A Black Woman’s Critical Autoethnography:

My dissertation is available online, open-access. Please click here for the full pdf if you would like to read more.

Abstract:

The problem I addressed in my dissertation study was seeking to understand the role of racial identity development in navigating Black education doctoral students’ racialized socialization experiences within the marginalizing and systemically inequitable nature of Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). I situate this work by describing a few experiences by which I have been racially marginalized in my teacher educator learning at a PWI. I argue that it is important to study the teacher educator learning of Black doctoral students amidst the marginalizing challenges at PWIs. The goal for teacher educator learning and development of Black doctoral students should be fostering Black doctoral students’ positive doctoral socialization within the marginalizing challenges of systemically inequitable educational environments. My study is significant because my study extends the graduate student socialization model conceptualizations to include a specific focus on racial identity and intersectional positioning, and it provided recommendations to assist with graduate program reform for Black doctoral students in general and Black and social justice teacher educators specifically.

The primary purpose of my critical autoethnography was to explore my racialized doctoral socialization as a Black woman within the systemically inequitable nature of a PWI. I focused on how my racial identity development afforded or constrained the navigation of my doctoral journey experiences. The secondary purpose was to examine my racial identity development and intersectional identities during my racialized doctoral socialization. Ultimately, the goal with my dissertation was to contribute to the teacher education field’s knowledge about the role of racial identity development in supporting Black teacher education doctoral students with their racialized socialization during teacher educator learning at PWIs. My research question was as follows: How did I as a Black female graduate student develop racial identity during doctoral socialization experiences becoming a social justice teacher educator in critical literacies?

I approached this inquiry into my racialized doctoral socialization experiences as a Black, female doctoral student at a PWI with an Afrocentric feminist epistemological stance, which informed my research and the design of my data creation and analysis methods. Graduate student socialization models (Twale et al., 2016; Weidman et al., 2001) and Nigrescence Theory or Black racial identity development stage theory (Cross, 1971, 1991, 2021) provided me with a theoretical lens for problematizing (or figuring out why I behaved or reacted to) and examining the way I behaved or reacted to my racialized doctoral socialization experiences.

I employed critical autoethnography as the method used in my research as it allowed me to explore and grapple with diversity and identity questions in minoritized positions. Critical autoethnography afforded me an opportunity to contribute my counterstory to the literature and allowed me as a researcher to critique systems, processes, places, and people within the culture of doctoral education. I actively constructed or generated data for my autoethnography through the use of two data sources: artifacts of my racialized doctoral socialization and critical auto-interviews using the artifacts as stimuli for memory recollection. Memory transcriptions were the product of auto-interviewing.

My autoethnographic findings suggest that I developed my Black racial identity during doctoral socialization at a PWI in three ways: double consciousness tensions, intersectional tensions, and racially relevant doctoral socialization. Intersectional tensions caused my feelings of racial identity suppression during doctoral socialization; however, I was able to avoid feeling racial identity suppressed development during my experiences with racial identity suppression because I simultaneously experienced racially relevant doctoral socialization.

I experienced double consciousness during doctoral socialization and that my increased critical consciousness both fostered and inhibited my Black racial identity. My autoethnographic findings suggest that while increased critical consciousness solidified my social justice orientations focused on the Black community and further developed my Black racial identity in a positive way, increased critical consciousness also opened my eyes to a deeper awareness of what was happening to me during racialized doctoral socialization that caused my Black racial identity development to falter.

My third finding was that I experienced racial identity tensions in my identity performances during doctoral socialization as a Black woman at a PWI. I found that in my identity performances during doctoral socialization becoming a Black social justice teacher educator that I experienced racial identity tensions as double consciousness tensions and intersectional tensions. Feelings of racial identity suppression were a consequence of my double consciousness tensions and intersectional tensions. The performance of my Black racial identity was suppressed by me and some of my professors, students, and peers as a doctoral student, as a consequence of intersectional tensions as a Black woman in cross race relationships during doctoral socialization at a PWI.

My work contributes to the field of teacher education in the following ways by providing:

· insight for educational researchers and teacher educators to consider when they are researching and supporting Black teacher education students’ doctoral socialization and racial identity development at PWIs, more specifically mature Black racial identity development and racial positional stances, and Black non-traditional doctoral students,

· a focus on Black racialized positioning in teacher education doctoral socialization spaces, which includes outsider and insider positioning, as well as liminal and intersectional positioning,

· a nuanced use of stage theories, in particular, an extended use of Cross’ (1971, 1991, 2021) Nigrescence Theory, a Black racial identity development model, and

· an extended use of graduate student socialization models by including race, racial identity, and positioning.

Please click here for the full, open-access pdf if you would like to read more.