Currently, Black women make up approximately five percent of the teaching workforce, yet the turnover rate for Black women educators is 21.8 percent.
This trend suggests that there are myriad issues and challenges Black women in education face that impact their ability to teach and engage students in the classroom. As extant literature suggests, the departure of Black women from the education profession has and can lead to a number of negative consequences beyond a sheer drop in the education workforce, including a lack of representation for students at a time when students in the classroom are more diverse than ever.
Given the significant need to address this issue from a research and practice perspective, the EdSurge Research team embarked on a collaborative research project, in partnership with the Abolitionist Teaching Network, to better understand the experiences of Black women educators in the classroom and explore the possibilities of what can happen when their needs are address and the joy and healing of Black women teachers are centered.
Please note: Throughout this series, we use the terms “women” and “womxn" interchangeably to recognize the diversity of gender identities and appropriately reflect the gender diversity of the educators who participated in this research project.
