Dissertation title: “It’s Just Our Brilliance, Uncut and Raw”: The Transformative Power of a Black Teacher Fugitive Space
Growing concerns about antiblackness in education and the related attrition of Black teachers highlight the need for research on professional development spaces that support Black teacher retention. Drawing on ross’s (2021) notion of Black educational fugitive space, Jessica’s current research project is a longitudinal examination of how Black teachers co-create a Black teacher fugitive space, and how this space informs and supports their pedagogies and navigation of antiblackness at their school sites. Fugitivity is what Ford (2014) called the “artful escape of objectification” (p. 4), and it connotes an enslaved person who runs away from anti-Black horrors toward a freedom dream. Jessica’s research employs these notions of educational fugitivity from Black Studies to theorize how these Black-affirming places are rehumanizing and sustaining for Black teachers, offering implications for Black teacher retention.
Through ethnographic interviews of elder teachers who taught during the integration efforts of the 1960s along with today’s teachers, this research first sets the landscape of both the historical and contemporary climate for Black teachers in the Bay Area. Then, Jessica used participant observation methods to follow 20 Black teachers for a year in the Black Teacher Project (BTP), a professional development racial affinity space that she theorizes is a fugitive space. In a subsequent year, Jessica followed a subset of Black teachers from the BTP into their classrooms to study how this fugitive space impacts their pedagogies and their students’ response to them. This project thus extends research on Black teacher retention by focusing on how Black-affirming fugitive spaces can support teachers in collectively reimagining schools as sites of liberated learning for their students.
Mentoring Undergraduates in Research
Testimonial
“Having the privilege to work with Jessica as her research assistant has been an invaluable part of my educational experience. In her research praxis, Jess seamlessly integrates her personal teaching experiences with educational scholarship and Black studies; from this integration, it is evident that Jess approaches her research with unyielding devotion, compassion, and respect for highlighting the experiences of Black educators in the U.S.
From project inception to execution, Jess ensured that we were not just researchers, but truly partners with our participants in sharing their stories. Jess provided participants with multiple avenues of feedback throughout the data collection process, updating them on our research progress and allowing them to raise any questions or concerns in how their voices were being represented. Her attention to demonstrating such care for her participants was an integral component in building trust between her and her interviewees, ultimately highlighting to me the necessity of building such trust within qualitative research.
Jess was also never afraid to tackle seemingly impossible tasks and paper deadlines; instead, she met them with tenacity, grace, and thorough delegation, often going above and beyond to produce results for our stakeholders.
In our work together, Jess made me feel like a valued member of the research team. Jess’s insightful research reflections on antiblackness, fugitivity, community building, and radical hope would always push me to think critically about our own scholarship and its implications. Jess also frequently asked for my thoughts on our work and would thoughtfully incorporate my ideas and reflections into her research tasks. She provided me with crucial feedback on my own research interviewing and writing skills, and even dedicated time out of her own schedule to provide me with valuable career and personal development advice.
As a Black woman, I have found that navigating academia can be an extremely daunting task; yet, with her mentorship, Jess truly made me feel like I have a voice and space within the realm of research. Jess has my utmost praise and respect, as her tireless dedication to her work has inspired me to grow not only as a research scholar, but as a community member. The lessons Jess has shared with me will continue to inform my own research methodologies for many years to come. I have no doubt that Jess and her research have the power to transform the world of teaching, education, and Black studies.” –Tara Sullivan, Stanford Class of 2022
Publications
| Stovall, J.L., Timmons-Long, L., Rodney, T., Hall. (2023). Black Teachers’ Use of Liberatory Design to Promote Literacies of Healing. English Journal [Link to the article] |
| Stovall, J.L., Mosely, M. (2023) “We Just Do Us”: How Black Teachers Co-Construct Black Teacher Fugitive Space in the Face of Antiblackness Race Ethnicity and Education [PDF of postprint] |
| Stovall, J.L., Pimentel, D., Levine, S., Carlson, J. (2023) Early Career Mathematics Teachers’ Noticing of Inequitable Talk Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education [Link to PDF] |
| Stovall, J.L., Sullivan, Tara (2022) “Grant us the sun”: What Black teachers need. Phi Delta Kappan |
| Stovall, J.L. (2022) “Integrity Despite Moral Nonrecognition: Why Black Teachers are Called to Teach” Philosophy of Education 78 (1) 150-155 |
| Stovall, J.L. (2022) “We will not be afraid to share who we are”: Black teachers’ freedom dreams during a global pandemic Journal of Negro Education [PDF of postprint] |
| Martínez, R., Vieyra, V., Ahmad, N., Stovall, J.L. (November 2021), Prefiguring Translingual Possibilities: The Transformative Potential of Translanguaging for Dual Language Bilingual Education Sánchez, M., & García O. (Eds.) Transformative Translanguaging Espacios: Latinx students and Their Teachers Rompiendo Fronteras Sin Miedo |
Jessica Lee Stovall 