School Leadership for the Disruption of Black Women Teacher Attrition: Understanding the Key Role of Racialized Relational Dynamics

Abstract

The United States saw a sharp decline in its percentage of Black women teachers (BWTs) after the 1954 Brown v. Board decision. When segregated Black schools closed, BWTs were not hired to teach in the newly integrated schools. Consequently, they were displaced en masse. To this day, much of BWT attrition continues to be a policy effect (i.e., school closures) and therefore, partly involuntary. It is also, in part, associated with racialized organizational factors or working conditions that lead to constrained choice on the part of BWTs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to (1) better understand how BWTs described ways that organizational factors and conditions and or their configurations created tipping points in their decisions to leave their schools or the profession and (2) to better understand how BWTs envisioned the role of school leadership in disrupting the chronic pattern of BWT attrition. This study was framed through the lens of Black feminist thought. Findings suggest that multi-layered experiences of racialized and gendered organizational dynamics are strongly associated with the creation of tipping points in BWT attrition. Anti-racist and intersectionality-informed school leadership is a critical part of the solution in disrupting BWT attrition. These findings are significant because without leadership intervention, BWTs will continue to experience racialized organizational dynamics associated with their attrition. These dynamics take a considerable toll on the health and well-being of BWTs.