“Stuff from which her roots are grown”: sourcing the educational roots of gendered racial intellectual activism for Black women and girls

Minnett, Jari L

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Description

Title

“Stuff from which her roots are grown”: sourcing the educational roots of gendered racial intellectual activism for Black women and girls

Author(s)

Minnett, Jari L

Issue Date

2025-07-10

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Dixson, Adrienne

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

• Zamani-Gallaher, Eboni
• Dixson, Adrienne

Committee Member(s)

• Span, Christopher
• Moton, Theopolies

Department of Study

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Black women
• Black girls
• Educational experiences
• Gendered racial intellectual activism
• Oral history
• Poetic portraiture
• Intellectual activism
• Experiential knowledge
• Black teachers
• Identity
• Southern sensibilities
• Intergenerational connections
• Othermothering
• Homegirling

Abstract

This oral history project utilizes poetic portraiture to explore the educational and lived experiences of Black women who engage in Gendered Racial Intellectual Activism (GRIA). The study deploys tenets of Critical Race Theory and concepts with the Black Feminist Tradition to highlight the narrators’ experiential knowledge, mainstream educational experiences, salient aspects of identity, activist foremother inspirations, and specific deployments of GRIA. Emergent findings yielded from this study include: The Identification of Giftedness as GRIA in Elementary School; Independent Reading and Calling for Backup as Middle and High School GRIA; Study and Struggle as GRIA in College; Inspiration and Support as Experiential Knowledge and Precursors to GRIA Work; The Intersection of Black Womanhood, Collective Trauma, Regional Communities, and GRIA Work; and Future-Focused GRIA Work. These findings illuminate the narrators’ experiences throughout their P-20 education, the GRIA work enacted on their behalf as students and young adults, aspects of identity that inform the narrators’ GRIA work, and the GRIA work in which the narrators engage to make life better for other Black women and girls. The study findings have the potential to improve the treatment of Black girls and women within mainstream educational spaces, leading to more equitable educational experiences for all.

Graduation Semester

2025-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130161

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2025 Jari L. Minnett

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