Description
Book SynopsisIn The Lived Experience of African American Women Mentors: Community Pedagogues, Wyletta Gamble-Lomax explores the lived experiences of six African American female mentors working with African American female youth. The works of philosophers Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Edward Casey are intertwined with the writings of Black feminist scholars such as Patricia Hill Collins and Audre Lorde, while Max van Manen guides the phenomenological process with pedagogical insights and reminders. Through individual conversations with each muse, the power in care and the importance of listening in mentoring relationships is uncovered as essential components. The significance of place, the complexities of Black femininity, and the benefits of genuine dialogue are all explored in ways that bring new understanding to African American female experiences and how they connect to today's educational climate. This study concludes with phenomenological recommendations for educational stakeholder
Trade ReviewGamble-Lomax's work is a poignant reminder of the importance of relationships between Black women. She and her muses display powerful vulnerability as they share their pain, their joys, and ultimately their passion for mentorship, inspiring us all to be more present in the lives of Black youth. -- Kimberly Griffin, University of Maryland
Wyletta Gamble-Lomax is a "mentoring muse" personified as she lives out the metaphor she creates to "show" mentoring in its transformative potential. She "un-silences" the dialogue between African American women mentors and their African American adolescent charges through the "care-full" power of phenomenological naming. The call for "community pedagogues" sheds new light on what it truly means to care as the tension between distrust and trust is lived out in this dialogical struggle. Mentoring dwells in this poetic place between. -- Francine Hultgren, University of Maryland
Dr. Gamble’s work is absolutely necessary and provides a rare and much-needed glimpse into lives of Black women and how they traverse “traditional” and non-traditional educational spaces. She (re)centers critical voices that are often relegated to the margins and underscores these narratives with a thoughtful and rich spirit of humanity. -- Steve D. Mobley, University of Alabama
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments Series Foreword Introduction: What It Means to Guide Chapter One: Mentors, Mirrors, and Memories Chapter Two: Existential Investigation: Lanterns Lighting the Path Chapter Three: Life Lessons: The Fabric of the Journey Chapter Four: I Am Who I Am: Black Femininity Chapter Five: (Un)silenced Dialogue Chapter Six: Pedagogical Insights: The Meaning in Mentoring References About the Author
