Date of Award

5-6-2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Administration and Supervision

First Advisor

Dr. Kay A. Keiser

Abstract

The ongoing underrepresentation of Black women in PK–12 principalships and district-level leadership roles impacts equitable representation in educational decision-making spaces and the opportunities for students to see leaders who reflect and affirm their identities. Existing research highlights barriers such as hypervisibility and invisibility (Alfred, 2018), isolation, stereotype threat, and limited mentorship (Dumas, 2022; Julien, 2019), and yet these experiences may not be connected to leadership theory in ways that honor the resilience, cultural knowledge, and transformative practices Black women enact. This study addresses that gap through an autoethnographic examination of a personal leadership journey as a Black woman in PK–12 education.

Grounded in Blackgirl Autoethnography (Boylorn, 2013a, 2013b; Brown, 2013; Love, 2012), Intersectionality, Counter-Storytelling, Endarkened Storywork, and the framing of #BlackGirlMagic (Mfuko, 2024; Mims et al., 2024), this research positions lived experience as legitimate data and challenges deficit-oriented narratives. Through critical reflection, inherited memory, and engagement with ancestral and communal wisdom, leadership development is situated within a broader historical and cultural lineage of Black women educators. It illuminates how identity, spirituality, community networks, and cultural meaning-making shape leadership practice, decision-making, and resilience within systems that simultaneously depend on and marginalize Black women’s leadership.

A central theme identifies #BlackGirlMagic as both possibility and pressure naming brilliance, adaptability, and spiritual grounding while exposing the costs of constant readiness in compliance-driven environments. The study reveals strategies for sustaining wholeness while navigating racialized and gendered expectations, disrupting normative constructions of professionalism, and translating equity commitments into action. Implications extend beyond individual narrative, calling for educational systems to reimagine how leadership is cultivated, evaluated, and supported. Centering Black women’s voices as leaders is not merely a matter of representation but of justice and institutional transformation. This work offers a culturally grounded, reflective model of leadership that affirms Black women’s knowledge as essential to the future of educational equity.

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