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This paper examines the identity talk of 30 activists from Hartford, Connecticut who work in the overlapping areas of labor, women's rights, queer organizing, anti-racism, community organizing, anti-globalization, and peace. Rather than seeing this talk as strictly a function of the collective action context, this identity talk is analyzed in terms of the multiple social influences that produce it. According to this model, activist identity can be shaped by ideologies derived from social movement culture, biographical experiences with racial, class, gender, and sexuality-based marginalization, and the cultural resources from both pre-existing and movement-based organizations. The analysis of open-ended interviews with activists reveals three somewhat distinct kinds of identity talk: ideological talk derived from either the 1960s white Left or from black nationalist traditions; biographical talk that highlights either a single dimension or multiple dimensions of marginality; organizational talk that references the mission, constituency, or organizing philosophy of the social movement organization of the activist as her/his impetus for activism. I also find that these differences in identity talk are associated with different patterns of social movement participation. This analysis challenges social movement scholars to study identity talk as a creative cultural accomplishment.

Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Poinsette Clark were two prominent late 19th- and early 20th-century educators. Cooper and Clark taught African American students in federally sanctioned, segregated schools in the South. Drawing on womanist thought as a theoretical lens, this chapter argues that Cooper and Clark’s intellectual thoughts on race, racism, education, and pedagogy informed their teaching practices. Influenced by their socio-cultural, historical, familial, and education, they implemented antioppressionist pedagogical practices as a way to empower their students and address the educational inequalities their students were subjected to in a highly racialized, violent, and repressive social order. Historical African American women educators’ social critiques on race and racism are rarely examined, particularly as they pertain to how their critiques influence their teaching practices. Cooper and Clark’s critiques about race and racism are pertinent to the story of education and racial empowerment during the Jim Crow era.

Purpose – To examine how Black mayors in majority-White cities successfully incorporate the interests of African-Americans into their overall agenda for the city and the said effectiveness of this strategy electorally.Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing data from elite interviews and local newspaper articles, we apply the theory of targeted universalism to the governing approach of Jack Ford.Findings – Mayors of color often come into office with the dual responsibility of being an advocate for their respective racial group and a leader for the city as a whole. Jack Ford, the first African-American to be elected as mayor in Toledo, Ohio, took this challenge on gladly, but with mixed success. We find that Jack Ford used his powers as mayor to improve social conditions for Blacks in Toledo, yet also faced challenges in trying to better their economic opportunities. Moreover, he failed to parlay these particularistic efforts into a second electoral victory. In this case, a targeted universalistic policy approach to advancing Black interests had limited effectiveness. The single mayoral term of Jack Ford suggests that Black executives must walk a fine line between their (assumed or expected) racial empowerment role and their duty to advance the various interests that exist among residents of their city. Hence, we find that in order to have lasting electoral success Black mayors must be acutely aware of what is expected of them by the various constituencies they serve and govern accordingly.Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.Practical implications – The chapter includes implications for the development of an effecting Black mayoral governing strategy wherein the mayor can successfully advocate for the advancement of black interests in majority-White cities with specific policy proposals and programmatic developments.Originality/value – This chapter fulfills an identified need to study the governance of Black mayors in medium-sized cities and their representation of Black interests in the majority White municipal context.

This paper critiques institutional whiteness and racial categorisation in UK higher education. This is done through the representation of the complex narratives of “mixed race” women navigating their PhD experiences in predominantly white institutions, when their identities have proximity to whiteness.

This study introduces five vignettes of “mixed race” women, gathered from a wider study of 27 PhDs and early career researchers in UK higher education. The paper employs Yuval-Davis’ framework of belonging and bell hooks' approach to chosen versus forced marginality to create a conceptual framework based on fluid agency and empowerment, recognising belonging as an ongoing process.

The findings reveal how “mixed race” women can occupy a liminal space between belonging to and rejecting racial categorisation, as they attempted to situate their self-identifications within the boundaries of institutional whiteness.

The study only utilises a small sample size of five counter-stories from a larger study on PhD career trajectories, limiting its empirical claims. It also only engages with “mixed race” women who have proximity to whiteness, encouraging research on different “mixed race” intersections.

This paper encourages more discussion around “mixed race” experiences of UK higher education and critical engagement with higher education’s reliance on statistical data to understand racialised communities.

This paper contributes new empirical insights into how whiteness is experienced when “mixed race” women negotiate their relation to it in UK higher education. It also provides theoretical advancements into understanding of institutional whiteness and critically engages with racial categorisation.

Encouraging patient involvement is a cornerstone of many healthcare interventions and decision-making models to ensure that treatment decisions reflect the needs, values, and desires of patients. Involved patients are thought to be empowered patients who feel a sense of efficacy in regards to their own health. However, there is a lack of understanding of how patients relate to empowerment and involvement and, most importantly, how these constructs relate to one another in patients’ decision-making experiences.

Through an inductive analysis, this chapter draws on qualitative interviews of women diagnosed with breast cancer prior to 40 years of age (n = 69).

By examining the intersection of how patients define their own involvement in treatment decisions and their sense of empowerment, we find four orientations to decision-making (Advocates, Bystanders, Co-Pilots, and Downplayers) with involvement and empowerment being coupled for some respondents, but decoupled for others.

Our findings suggest expanding what it means to be an “active” patient as respondents had multiple ways of characterizing involvement, including being informed or following their doctor’s advice. Our findings also suggest a more critical examination of the origins and potential downsides of patient empowerment as some respondents reported feeling overwhelmed or pushed into advocacy roles. The sample was disproportionately higher socioeconomic status with limited racial/ethnic diversity. Empowerment and involvement may be enacted differently for other social groups and other medical conditions.

By examining first-person patient narratives, we conclude that patients’ experience may not fully align with current academic or clinical discussions of patient involvement or empowerment.

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the discourses of gender empowerment in South African organisations to determine the extent to which they reify or resist the entrenched oppressive gender binaries.

Multiple case studies design and critical discourse analysis were employed to collect and analyse the data. Research entailed critical analysis of 36 published documents containing information on gender and gender empowerment. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with six transformation managers as change agents who are tasked with the responsibility of driving gender empowerment in the selected organisations.

The authors found that gender in studied organisations was insularly defined within the confines of the male–female gender binaries. Consequently, designed gender empowerment strategies and ensuing initiatives mainly focussed on promoting the inclusion of heterosexual women in and on protecting these women from heterosexual men. Thus, gender empowerment systematised heteropatriachy in organisational culture and processes while invisibilising and annihilating the possibility of existence of alternative genders outside these naturalised binaries. Transformation managers, as change agents, fell short of acknowledging, challenging and changing these entrenched ideologies of patriotic heterosexuality.

The paper uses Galting’s (1960) and Paul Farmer’s (2009) concept of structural violence and Rich’s (1980) notion of “deadly elasticity of heterosexual assumptions”, to theorise these gender empowerment discourses as constituting and perpetuating violence against queer bodies and subjectivities.

The paper recommends that corporates need to broaden their conceptions of gender and to design and entrench gender discourses that promote gender justice and equality.

This inquiry proves Joan Acker’s (2006) and Baker’s (2012) views that inequality and injustice are produced and entrenched in a reciprocal relationship between society and the workplace.

This paper focusses on constructions of gender in organisations. By doing so, it links the observed violence against women and gender binary non-conforming people in society with organisational discourses of gender that perpetuate such violence instead of challenging and changing it so that democracy can be realised for all.

There is a growing body of literature signaling the relevance of race in leadership development, but many conventional models do not prompt exploration of this social identity. The omission of race in leadership curriculum is disadvantageous for all college students, but among White student leaders, it may be a continuance of White privilege. The purpose of this constructivist study was to explore how White student leaders make meaning of their racial identity, and corresponding privilege, through a relevant leadership framework. Racial caucusing was employed as a method to prompt discussion and gather narratives from four White student leaders. Findings from this narrative inquiry study indicate how the confluences of race and leadership can advance self-awareness among White student leaders.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the growing academic literature on “post-racial” African American leadership by exploring the election and reelection of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. Johnson is emblematic of the current generation of young African American leaders: politically moderate, less likely to employ overt racial appeals, and able to assemble a multiethnic political coalition.Design/methodology/approach – This chapter utilizes a combination of semi-structured interviews and multivariate quantitative analysis of an original dataset to reveal both the diversity of the Johnson coalition and the high support for Johnson’s candidacy in Sacramento’s African American community.Findings – Johnson’s case demonstrates the durability of an explicitly moderate, reform-minded, and technocratic coalition and epitomizes the “universalized interest” approach to governance – simultaneously developing strategies to mobilize African American support and formulating public policies to advance group interests while articulating a universalized policy framework.Social implications – On the night that Barack Obama was elected president, Johnson became the first African American, to be elected Mayor of Sacramento. To do so, Johnson assembled a diverse electoral coalition that resembled the Obama coalition. However, this case study demonstrates the unique challenges facing an African American mayor in a majority white city and reveals the continuing importance of race in “post-Obama” urban politics.Originality/value – This chapter utilizes a unique dataset and rigorous methodology for analyzing voting behavior and multiracial coalition formation in American cities. The voter file data analyzed in this study remains an underutilized resource for urban scholars.

This chapter explains why college-educated Latinas, the daughters of working-class Latino immigrant parents, are disproportionately entering the teaching profession in the United States.

This qualitative study relies on secondary statistical data, an analysis of regional trends and 40 in-depth face-to-face interviews with Latina teachers that work in Southern California elementary schools.

Teaching has traditionally been a white woman’s occupation, but it is now the number one career drawing college-educated Latina women, who are entering the teaching profession at greater rates than African Americans or Asian Americans. Current scholarship posits that teaching is a career that resonates with Latina women’s racial-ethnic solidarity and feminine sense of duty to help others. In this chapter, we show how class background is also a key in understanding why the teaching profession has emerged as the top occupational niche for college-educated Latina women. While racial uplift, gender ideals, and family socialization help explain why college-educated Latinas are going into teaching, we add an emphasis on socio-economic class, demographic and structural context, and collectively informed agency.

This study sheds light on the factors that shape upward mobility and career outcomes in white-collar jobs for minority students and second generation Latinas, the children of immigrants.

This chapter offers a sociological analysis that suggests Latina teachers navigate their educational and career choices with collective-informed agency and strong obligations to family members. To best understand why Latina/Chicana college graduates are increasingly concentrated in the teaching profession, we advocate an intersectionalities approach that takes class seriously.