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Purpose – This chapter examines the cultural resources that enable Black single mothers in the United States to handle the burdens of poverty while parenting. Through a Black feminist theory lens, the convergence of the historical traditions, practices and institutions within the Black community are examined as to how they enable Black women to effectively care for their families. Additionally, the cultural strengths of the Black community are highlighted to further elucidate how they help Black women resist the hegemonic perceptions of Black single mothers as unfit.

Methodology – To explain the cultural resources leveraged by Black women in poverty to raise their families, qualitative analysis of the existing peer-reviewed literature focusing on a range of topics specific to the Black community and family were utilized. The United States Census Bureau data were used to describe the target population and to better inform the overall analysis.

Findings – Despite the stereotypes and obstacles faced by single Black mothers in poverty, characteristics specific to the Black community, and Black women in particular, have enabled them to establish communities, networks, and environments that help them care for and raise their children.

Social implications – Attention to the sociohistorical experiences of the Black community and family must be paid in order to understand single-mother family formation within the Black community. Moreover, greater understanding of the cultural strengths of the Black community must be acknowledged in order to better comprehend how single Black women living in poverty are able to effectively sustain families and defy stereotypes.

Originality/value of chapter – Previous analyses of families headed by low-income Black women have often taken a negative, if not judgmental, approach. This analysis takes a different approach. In addition to exploring the structural and historical origins of families headed by low-income Black women, it highlights the strengths born out of the cultural practices and traditions of the Black community and family.

Whiteness. We appropriate the word to erase it. We laugh – ha, ha – whiteness. I begin with my experiences as a white, upper-middle class girl raised up in a racist and racialized educational system. This authoethnography revolves around an epiphanic moment resulting from the impact of years of involvement in this system. I look at various ways educational practices that are meant to alleviate pain, inequity, and a legacy of racism can function to allow white people to distance ourselves from the ugliness of privilege, silence criticism, perpetuate inequity, and, ultimately, limit human growth and connection.

This chapter focuses on the career paths of African American women in collegiate athletics. Through a review of literature and policy analysis, three overarching themes emerged and is the focus of this chapter: (1) challenges and barriers African American women encounter in pursuing careers in collegiate athletics with a particular focus on extant inequities of African American women in administrative and head coaching positions; (2) professional sport development programs tailored to improve career opportunities for African American women and other minorities; and (3) strategies to alleviate challenges and barriers African American women endure in collegiate athletics.

Purpose – There are many unknowns about the obstacles as well as the resilient characteristics that vulnerable youth possess as they engage in the transition to adulthood. This chapter seeks to address some of these unknowns.

Methodology/approach – This chapter is based on qualitative interviews with 60 youths residing in a homeless shelter and follow-up interviews with 39 of these youths after they left the shelter.

Findings – This chapter presents the difficult life histories of these youths and how these histories affect their ability to successfully transition into adulthood. Youths reported elevated levels of instability, most often due to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as parental drug abuse, poverty, and transience. From these experiences, youths learned to rely only on themselves for support and believe resiliently in their own ability to achieve their goals. However, when located after they had left the shelter, many were still struggling mightily to achieve these goals. Post shelter, the most stable group of participants was women with children and many young mothers spoke evocatively about the support and motivation given to them by their children.

Research limitations/implication – This chapter is limited by its small, nonrandom sample. Future research on the transition to adulthood would benefit from analyzing the transition for youths with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Originality/value of paper – The sample population and the use of qualitative, longitudinal data make this paper an important contribution to the broader transition to adulthood literature as well as the growing sociological literature on homeless youth.

In this chapter, we dismantle the current educational rhetoric that pervasively characterizes Black children as being at-risk, deficient, or underachievers. Instead, we replace this deficit-oriented rhetoric with one that encapsulates the cultural and educational excellence that inspires Black children to reach their potential. First, we provide an overview of the current educational landscape for Black children and articulate by whom and how Black children are being educated. Next, we then define educational success and excellence within the context of an African-centric perspective of holistic development and wellness. Then, we highlight programs, schools, and approaches that have been successful in educating Black children. Finally, we identify key principles and guidelines in educating Black children that will have educational, research, and policy implications.

We explore how K-8 student scholars experience culturally relevant texts provided during Freedom Schools summer camps, discuss ways Freedom Schools can be a vehicle for youth to become advocates for social change, and consider opportunities created by Freedom Schools for community engagement and partnerships. Mixed methods were used to investigate the experiences of 38 scholars at two different Freedom Schools sites (one rural and one mid-sized urban) in the southeastern U.S. The majority of scholars identified as African American and lived in low-income households. Primary data sources included scholar surveys and reading assessments, camp observations, and interviews with scholars, as well as our own personal reflections as the Research Director (Alysia Roehrig) and Co-Executive Directors (Kristal M. Clemons and Keely Norris) for the sites. We triangulated descriptive statistics from surveys with qualitative data, primarily from interviews, which we analyzed using open coding and axial coding to develop themes (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The majority of scholars, who participated in the 2016 North Florida Freedom Schools, reported being able to identify with specific characters and situations in the books included in the culturally relevant reading summer program, and they expressed positive thoughts and feelings about the books. Most scholars (74%) maintained or gained in instructional reading levels and did not experience summer learning loss. Children’s confidence that they could act prosocially also increased significantly during the summer camps, which children characterized as different from regular school. Freedom Schools can offer a valuable forum for diverse community members to learn about one another, focus on their strengths, and become agents for social change. We provide suggestions for how other communities can implement the Freedom Schools model.

This paper examines the treatment of women in Caribbean news media, their visibility in relation to men, the news topics covered and the issues that influence the inclusion or exclusion of women in the news.

The work is based on a quantitative content analysis. Data and analyses focus on the 2015 findings of a regional and global longitudinal study entitled ‘Who Makes the News’, conducted every 5 years since 1995 by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), with active Caribbean participation. It is mainly the results of the 2015 Caribbean content analysis that is presented and considered here against the background of the prior data gathering cycles. On a single day, March 25, 2015, 120 newspapers, radio and television stations, internet and twitter news sites across the Caribbean region and globally were monitored for content and treatment by gender, across seven news topic categories.

The study found a continuing under-representation of women in news coverage, but on a differentiated basis by topic category, among others. Overall, there was a regional average of 28% of women in the news compared with 72% of men. However, while this confirmed a consistent gender disparity throughout the 20-year lifespan of the study, the 2015 results for the Caribbean reflected a three percentage points narrowing of the gap in favour of women when compared to 2010.

The empirical study on which the paper is based is only a snapshot in time and may not reflect the nuances that a broader data gathering timeframe and additional data gathering could provide. It also does not offer qualitative data on the definitive reasons for the results, leaving a basis for informed but nevertheless only conjectural author analyses as to reasons. At the same time, the longitudinal nature of the study allows for well-founded inferences associated with past findings and now predictable trends.

The findings and analyses in this paper disclose a continuing disparity that invites practical measures at the level of news organizations and journalists to redress the imbalance.

The results and analysis lend support to advocacy for greater gender balance in news coverage, more respect for female newsmakers and better newsroom coverage planning and inclusive policy-making.

The study shines a light on an important area of disparity in public life, but does so with the support of multi-country statistical and multi-year longitudinal data. It provides a yardstick by which changes in media overage can be measured and monitored over time.