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'Demonstrable experience of being a Mammy or Crazy Black Bitch’ (Essential). A Critical Race Feminist approach to understanding Black women Headteachers’ experiences in English schools

Doharty, Nadena; Esoe, Mboe

'Demonstrable experience of being a Mammy or Crazy Black Bitch’ (Essential). A Critical Race Feminist approach to understanding Black women Headteachers’ experiences in English schools Thumbnail


Authors

Mboe Esoe



Abstract

This paper builds on the emerging, but significant scholarship of Critical Race Feminism (CRF) in education. It adds to the literature in this area by applying the theoretical and methodological underpinnings to the British education context where such applications are vanishingly small in favour of broader critical race applications (Crawford, 2019; Doharty 2019; Gillborn, 2005; Gillborn et al. 2012; Joseph-Salisbury, 2021; Rollock et al. 2015; Thomas, 2012). Supported by Reynolds-Dobbs et al.’s (2008) racialised and gendered images of professional Black women in leadership roles as the analytical standpoint for understanding a Black woman Headteacher’s experiences in an English school, this paper argues that Black women’s tenure and trajectories are underpinned by the white racial colonial logics of the Mammy, Crazy Black Bitch, Superwoman and/or Feisty Sapphire. In so doing, institutional racism continues to underpin and undermine Black women Headteachers’ leadership potential, experiences and outcomes.

Citation

Doharty, N., & Esoe, M. (2023). 'Demonstrable experience of being a Mammy or Crazy Black Bitch’ (Essential). A Critical Race Feminist approach to understanding Black women Headteachers’ experiences in English schools. Race Ethnicity and Education, 26(3), 318-334. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2022.2122520

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 1, 2022
Online Publication Date Sep 13, 2022
Publication Date 2023
Deposit Date Sep 5, 2022
Publicly Available Date May 23, 2023
Journal Race Ethnicity and Education
Print ISSN 1361-3324
Electronic ISSN 1470-109X
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 26
Issue 3
Pages 318-334
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2022.2122520

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.





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