Stitched from the Soul: An Auto/biographical Inquiry Into one Black Woman Administrator's Voice and Vision

<p>Author's abstract: This study is an auto/biographical inquiry into my voice and vision as a Black woman administrator. I explore the lives of four generations of Black women in my family. Each of these women -- Hattie C. Wilcher (my great grandmother), Connie W. Duggan (my mother), Danielle R. Lowe (my daughter), and I -- have studied and/or taught in public schools in the U. S. south. I explore how my family narrative parallels community and historical narratives and contests the meta narrative in existing literature. I explore these narratives through the lenses of Critical Race Theory and Black Feminist Thought to better understand how our experiences as Black females in an endemically racist educational system impact my practice as principal of a Title I elementary school. More than fifty years after the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, gaps in achievement among Black students and their white peers persist while efforts at school reform fail to meet expectations. Drawing on the knowledge I have gained from my participants and the inquiry, I offer an ethic of care-and-justice as a framework for transforming schools, such as the one I lead, into spaces where all children can reach their highest potential.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading

Year dc:date.available

2006

Author dc:creator

• Jefferson, Sonya D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• none

• ETD
• Achievement Gaps
• Autobiography
• Black Education
• Black Feminist Thought
• Critical Race Theory
• Multicultural Education
• School Reform
• Educational Leadership
• Curriculum and Social Inquiry
• Education
• Other Education
• Urban Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/1026

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-2059