Skip to content
1981
Volume 21, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 1743-5234
  • E-ISSN: 2040-090X

Abstract

In this article, I explore ways in which three different models of ‘teacherness’ and ‘Black womanness’ have functioned as powerful influences on how I have come to envision myself and my role as a professional artist, art educator and art teacher educator. I present portraits of three teachers whose personas, pedagogies and overall presence have shaped my professional identity, self-concept and pedagogy. I conclude by highlighting the importance the roles our identities, cultures and the teachers to whom we are exposed to play in shaping who we become as teachers. I also reflect on how these role models profoundly influence the messages we internalize and convey about ourselves, others and the subjects we teach.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00196_1
2025-06-12
2026-04-13

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Acuff, Joni B., López, Vanessa and Wilson, Gloria J. (2019), ‘Lunch on the grass: Three women art educators of color’, Souls, 21:1, pp. 1851, https://doi.org/10.1080/10999949.2019.1647084.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Allen, Amani M., Wang, Yijie, Chae, David H., Price, Melisa M., Powell, Wizdom, Steed, Teneka C., Rose Black, Angela, Dhabhar, Firdaus S., Leticia, Marquez-Magaña and Woods-Giscombe, Cheryl L. (2019), ‘Racial discrimination, the Superwoman schema, and allostatic load: Exploring an integrative stress-coping model among African American women’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1457:1, pp. 10427, https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14188.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Asimow, Michael (2009), Lawyers in your Living Room! Law on Television, Chicago, IL: American Bar Association.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Brown, Nadia E. (2021), ‘Black women’s hair matters: The uneasy marriage of electoral politics and (dis)respectability politics’, in R. A. de Geus, E. Tolley, E. Goodyear-Grant and P. J. Loewen (eds), Women, Power, and Political Representation, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 6270.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Cohen, Jonathan (2001), ‘Defining identification: A theoretical look at the identification of audiences with media characters’, Mass Communication and Society, 4:3, pp. 24564, https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327825mcs0403_01.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Cohen, Jonathan (2006), ‘Audience identification with media characters’, in J. Bryant and P. Vorderer (eds), Psychology of Entertainment, Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 18398.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Collins, Patricia H. (1986), ‘Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black feminist thought’, Social Problems, 33:6, pp. S14S32, https://doi.org/10.2307/800672.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Collins, Patricia H. (2000), Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1989), ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1:8, pp. 13967, http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8. Accessed 19 April 2025.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Cross, Dionne, Hong, Ji and Williams-Johnson, Meca (2011), ‘It’s not better or worse, it’s just different: Examining Jamaican teachers’ pedagogical and emotional experiences’, Teacher Development, 15:4, pp. 499515, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2011.635269.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Davies, Carol B. (2011), ‘“She wants the Black man post”: Constructions of race, sexuality and political leadership in popular culture’, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 25:4, pp. 12133, https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2011.633371.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Eyal, Keren and Dailey, René M. (2012), ‘Examining relational maintenance in parasocial relationships’, Mass Communication & Society, 15:5, pp. 75881, https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2011.616276.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Felski, Rita (2020), Hooked: Art and Attachment, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Harvey, Dennis (2005), ‘Strangers with candy’, Variety, 398:3, p. 44.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Hetrick, Laura J. (2013), ‘My desire for art education’, Studies in Art Education, 54:3, pp. 27376, https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2013.11518899.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. hooks, bell (1984), Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, Boston, MA: South End Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. hooks, bell (2015), Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Higginbotham, Evelyn B. (1993), Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Johnson, Tabora A. and Bankhead, Teiahsha (2014), ‘Hair it is: Examining the experiences of Black women with natural hair’, Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2:1, pp. 86100, http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.21010.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Kessler, Laura T. (2005), ‘Transgressive caregiving’, Florida State University Law Review, 33:1, pp. 187, https://ir.law.fsu.edu/lr/vol33/iss1/1. Accessed 19 April 2025.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Liao, Kelly Y-H., Wei, Meifen and Yin, Mengxi (2020), ‘The misunderstood schema of the strong Black woman: Exploring its mental health consequences and coping responses among African American women’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 44:1, pp. 84104, https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684319883198.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Lawrence-Lightfoot, Sara and Davis, Jessica H. (1997), The Art and Science of Portraiture, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Lawrence-Lightfoot, Sara (2005), ‘Reflections on portraiture: A dialogue between art and science’, Qualitative Inquiry, 11:1, pp. 315, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800404270955.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Lawton, Pamela (2017), ‘Hunting for Hunster: A portrait of Thomas Watson Hunster, art education pioneer in the District of Columbia’, Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research, 58:2, pp. 10014, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2017.1292385.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Lee, Cameron (2022), ‘Annalise Keating argues her way out of stereotypes’, InLight Magazine, https://web.archive.org/web/20200811091737/http://www.inlightmagazine.org/annalise-keating. Accessed 29 November 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Lei, Joy L. (2003), ‘(Un)necessary toughness? Those “loud Black girls” and those “quiet Asian boys”’, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 34:2, pp. 15881, https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2003.34.2.158.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. MacDonald, Abbey (2017), ‘A diptych of dilemma: Becoming an artist and a teacher’, International Journal of Education Through Art, 13:2, pp. 16377, https://doi.org/10.1386/eta.13.2.163_1.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Muhs, Gabriella G. and Flores Niemann, Yolanda (2012), Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Perlow, Olivia, N. (2018), ‘Gettin’ free: Anger as resistance to white supremacy within and beyond the academy’, in O. N. Perlow, D. I. Wheeler, S. L. Bethea and B. M. Scott (eds), Black Women’s Liberatory Pedagogies: Resistance, Transformation, and Healing Within and Beyond the Academy, Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, pp. 10123.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Rudenga, Kristin J. and Gravett, Emily O. (2019), ‘Impostor phenomenon in educational developers’, To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, 38:1, pp. 117, http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/tia.17063888.0038.107.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Solorzano, Daniel G. and Yosso, Tara (2001), ‘Critical race and LatCrit theory and method: Counter-storytelling – Chicana and Chicano graduate school experiences’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14:4, pp. 47195, https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390110063365.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. St John, Mariah (2016), ‘How to Get Away with Murder is defying Hollywood “norms”’, TVOvermind, 11 May, https://tvovermind.com/get-away-murder-defying-hollywood-norms/. Accessed 29 November 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Toms-Anthony, Shamar (2018), ‘Annalise Keating’s portrayal as a Black attorney is the real scandal: Examining how the use of stereotypical depictions of Black women can lead to the formation of implicit biases’, National Black Law Journal, 27:1, pp. 5978, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6wd3d4gk. Accessed 19 April 2025.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Wilson, Gloria J. and Lawton, Pamela H. (2019), ‘Critical portraiture: Black/women/artists/educators/researchers’, Visual Arts Research, 45:1, pp. 8389, https://doi.org/10.5406/visuartsrese.45.1.0083.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00196_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test