Using intersectionality as a guiding framework, the current study examined how gendered and racialized perceptions of Black women as "strong Black women" may be shaped by colorism. This experimental study sampled 314 Black and White participants from the community. Participants were presented with a vignette that described a Black woman coping with workplace stress in one of two ways, one congruent with strong Black womanhood (emotional restriction) and one incongruent with strong Black womanhood (emotional vulnerability), alongside the image of a light skin or dark skin Black woman. Then, participants were asked to rate how "strong" they perceived the woman in the vignette to be. A factorial ANCOVA was conducted to test how perceptions of the woman in the vignette varied based on her emotional response to workplace stress and skin tone, while controlling for perceptions of likability and competence. As hypothesized, we observed that participants perceived the woman responding to workplace stress with emotional restriction as stronger than the women who responded with emotional vulnerability. However, skin tone, nor the interaction between emotional response and skin tone had a bearing on participants' perceptions. There were also no differences in perceptions based on participant race. Through its intersectional framing, this study challenges scholars and practitioners to consider how the interplay between racism, sexism, and colorism shapes how Black women are seen by others and, in turn, how they may see themselves as strong Black women. Implications of the findings, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Although Black women are the most educated group in America, they continue to face baffling complexities on the pathway to leadership and career promotions. This research elicits Black women’s lived experiences to explore how their pathway to leadership and career promotion differs from those of other women of color. Study One focused on expert notions of women's leadership to examine facilitators and barriers that impact pathways to career promotion. It found that mainstream approaches to leadership overemphasized individual actions, excluding the nuances specific to Black women. Study Two explored the experiences of Black executive women more deeply. It found that Black women’s double minority reality led to a greater need for community in the workplace compared to other women of color, who identified mentorship as the more critical factor in answering the research question. Together, Study One and Study Two suggest that organizational culture, community, and individual resilience are critical to Black women’s success as executives. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

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This qualitative research study described African American female secondary educators’ challenges in their educational working relationships. The purpose was to truly understand the challenges that African American female secondary teachers experienced in the classroom, outside of the classroom, in their dealings with their students’ parents, colleagues, and their relationships with school administrators. This study focused on the challenges 10 African American female secondary teachers encountered in their educational work environment. This study also took into account how those teachers’ relationships with their students’ parents, colleagues, and administrators affected the teacher/student relationship. In an effort to increase student achievement, researchers, educators, students, parents, and administrators must all work closely to improve relationships between teachers and students within their district. Moreover, district policies must continue to encourage the development of schoolamily-community collaboration as an essential component vital to student academic improvement efforts. Administrators must continue to equip African American female secondary educators with a range of practices for involving students, parents, colleagues, and administrators to improve student outcomes. The best efforts are comprehensive, seeking to involve all teachers, students, parents, their colleagues, and administrators in a variety of roles. African American female secondary teachers can be empowered through training, time, and support. There are long-lasting, long-term investments in cultivating positive relationships between teachers and students that will help students reach their full potential. The cost in terms of student outcomes not achieved is incalculable.

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The circumstance of mass incarceration in the U.S. has reached the point of social crisis. When the statistics on imprisonment are demographically disaggregated, they point to the overrepresentation of imprisoned men and women of color. Paying special attention to Black men and women, critical race, prison advocacy, and Black feminist research has been vital in theorizing the structural and ideological implications of this racial inequity. The insight that the U.S. prison system constitutes a prison industrial complex arose from such scholarship. More recently, transnational feminism has offered insight into the specific experience and socio-historical contextualization of raced women within a transnational prison industrial complex. Based on transnational and Black feminist precepts, this thesis will argue the need to reframe the discursive position of imprisoned Black women in liberatory discourse. Using the work of Homi K. Bhabha, I contend that Black women’s discursive positions should be understood as “culturally undecidable.” Dominant paradigms of mainstream feminism have assigned Black women the task of fulfilling the ideal of “true womanhood.” Black feminist scholars have argued that this model erases and marginalizes Black women’s resistance. I suggest the imposition of this ideal rhetorically fixes Black women as victims, pathologizes them, and ultimately pathologizes the Black community. In contrast, renaming Black women’s discursive position as “culturally undecidable” creates the possibility to decenter the transnational networks that underpin the transnational prison industrial complex. To proffer this argument, I will analyze performative resistances and reifications of criminalization within narratives of imprisoned Black women and suggest performance practices to encourage Black women’s sense of agency. / text

In the United States, Black women are more likely to be sexually victimized than any other ethnic group. Despite the higher rates among Black women, there is little research that provides therapists with approaches and techniques that are culturally specific to Black women. Instead, most literature has focused on women as a whole, rather than examining the different cultural values and forms of support that are needed for recovery in different ethnic groups. Therefore, this report will provide therapists with a sociocultural lens to increase awareness of the Black woman's identity, while suggesting a Womanist theoretical approach to group psychotherapy as an ideal method of treatment. / text

Entre 1945 e 1955, a socióloga, visitadora psiquiátrica e psicanalista negra Virgínia Leone Bicudo escreve dois trabalhos sobre relações raciais no Brasil: o primeiro é a tese Estudo de atitudes raciais de pretos e mulatos em São Paulo (1945), sua dissertação de mestrado concluída na Escola Livre de Sociologia e Política (ELSP). Nela, a autora discute a importância da formação de associações negras, como a Frente Negra Brasileira, na mobilização contra os obstáculos para ascensão social dos negros. O segundo trabalho, publicado em 1955, é Atitudes de Alunos de Grupos Escolares em Relação com a Cor dos seus Colegas, resultado das suas pesquisas durante a realização do Projeto Unesco-Anhembi em São Paulo. Ao trabalhar as dimensões subjetivas do preconceito, ela se aproxima dos discursos de intelectuais negros como Frantz Fanon e Guerreiro Ramos. Nosso objetivo é analisar como os estudos de atitudes impactaram as pesquisas sobre relações raciais no Brasil durante o período em que Virgínia escreveu os seus trabalhos, bem como pensar nos processos de legitimação do intelectual negro na universidade. / The black sociologist and psychoanalyst Virginia Leone Bicudo wrote two works on race relations in Brazil. The first was Study of racial attitudes of blacks and mulattos in São Paulo (1945), - her thesis at Escola Livre de Sociologia e Política (ELSP). The author analyses the brazilian black associations, such as the Frente Negra Brasileira. The second study, published in 1955, Attitudes of Students in School Groups in Relation to Color of their Colleagues, results of her research during the Sao Paulo UNESCO-Anhembi Project. Her research about the subjective dimensions of racial prejudice approaches her of the discourses of black intellectuals like Frantz Fanon and Guerreiro Ramos. Our thesis intend to know how the studies of attitudes impacted research on race relations in Brazil during the period in which Virginia wrote their works, as well as thinking about the processes of legitimation of black intellectuals in the university.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall 60 miles east of New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 29, 2005. The storm revealed the reality of the socio-economic state of tens of thousands of African Americans living in the city of New Orleans, especially African-American women. This study examines the state of development of African-American women who lived in the Lower 9th Ward area of New Orleans prior to, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. This study was based on the premise that African-American women who lived in the Lower 9th Ward were significantly more affected by Hurricane Katrina than any other group in the area because of their race, class, gender, and state of development. A narrative analysis was chosen as the method for this study. The data were collected from interviews was analyzed to explore how Hurricane Katrina impacted these women’s state of development, or the lack thereof. The researcher found that Lower 9th Ward African-American women were impacted by Hurricane Katrina more than any other group because of their underdeveloped state. The conclusions drawn from the findings suggest that the African-American women from the Lower 9th Ward area lived a life comparable to that of women in developing countries, while living in a First World country. The reality of their underdeveloped state allowed for Hurricane Katrina to impact them more negatively than any other group by leaving them unable to regain normalcy in some areas of their lives, especially those areas influenced by their race, class, and gender.

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo discutir as relações sociais de professoras negras da cidade de São Paulo e entender qual o sentido dado à educação por estas mulheres. Considerando que a escola, a família, o mercado de trabalho e a comunidade contribuíram para a (re) construção da identidade pessoal e profissional das entrevistadas. Os sujeitos investigados são quatro professoras dos Centros de Educação Infantil da Zona Leste de São Paulo. A história oral foi utilizada como um modo de registro pessoal que está ligado à sua condição subjetiva de fazer memória dos fatos. Consideramos a memória como um exercício valorativo que espelha o caráter coletivo das lembranças e as entrevistadas, ao inscreverem suas memórias, evidenciaram quais os caminhos percorridos para a superação dos desafios e obstáculos encontrados na vida cotidiana. Nas lembranças dos fragmentos das histórias de vida nos foi possível constatar que o fato dessas mulheres negras se tornarem professoras é uma conquista em relação ao modo como foram posicionadas historicamente. Seus papéis estavam restritos ao espaço da casa, aos afazeres domésticos. As famílias acreditaram na escola como um meio de obtenção da desejada ascensão social e estabeleceram novas estratégias para que suas filhas se formassem no magistério, profissão considerada de maior prestígio social. A ascensão social significou neste caso abrir novas perspectivas de trabalho em relação à sua família de origem. Elas resistiram e reconstruíram uma identidade positiva de si mesma, em uma sociedade que muitas vezes não se esforçou para incluí-las. / This research aimed to discuss the social relations of black female teachers from São Paulo city and to understand the sense given to education by these women. Considering that school, family, labor market and comunity have contributed to women interviewee´s personal and professional identity (re)building. It is taken as investigated people four female teachers who work at Centers of Childhood Education placed from east of São Paulo. Oral history have been used as a way of personal registration connected to its subjective condition to make memory of facts. We consider memory as a valuable exercice which mirror the collective character of remembrance and while register their memories the interviewees showed up ways crossed to overcome challenges and obstacles found out in everyday life. From remembrance and fragments about history of life we could realise that the fact these black women have become teachers represents a conquest face the manner they have had been positionated historically. Their social roles were restricted to home space, to household. The families believed in school as a way of obtaining the desired social rise and they have established new strategies to graduate their daughters on teaching, wich is considered a profession with greater social prestige. Social rise meant in this case open up new perspectives of work related to their family of origin. They have resisted and rebuilt a positive identity of theirselfs, even in a society that most times haven´t make an effort to include them.