Intersectionality in Education: A Conceptual Aspiration and Research Imperative

Abstract

T he purpose of this volume is to contribute to education research by presenting comprehensive and nuanced understandings of intersectional perspectives. Researchers working within an intersectional framework try to account for the dynamic and complex ways that race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, citizenship, ability, and age shape individual identities and social life. We argue it is essential to overcome simplistic, static, one-dimensional, and additive approaches to education research by expanding the use of analytical categories and engaging the multiplicities of people's circumstances within and across teaching and learning settings. This volume is our attempt to open a space for analysis, dialogue, and reflection among scholars about intersectionality, and the possibilities of reimagining the research tools used to address the complex demographic, social, economic, and cultural transformations shaping education. Ideally, this conversation will reach audiences outside of the academy. Drawing from a long tradition of Black feminist theorizing and activism, Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989, 1991) is credited with proposing the term intersectionality as an academic concept. Intersectionality was also nurtured by the theorizing of women of color regarding race, gender, sexuality, and other forms of inequality that occurred as early as the 1960s (

Black girls speak STEM: Counterstories of informal and formal learning experiences

“…This study also contributes to the literature on Black girls and the social identities and psychological processes associated with the simultaneous racialized and gendered experiences in STEM educational settings (Ireland et al, ). Furthermore, our research reimagined the conceptual lens, methodology, and methods used to explore and present the STEM learning experiences of Black girls with authenticity, thus answering a call to account for the dynamicism, complexity, and uniqueness of those experiences across learning contexts (Tefera, Powers, & Fischman, ). The context of the community‐based program is a unique aspect of the study that informed the ways in which the girls made sense of their formal STEM learning experiences.…”

Reconceptualising system transitions in education for marginalised and vulnerable groups

“…It is evident that educators and policy makers need to consider transitions through the lens of intersectionality in order to address inequality in educational opportunity. Tefera, Powers and Fischman () trace the origin of this concept to the African‐American, feminist legal scholar Crenshaw () and define it as “the ways that class, gender, sexuality, religion, citizenship, ability and age, among other things, shape the structural dynamics of power and inequality in social space and identity” (p. viii). Although there has been a tendency in social science research to identify single factors such as socioeconomic status or race as determinants of education or health outcomes, research indicates that different factors sometimes intersect or interact to advantage or disadvantage people.…”

Moving Beyond the Paradigm Wars: Emergent Approaches for Education Research

“…Overall, the methods discussed in this volume provide evidence of the strengthening of the interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives in the field (Tefera et al, 2018). We are also hopeful that our readers will agree that the chapters in this volume reflect Latour’s (2004) particular perspective of being critical: “That is generating more ideas than we have received, inheriting from a prestigious critical tradition but not letting it die away, or ‘dropping into quiescence’ like a piano no longer struck” (p. 248).…”