“Stuff from which her roots are grown”: sourcing the educational roots of gendered racial intellectual activism for Black women and girls

This oral history project utilizes poetic portraiture to explore the educational and lived experiences of Black women who engage in Gendered Racial Intellectual Activism (GRIA). The study deploys tenets of Critical Race Theory and concepts with the Black Feminist Tradition to highlight the narrators’ experiential knowledge, mainstream educational experiences, salient aspects of identity, activist foremother inspirations, and specific deployments of GRIA. Emergent findings yielded from this study include: The Identification of Giftedness as GRIA in Elementary School; Independent Reading and Calling for Backup as Middle and High School GRIA; Study and Struggle as GRIA in College; Inspiration and Support as Experiential Knowledge and Precursors to GRIA Work; The Intersection of Black Womanhood, Collective Trauma, Regional Communities, and GRIA Work; and Future-Focused GRIA Work. These findings illuminate the narrators’ experiences throughout their P-20 education, the GRIA work enacted on their behalf as students and young adults, aspects of identity that inform the narrators’ GRIA work, and the GRIA work in which the narrators engage to make life better for other Black women and girls. The study findings have the potential to improve the treatment of Black girls and women within mainstream educational spaces, leading to more equitable educational experiences for all.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Minnett, Jari L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dixson, Adrienne
• Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni
• Span, Christopher
• Moton, Theopolies

• Black Women
• Black Girls
• Educational Experiences
• Gendered Racial Intellectual Activism
• Oral History
• Poetic Portraiture
• Intellectual Activism
• Experiential Knowledge
• Black Teachers
• Identity
• Southern Sensibilities
• Intergenerational Connections
• Othermothering
• Homegirling

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Jari L. Minnett

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130161

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F130161