The Double-Edged Sword: Coping and Resiliency Strategies of African American Women Enrolled in Doctoral Programs at Predominately White Institutions

The pursuit of a doctoral degree can be extremely challenging, as evidenced in the average doctoral student attrition rate, which is anywhere from 40 percent to 50 percent.¹ Of those who remain, African Americans earned only 6.1 percent of the doctorates awarded in the 2006–7 academic school year, despite making up 13 percent of the population.² While these statistics are discouraging, a more encouraging picture is often painted about black women, who earn approximately 65.6 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded to African Amer-icans.³ Because African American women are earning more doctoral degrees than African American men, it is assumed that they are succeeding, and their experience at predominately white institutions (pwis) is often ignored.⁴ This is dangerous because despite their higher graduation rates African American women have been found to be the most dissatisfied and isolated students on pwi campuses.⁵ Consequently, research literature focusing specifically on African American women attending pwis is infrequent.⁶ This suggests that despite their ability to succeed academically, they are facing a variety of obstacles that are often overlooked. We conducted this study to explore the experiences of African American women doctoral students at pwis, and this manuscript, as part of a larger study, focuses specifically on strategies that African American women use to persist academically and cope in doctoral programs at pwis.⁷

In spite of research that has identified the negative effects of isolation, exclusion, and marginality, African American graduate students at pwis continue to report experiences shaped by these obstacles.⁸ With African American women being the most dissatisfied and isolated students on pwi campuses,⁹ these negative effects are even more concerning for them. Several studies address the experiences of African Americans students at pwis,¹⁰ and others explore strategies to overcome barriers to success at pwis.¹¹ However, the research literature that focuses specifically on African American women enrolled in pwis is scarce.¹²

Additionally, there is limited research available on the unique experiences of African American doctoral students at pwis and even less on the experiences of African American women.¹³ The lack of knowledge of the black woman’s doctoral experience is an example of the unique challenges faced by black women, which have been routinely ignored and excluded from the discussion of student experiences.¹⁴ This study aims to give voice to the unique experiences of black women in doctoral programs at pwis.

Theoretical framework

African American women have unique experiences that are shaped by the intersection of race, gender, and class.¹⁵ Consequently, we used a theoretical research lens that could appropriately explain and comprehend the experiences of black women in order to capture their stories in a genuine and authentic manner.¹⁶ We used black feminist thought (bft) as a theoretical foundation and an interpretive lens.

The theoretical constructs of black feminist thought access feminist and critical theories, while leaving room for the unique perspectives of African American women.¹⁷ Critical theory challenges dominant-group thinking and emphasizes experiential knowledge.¹⁸ This theory focuses on the effects of racism, while transforming oppressive conditions as men and women begin to gain a sense of who they are.¹⁹ Similarly, feminist theory places an emphasis on women’s experiences and challenges traditional male ideology, which has dominated thinking and research.²⁰ The bft theoretical framework is founded in both feminist and critical race theories as a way to understand and validate the experiences of black women in their creation of knowledge.²¹ bft combines many tenets from critical race theory and feminist theory but recognizes that the intersection of race, gender, and class is often overlooked, which causes the experiences of black women to often be left out of both the previously mentioned theoretical frameworks. In 2005 Moore, Madison-Colmore, and Smith argued that African American women might be the most targeted group for racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression.²²

Some of the major tenets that we used throughout the study are...