Black Female Teachers ─ Diversifying the United States' Teacher Workforce

With the emergence of a diverse public school studentpopulation, existing literature affirms the existence of a Black teachershortage and the low representation of teachers of color in U.S. publicschools. Although there are over 3 million public school teachers, AfricanAmerican teachers only comprise approximately 8 percent of the public schoolteaching 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 pertinentissue, an examination of Black female teachers who can assist in diversifyingthe teaching field is timely and warranted. Despite Black females’ historicrole in public education and that teaching is a female-dominated profession,Black female teachers represent only 7.7 percent of the American teachingforce, while students of color represent almost 49 percent of the total studentenrolment.

This important, timely, and provocative book placesrecruitment and retention of Black female teachers at the center. Thecontributions address not only the recruitment of Black female teachers butalso discuss mechanisms necessary to retain them. Thus, this collectionnot only focuses on recruiting and retaining Black female teachers for the sakeof having their representation in schools; rather, authors consider some of theimplicit (and overt) nuances that these teachers experience in schools across theUnited States.

AbiolaFarinde-Wu is an Assistant Professor of Urban Education in theDepartment of Leadership, and Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Sheearned her Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of North Carolina atCharlotte (UNCC) in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Urban Education.Shealso received her Master of Education degree in Administration from LamarUniversity and her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Texas A&MUniversity. In 2017, she completed herPost-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Center for Urban Education at the University ofPittsburgh. At the center, Farinde-Wu managed and studied the Readyto Learn program, a two year tutoring and mentoring initiative and empirical studythatprepares and connects University of Pittsburgh students with K-12 students, inorder to provide the K-12 students with experiences that support them with academic progress in mathematics and English language arts, aswell as social skills development. Prior to her post-doctoral work, Farinde-Wuwas a Graduate Research Associate in the Urban Education Collaborative at theUniversity of North Carolina Charlotte, where she assisted with the collectionand disseminationof empiricallybased research for the purposes of improving outcomes for students inurban contexts. Farinde-Wu’s teaching focuses on preparing pre-service andin-service teachers for diverse student populations. She has co-authored numerousstudies published in journals, including TeachersCollege Record, Urban Education, andTeaching and Teacher Education. Her research interestsare the educational experiences and outcomes of Black women and girls, teacherretention, and urban teacher education.

Ayana Allen-Handy is anAssistant Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Policy,Organization, and Leadership at Drexel University’s School of Education. She received a B.A. in Management &Society and Spanish from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, aM.Ed. in Education from the University of St. Thomas (Houston), and a Ph.D. inCurriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Urban Education from TexasA&M University. Her professional career includes serving as a first gradeteacher and literacy specialist in the Houston Independent School District, a Directorof College Counseling and Alumni Programs at YES Prep Public Schools, and aPost-Doctoral Fellow at The Urban Education Collaborative at UNC Charlottewhere she conducted a three-year ethnographic case study on comprehensive urbanschool transformation. Her research interests include theinterdisciplinary examination of issues of equity and social justice in urbanschools and historically marginalized communities. More specifically, shefocuses on urban teacher education and youth identity development andengagement through critical participatory action research (CPAR). Ultimatelyher work seeks to leverage the community cultural wealth embedded incommunities of color to answer complex questions about access and achievement.She is co-editor of Autoethnography as a Lighthouse: Illuminating Race,Research, and the Politics of Schooling (Information Age, 2015) as well asrecently published articles in Teachers College Record, Equity andExcellence in Education, and The Education Law & Policy Review.She resides in Philadelphia with her husband Frederick and son Aiden.

Dr. Lewis currently teaches graduate courses in the field ofUrban Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Hisexperiences span the range of K-12 and higher education. From 2006-2011, Dr.Lewis served as the Houston Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of UrbanEducation at Texas A&M University. In 2001-2006, he served as an assistantprofessor of teacher education at Colorado State University. During the1994-1998, Dr. Lewis served as a Business Education teacher in East Baton RougeParish Schools (Baton Rouge, LA), where he earned Teacher of the Year honors in1997. Dr. Lewis has over 100 publications including 70+ refereed journalarticles in some of the leading academic journals in the field of urbaneducation.