Description
Book SynopsisWith the emergence of a diverse public school student population, existing literature affirms the existence of a Black teacher shortage and the low representation of teachers of color in U.S. public schools. Although there are over 3 million public school teachers, African American teachers only comprise approximately 8 percent of the public school teaching workforce. In fact, the education field is dominated by White, middle-class teachers, particularly, White female teachers.
While the retention of all teachers of color is a pertinent issue, an examination of Black female teachers who can assist in diversifying the teaching field is timely and warranted. Despite Black females’ historic role in public education and that teaching is a female-dominated profession, Black female teachers represent only 7.7 percent of the American teaching force, while students of color represent almost 49 percent of the total student enrolment.
This important, timely, and provocative book places recruitment and retention of Black female teachers at the center. The contributions address not only the recruitment of Black female teachers but also discuss mechanisms necessary to retain them. Thus, this collection not only focuses on recruiting and retaining Black female teachers for the sake of having their representation in schools; rather, authors consider some of the implicit (and overt) nuances that these teachers experience in schools across the United States.
Trade ReviewEducators from the US offer eight essays that consider the experiences, recruitment, and retention of black female teachers and the need to diversify the US workforce with these teachers. They describe the historical and contemporary landscape of black female teachers, including their participation in the US workforce across key phases of American schooling and civil rights and the ideas and pedagogies of Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Poinsette Clark; the experiences of these teachers, including why they teach in urban schools and the development of cultural competence to teach for social justice; and retention aspects, with discussion of working conditions, interpersonal relationships, and turnover, risk for occupational stress, racial congruence, and professional commitment, and policy interventions to deal with attrition and turnover. -- Annotation ©2017 * (protoview.com) *
Table of ContentsForeword; Richard Milner Reflecting Back While Gazing Forward: Black Female Teachers and the Diversification of the United States' Teacher Workforce; Ayana Allen-Handy and Abiola Farinde-Wu The Historical/Contemporary Landscape of Black Female Teachers And Then There Were None: Reversing the Exodus of Black Women from the Teaching Profession; Valerie Hill-Jackson The Antioppressionist Thoughts and Pedagogies of Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Poinsette Clark; Karen A. Johnson Scholarly Examination of Black Female Teachers The Urban Factor: Examining why Black Female Educators Teach in Under-resourced, Urban Schools; Abiola Farinde-Wu, Ayana Allen-Handy, Bettie Ray Butler and Chance W. Lewis "Black Like Me": Female Pre-service Teachers of Color on Learning to Teach for Social Justice with a Black Female Professor; Tambra O. Jackson, Ashley Ballard, Marena Drewery, Brianna Membres, Laryn Morgan and Felicia Nicholson Retention of Black Female Teachers Invisible Threads: Working Conditions, Interpersonal Relationships, and Turnover Among Black Female Teachers; Ayana K. Campoli, Dyanis A. Popova Racial Congruence, Teacher Stress, and Professional Commitment Among African American Female Teachers; Paul G. Fitchett, Eugenia B. Hopper, Maytal Eyal, Christopher J. McCarthy and Richard G. Lambert Why Black Women Teachers Leave and What Can Be Done About it; Desiree Carver-Thomas and Linda Darling-Hammond Epilogue
