{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/130155"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/130155","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Now imagine she's white: An exploration of Black women's intersectional educational leadership and hidden barriers to retention","abstract":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","abstract_html":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Westfield, Renayee M."],"institution":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ed.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Mason, Curtis","Barnett, Bernice","Lee, Sharon","Pak, Yoon"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-07-10","date_published":"2025-07-10","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:06Z","subjects":["Black Women Administrators","Intersectionality","Intersectional Leadership","Servant Leadership","Grown Black Woman Voice","Black Women Educational Leadership","Critical Race Theory","(crt)"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2025 Renayee Westfield"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130155","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Mason, Curtis","Barnett, Bernice","Lee, Sharon","Pak, Yoon"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Westfield, Renayee M."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-07-10","2025-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ed.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Black Women Administrators","Intersectionality","Intersectional Leadership","Servant Leadership","Grown Black Woman Voice","Black Women Educational Leadership","Critical Race Theory","(crt)"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2025 Renayee Westfield"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130155"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","The student, Renayee Westfield, accepted the attached license on 2025-07-08 at 20:46.","The student, Renayee Westfield, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-07-08 at 20:59.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-07-10 at 08:57.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22451 on 2025-10-25 at 15:53:23","As the academic, political, and population landscape evolves, policymakers, school boards, and district leadership must recognize the unique contributions of diverse leaders that are integral to African American students' success. This study explored the leadership experiences of one such group, Black female administrators in K-12 education, contributing to the growing literature on intersectional leadership in education. However, the retention of this demographic continues to decline, posing a problem for the Black teacher and administrator pipeline. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT), Intersectionality, and Grown Black Woman Voice (GBWV) as frameworks, the researcher analyzed Black women administrators' perceptions to allow this historically overlooked demographic to begin to define their leadership ontology and to be the experts concerning the barriers they face to move towards an understanding of why districts continue to fail at closing the opportunity gap and retaining Black women administrators. The findings suggest that Black female administrators exhibit servant leadership style attributes, focused on meeting the needs of others and shifting the mindsets of adults within their institutions while also being positioned as \"clean-up women\" tasked with addressing systemic inequities. Furthermore, they face cultural taxation, invisibility while being silenced, undermined, overworked, undervalued, stereotyped and unprotected by upper-level supervisors and Human Resource departments. If we know the cause of concern and have identified ways to avoid or counteract it, yet we don’t—perhaps what we see is the only accepted plan and outcome. After the conclusion of this study, one question remains and is the recommendation for further research: Why do these barriers persist?"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Now imagine she's white: An exploration of Black women's intersectional educational leadership and hidden barriers to retention"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Mason, Curtis","Barnett, Bernice","Lee, Sharon","Pak, Yoon"],"dc:creator":["Westfield, Renayee M."],"dc:date":["2025-07-10","2025-08"],"dc:description":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2027-08-01","The student, Renayee Westfield, accepted the attached license on 2025-07-08 at 20:46.","The student, Renayee Westfield, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-07-08 at 20:59.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-07-10 at 08:57.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22451 on 2025-10-25 at 15:53:23","As the academic, political, and population landscape evolves, policymakers, school boards, and district leadership must recognize the unique contributions of diverse leaders that are integral to African American students' success. 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The findings suggest that Black female administrators exhibit servant leadership style attributes, focused on meeting the needs of others and shifting the mindsets of adults within their institutions while also being positioned as \"clean-up women\" tasked with addressing systemic inequities. Furthermore, they face cultural taxation, invisibility while being silenced, undermined, overworked, undervalued, stereotyped and unprotected by upper-level supervisors and Human Resource departments. If we know the cause of concern and have identified ways to avoid or counteract it, yet we don’t—perhaps what we see is the only accepted plan and outcome. After the conclusion of this study, one question remains and is the recommendation for further research: Why do these barriers persist?"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130155"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2025 Renayee Westfield"],"dc:subject":["Black Women Administrators","Intersectionality","Intersectional Leadership","Servant Leadership","Grown Black Woman Voice","Black Women Educational Leadership","Critical Race Theory","(crt)"],"dc:title":["Now imagine she's white: An exploration of Black women's intersectional educational leadership and hidden barriers to retention"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ed.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:06Z"}