<p>Black women make up 1.3% of undergraduate engineering students, 1% of bachelor’s engineering degrees awarded, and 0.6% of employed engineers. The magnitude of underrepresentation of Black women is strongly evident given the juxtaposition between these statistics and the percentage of Black women within the U.S. population. This underrepresentation of Black women in engineering exemplifies serious equity concerns involving the quality of women’s experiences in education and employment systems. The issues related to representation and retention in engineering among Black women signify that professional engineering environments that can be characterized by raced and gendered practices; practices that should be changed if engineering desires to be a more inclusive space for Black women. This reality brings up the question of whether undergraduate engineering education programs prepare Black women for the workplace and the extent to which their preparation process accounts for the raced and gendered challenges. This study examines the undergraduate preparation experiences of ten Black women engineers, exploring the challenges they have experienced that are associated with the raced and gendered culture of the engineering workplace. The goal of this study is to consider how undergraduate engineering education can better meet the needs of Black women so that they can successfully navigate the raced and gendered culture of engineering. Grounded in critical race feminism, this study leveraged narrative inquiry and counter-storytelling to address the following research question: How do Black women engineers describe their preparation to navigate the challenges in the engineering workplace associated with the raced and gendered culture of engineering? Findings from this study indicate that the formal curriculum of undergraduate engineering programs did not prepare Black women engineers for the raced and gendered culture of engineering. However, co-curricular activities, situated learning experiences, faith and spirituality, knowledge gained from graduate coursework, and the subsequent community cultural wealth gained from those experiences were instrumental in the preparation of Black women engineers for the raced and gendered culture of engineering. Two major implications of this work prompt the need for an ecosystems approach to change the culture of engineering and a formal preparation process for the raced and gendered culture of engineering.</p>

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The dialogue around violence against women has gone from a private matter to a national audience, primarily due to the sexual violence on college campuses and a recognition that it is part of a comprehensive system of power that affects all women. Researchers have shown that sexual violence is a significant issue on college campuses and there are various demonstrations of how colleges and universities have found ways to support individuals who report these interactions. Although women of all races, ethnicities, and cultures are affected by sexual violence, how it is experienced racially and culturally is unique. African American women’s experiences are often missing from narratives because of the lack of understanding of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) an acknowledgment of the historical and ongoing oppression that they experience in both their race and gender identity. This understanding is essential because several studies show that African American women are at high risk of experiencing sexual violence (Cantor, et al., 2015) and are the least likely to disclose, not only on college campuses but in general. Although universities are making great strides to improve their support for students experiencing sexual violence, the area that continues to lack research and data explores how different cultures, specifically the African American culture, respond to and address issues of sexual violence. Given the lack of empirical information, how can African American women be supported and educated around the topic of sexual violence? With the increased sexual violence occurring on a college campus and researchers demonstrating that African American women are at higher risk of sexual assault and are the least likely to disclose their sexual violation, it is crucial to dissect the African American female college students' perspective. This qualitative study engaged participants in a semi-structured interview to understand how African American undergraduate women perceive sexual violence and how history has influenced their perception. There were six major themes identified from the study that helped provide insight into the four research questions. The findings reveal that participants in this research understand and can apply a foundational definition of sexual violence, as demonstrated through the use of the vignette method. The notion that African American women’s silence regarding sexual violence is due to a lack of awareness and education is unlikely; however, inappropriate sex education and sex-role socialization did influence disclosure patterns. The women in the study demonstrated that African American culture, history, and sex-role socialization influenced African American women’s’ perceptions of sexual violence, which resulted in barriers to help-seeking, and disclosure patterns about sexual violence. Findings revealed that there are complexities of African American women’s perceptions of sexual violence. The lack of intersectionality within messaging and educational efforts is active contributions to their silence. There were three primary recommendations for practice and policy and two primary recommendations for theory and research. These recommendations focus on communicating care and concern, including African American women's voices in decision-making processes, and understanding and honoring African American women's experiences concerning sexual violence practices. The recommendations for practice and policy are: (a.) Institutional response and care, (b.) Education and awareness, and (c.) Adopting a social justice paradigm for sexual violence; future research recommendations are (a.) peer support and research and (b.) African American women’s sexual self-acceptance. This study's findings provide insight into African American undergraduate women’s perceptions of sexual violence and its influence on help-seeking and disclosure patterns. It also provided a focused lens on how intersectionality assists African American women in navigating environments that have not traditionally included them. / Educational Leadership

Recent events- including the overlapping pandemics of hyper-visible racism, policebrutality, economic downturn, climate crises, and the Covid-19 virus- have reified the significance of teacher diversity to counter structural inequalities in education. Of particular concern are low-income urban schools. While greater teacher diversity exists in urban schools, Black teachers - and Black women in particular- experience high turnover compared to their white and male counterparts. Through a contextual analysis of Black women teachers, the purpose of this study was to explore intersectionality and identity negotiation by investigating whether professional experiences and decisionmaking were moderated by ethno-racial and gender identities. Multiple sources of data were collected regarding eight self-identified Black women of the African diaspora with at least two years of experience in urban schools. Analysis of demographic surveys, open-ended responses, and three rounds of semi-structured interviews yielded ten themes: 1) supplementing curriculum with counter-narratives and role models, 2) facilitating conversations about race-related current events, 3) teaching the truth about American history, 4) guiding students to navigate a racialized society, 5) experiencing microaggressions in interracial interactions, 6) disengaging from diversity initiatives, 7) participating in supportive intra-racial relationships, 8) avoiding gendered racial stereotypes, 9) pursuing desired ends, and 10) redefining professionalism. The result of this study adds to the research base regarding intersectionality and identity negotiation as factors influencing teachers of color in urban schools. Additional recommendations are also given to guide research, practice, and policy. / Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies

African American women are at a higher risk of experiencing maternal health complications than women of other races. Determining the factors that contribute to the severity of their maternal health complications can help bring awareness and exposure to the disparities among black women in maternal health. The purpose of this study was to explore the various elements that contribute to the high pregnancy mortality ratio and infant mortality ratio in black women and black infants. The secondary purpose was to determine the relationship between stereotypes about African American women as healthcare consumers and the disproportionate percentage of black women experiencing fatal maternal complications. A literature review examining the effects of physiological differences, external stressors, stigmas and stereotypes, and miscommunication with health care physicians was conducted from various online databases. Peer reviewed, research articles published in the English language from 1992-2020 that focused on factors during the prenatal and perinatal period that influenced the pregnancy-related mortality ratio were included for synthesis. Results from 14 studies that examined factors resulting in maternal health disparities in African American women were compared to determine accuracy and consistency with the data. The studies suggest that smaller pelvic structures, stigmas that label black women as over exaggerative, and distrust within African American communities with health care staff contribute to the different maternal outcomes in black women. Although the data remained consistent and proved there are similar factors that cause disparities in maternal care, many of the studies had small sample sizes indicating the need for further research on the subject.

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[pt] A dissertação apresenta uma incursão pelos poemas de duas poetas da diáspora negra, Carol Dall Farra, do Brasil, e Porsha Olayiwola, dos Estados Unidos, numa investigação sobre processos do sentimento de não pertencimento na constituição de subjetividades de mulheres negras a partir de reflexões acerca de elementos de diferenciação, como raça, gênero, classe, religião e orientação sexual. Em formato de ensaios, pretende-se discutir economia onomástica, assim como a influência da cultura negra nas línguas coloniais, a heterossexualidade compulsória e outras experiências relacionadas à diáspora negra, cuja resistência, aqui, desponta nas performances poéticas das autoras no slam poetry, que, nesse sentido, funciona como uma ferramenta de construção de identidades e da partilha do sensível, formulação de Jacques Rancière, em que os interlocutores dos poemas são muitas vezes as mulheres negras, que, assim como as poetas, constroem suas subjetividades com os poemas declamados. Sob a luz dos escritos de intelectuais como bell hooks, Audre Lorde e Lélia Gonzalez, discute-se as disputas que as poetas escolhidas escolhem travar para forjar subjetividades e criar vínculos. / [en] The dissertation presents an excursion into the poems of two poets from the African diaspora: Carol Dall Farra, from Brazil, and Porsha Olayiwola, from the United States, in an investigation into processes of the feeling of non-belonging in the constitution of subjectivities of black women upon reflections on elements of differentiation, such as race, gender, class, religion and sexual orientation. These essays discuss onomastic economics, as well as the influence of Black culture on colonial languages, compulsory heterosexuality and various experiences related to the African diaspora, whose resistance, in this case, emerges in the poetic performances of the authors in slam poetry , which, in this sense, function as tools for building identities and partage du sensible, formulation by Jacques Rancière, in which the interlocutors of the poems are often black women, who, such as the poets, assemble their identities in virtue of the recited poems. In the light of the writings of intellectuals such as bell hooks, Audre Lorde and Lélia Gonzalez, the disputes that these poets choose to wage to forge subjectivities and create bonds are discussed.