Graduation Semester and Year
Spring 2026
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Department
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
First Advisor
Ericka Roland, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Dustin Harp, Ph.D.
Third Advisor
Elsa Camargo, Ph.D.
Abstract
This dissertation examines how Black mothers in doctoral programs develop scholarly identities at the intersections of race, gender, and motherhood within historically white academic spaces. Grounded in endarkened narrative inquiry, the study centers the lived experiences and collective reflections of BlackMotherScholars to interrogate how racialized and gendered mothering shapes scholarly becoming. The research responds to a gap in the literature that overlooks Black maternal experiences as sites of intellectual production and identity formation in doctoral education.
Findings indicate that Black mothering serves as an onto-epistemological foundation for scholarly identity development, shaping participants’ ways of knowing, research commitments, and sense of purpose in the academy. At the same time, institutional misrecognition, gendered racism, and neoliberal expectations shape participants’ navigation of doctoral spaces, prompting strategies of resistance, community-building, and redefinition of what counts as legitimate scholarship. These tensions illuminate how BlackMotherScholars negotiate visibility, legitimacy, and belonging while advancing knowledge rooted in lived experience and collective care.
By positioning Black maternal experience as a critical epistemic resource, this study challenges dominant constructions of scholarly identity that privilege disembodied, individualistic norms. The findings underscore the need for doctoral programs to reimagine policies, socialization practices, and institutional cultures to recognize and support intersectional identities. Ultimately, this work contributes to higher education scholarship by advancing a framework that centers Black mothering as integral to scholarly identity development and to the transformation of more equitable doctoral environments.
Keywords
BlackMotherScholars, scholarly identity development, Black mothering, endarkened narrative inquiry, intersectionality, gendered racism, institutional misrecognition, doctoral education, community building, resistance
Disciplines
Educational Leadership | Higher Education Administration
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Jenkins, Dawn Stephens, "IN THE CIRCLE OF MY SISTAS: BLACKMOTHERSCHOLARS (RE)DEFINING SCHOLARLY IDENTITY" (2026). Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Dissertations. 2.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/edleadershippolicy_dissertations2/2