’ Prideful Identity; and (6) Black Females having to prove themselves. While this study does not show evidence of school leaders having achieves work-life balance, the findings will inform the practices of perspective Black female school leaders and add the voices of Black female school leaders to the literature on Black female school leader’s experiences with work-life balance.

The subject of my thesis project is black nonfiction, namely the essay, memoir, and autobiography, written by black authors about and during the Post-Civil Rights Era. The central goals of this work are to briefly investigate the role of genre analysis within the various subsets of nonfiction and also to exemplify the ways that black writers have taken key genre models and evolved them. Secondly, I aim to understand the historical, political, and cultural contributions of the Post-Civil Rights Era, which I mark as hitting its stride in 1968. It is not my desire to create a definitive historical framework for the Post-Civil Rights Era, but instead to understand it as a period of transition, revolt, and transformation which asked many important questions that have remained unanswered. I apply multiple theoretical frameworks to my research — like queer theory, Afro-pessimism, fugitivity, and more — to offer insights into the nonfiction works of writers such as James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Larry Neale, and Toni Cade Bambara. It is my hope to continue the work of such scholars as Hortense Spillers, Angela Ards, and Margo V. Perkins, by illustrating not only how these authors offered literary and aesthetic innovations, but also, through the archiving of their life experiences in print, create theories and practices for survival, forged in the past, which impact our current moment, and inspire us as scholars and activists to do the same.

In this dissertation, African/Caribbean-Canadian women’s experiences of coping with divorce were explored using a qualitative methodology. This study was approached from a Black Feminist paradigm using the lived experiences of Black women as a source of knowledge. Divorce and coping literature provided a theoretical framework for understanding the issues related to divorce in the Black community and effective coping efforts among Black women, particularly as it pertains to divorce. Six separated/divorced women from the same family, representing two generations, were interviewed individually and as a group using a semi-structured interview guide. The participants discussed their reflections on marriage and marital disruption, their post-separation experiences and challenges, and the coping resources they accessed during the divorce process. The participants also discussed how their own marriages and divorces were influenced by the marriages and marital disruptions of their family members. The results from the interviews were reported in a case study format using the voices of the participants to tell their own stories. A grounded theory analysis found that Black women faced the common challenges of starting over, single parenting, financial loss, lifestyle adjustment, and emotional adjustment during the divorce process. To cope with these challenges, the majority, if not all, of the women cited a support network, a sense of responsibility, a positive perspective, spirituality, and independence as effective coping resources. It was the hope of the participants and the researcher that this study would help other women experiencing divorce by illustrating how effective coping efforts can lead to greater happiness after divorce.

African American women, in particular those who are economically marginalized, are disproportionately subject to surveillance by social service and criminal justice agencies (James et al., 2003) and are vulnerable to race- and gender-biased policy implementation (Chibnall et al., 2003; Zerai, 2002). They also experience population-specific personal (Ehrmin, 2001, 2002), social (Riehman, Iguchi, Zeller, & Morral, 2003; MacMaster, 2005), and economic barriers (Tighe & Saxe, 2006) to accessing and entering substance abuse treatment services. These factors contribute to lower rates of treatment entry follow-through (Siqueland et al., 2002) and higher drop-out rates (Scott-Lennox, Rose, Bohlig, & Lennox, 2000) than women from other racial and ethnic groups. This qualitative study explored African American women’s perceptions of mandated referral to substance abuse treatment and the impact of those perceptions on their treatment entry. The sample included 17 women age 18 years and over who were currently enrolled at three gender-specific treatment programs (one intensive outpatient and two residential) in a major southeastern urban area. This naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln and Guba, 1987) was informed by Black feminist epistemology (Collins, 2000) in accordance with recommendations for culturally sensitive research with women of color (Landrine, Klonoff, & Brown-Collins, 1995). Participants completed one-time, in-depth (one to two hour) interviews in which they were invited to explore their experiences with mandated substance abuse treatment referrals from state agencies (child protective services and the criminal justice system). Results indicate that participants generally perceived the treatment mandate as helpful. However, they also indicated that their willingness and ability to follow-through with treatment entry were influenced by multidimensional (Marlowe, Merikle, Kirby, Festinger, & McLellan, 2001) and interacting factors. Participants identified influence factors that included intra- and interpersonal concerns, the quality of interactions with state agencies, and treatment-specific issues. Results are presented along with suggestions for counselors and future research.

In this dissertation, African/Caribbean-Canadian women’s experiences of coping with divorce were explored using a qualitative methodology. This study was approached from a Black Feminist paradigm using the lived experiences of Black women as a source of knowledge. Divorce and coping literature provided a theoretical framework for understanding the issues related to divorce in the Black community and effective coping efforts among Black women, particularly as it pertains to divorce. Six separated/divorced women from the same family, representing two generations, were interviewed individually and as a group using a semi-structured interview guide. The participants discussed their reflections on marriage and marital disruption, their post-separation experiences and challenges, and the coping resources they accessed during the divorce process. The participants also discussed how their own marriages and divorces were influenced by the marriages and marital disruptions of their family members. The results from the interviews were reported in a case study format using the voices of the participants to tell their own stories. A grounded theory analysis found that Black women faced the common challenges of starting over, single parenting, financial loss, lifestyle adjustment, and emotional adjustment during the divorce process. To cope with these challenges, the majority, if not all, of the women cited a support network, a sense of responsibility, a positive perspective, spirituality, and independence as effective coping resources. It was the hope of the participants and the researcher that this study would help other women experiencing divorce by illustrating how effective coping efforts can lead to greater happiness after divorce.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2007. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-86).

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Using a youth-led participatory action inquiry and photovoice methodology, this study investigated the self-perceptions of Black girls in a suburban area of Northern California. The objective of the project was to explore the perspectives and lives of Black girls. It is through gained insight from their lived experiences that we can come to understand their needs and develop approaches to advance their own holistic empowerment. By gathering self-perceptions of Black girls using photovoice, the project aimed to inform youth workers, educators, and youth-serving organizations such as Magic Black Girls Leadership Institute (MBG) on how to meet the needs and cultivate developmental assets among Black girls. Magic Black Girls was conceived to empower young, Black women to create their own space to grow, become personally aware of their own worth, and stand in their own power. The findings of this study indicate a need for positive counterspaces in which Black girls can generate a counter narrative, gain cultural awareness, experience a sense of community, experience joy, and build skills of activist leadership. The developmental tasks of adolescence for Black young people are complicated by the added context of oppression and racial discrimination which makes it essential to recognize and take action to create supportive environment that nurtures the positive development of Black girls. Further, the findings of this study contended that the use of innovative, holistic youth empowerment strategies are essential in the formation of spaces dedicated to encouraging, enlightening and empowering of young Black girls.

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