Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Educational Psychology & Research

Committee Chair

Denise Winsor

Committee Member

Susan Nordstrom

Committee Member

Beverly Bond

Committee Member

Christian Mueller

Abstract

The purpose of this Black feminist narrative inquiry study is to explore how Colorism informs the Black Superwoman persona and how that relationship influences the professional identity development of Black women. The Black Superwoman persona is the idea that black women take on all major responsibilities inside and outside of their home with minimum support. Five African American women between the ages of forty and sixty-five who held higher degrees and who lived in urban areas within the Mid-South tri-state region were interviewed. Through a narrative analysis of the data, this dissertation identified five themes across the participants: (1) perceptions of the strong black woman, (2) characteristics of the successful black woman/strong black woman, (3) childhood experiences as motivation for success, (4) the role of female models in the formation of superwoman, and (5) race and the self. Overall findings from this study indicate that despite the participants identifying small instances of colorism, it did not seem to impact their professional identity.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

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