Congratulations to Stephanie Gumbs-Bennett who on Thursday, April 18, 2024, confidently and successfully defended her dissertation. The title of Stephanie’s dissertation is: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF BLACK WOMEN SUPERINTENDENTS’ USE OF CRITICAL SPIRITUALITY AS LEADERS.
African American women comprise only 1.4% of superintendents leading school districts in the U.S. (Grogan & Nash, 2021). These professionals face challenges to their leadership driven by systemic inequities deeply embedded in traditional leadership perceptions regarding race and gender, and are contending with being undervalued and overlooked, overwhelming exhaustion, stress, burnout, strain on the health and well-being, and unfair job expectations (Kingsberry & Jean-Marie, 2022). This begs the question: How do these women persist and prevail, seemingly against the odds? The purpose of this qualitative study was to amplify the voices of African American women superintendents by chronicling their experiences of professional advancement in public education. Drawing on Dantley’s (2003) theoretical framework of critical spirituality, this qualitative study further sought to understand the ways in which African American women used spirituality as they encountered challenges and barriers in superintendent leadership. Informed by narrative inquiry, this study collected data through multiple semi-structured interviews with African American superintendents to uncover challenges to their leadership and identify how spirituality was a strategy for overcoming challenges. The findings of the study revealed four themes: (1) Servant Leadership, prioritizing the needs of others as a “calling” for their leadership; (2) Identity Matters, how African American women leaders centered their race and gender in voicing their commitments; (3) Spiritual Leaders, the role of spirituality in their leadership; and (4) Equity Warriors, how these leaders sought to dismantle systemic educational inequities. Following a discussion of these findings, this study provides recommendations for local school districts and leadership professional development programs.
Dissertation Committee Chair:
Dr. Susan V. Iverson
Dissertation Committee Members:
Dr. John Shekitka
Dr. Chinasa Elue
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