Date of Award

Spring 5-15-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Educational Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Valerie Shinas

Second Advisor

Dr. Patricia Crain de Garlace

Third Advisor

Dr. Margaret Credle Thomas

Abstract

This qualitative autoethnographic study examined how leadership was experienced, enacted, and sustained by a Black woman navigating district-level leadership within predominantly White institutional contexts. Grounded in Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Black Feminist Thought, this research centered lived experience as a site of knowledge production and employed longitudinal journaling and artifact analysis to capture leadership development as a temporal, relational, and embodied process. The study was guided by three research questions: (1) How did race, gender, and institutional structures shape leadership development and experience? (2) How were leadership identities constructed, negotiated, and sustained through self-authored narratives? and (3) How could theoretical and methodological frameworks more fully capture the lived realities of leaders of color within educational systems? Data collected between 2024 and 2026 were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and theoretically informed coding to identify patterns across time and context. Findings were organized into seven interrelated themes that illustrated leadership as navigation within predominantly White institutions, identity negotiation and emotional labor, strategic resistance and communication, leadership redefinition, relational coalition-building, preservation and sustainability, and leadership beyond institutional boundaries. Across these themes, three synthesized findings emerged: (1) leadership was structurally mediated by racialized and gendered institutional dynamics, (2) leadership operated as ongoing strategic navigation requiring adaptation, resistance, and translation, and (3) leadership sustainability was not structurally supported but had to be intentionally cultivated through preservation practices and systems design. This study contributed to leadership scholarship by reframing leadership development as a process of political and relational engagement rather than individual advancement. Methodologically, it demonstrated the rigor and analytic potential of longitudinal autoethnographic inquiry in surfacing dimensions of leadership that are often obscured in traditional research. Practically, the findings called for a reimagining of leadership preparation, organizational design, and policy to better support leaders operating within inequitable systems. Through centering the experiences of Black women as epistemic authorities, this research challenged dominant leadership paradigms and offered a more expansive, sustainable, and equity-centered vision of leadership.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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