Chapter 20: Doctoral Support Spaces: A Narrative About a Black Woman’s Learning Journey

Black doctoral students often experience marginalization and professional learning and developmental challenges that stem from their minoritized status in society (Gay, 2004; Gildersleeve et al., 2011). “Seeing ‘another’ as a critical affirming act of seeing one’s self has mattered, particularly in communities of those whose voices have been marginalized in and by society” (Haddix, 2016, foreword by Carothers, p. viii). Additionally, “when those affirming images are not there, too often, one is left to defend, deny, deflect, disown, discount, or even destroy because their own identities and experiences within the spaces they find themselves are often muted and invisible” (p. viii). I am my Black students. I too am familiar with being one of two or three Black students in a teacher education classroom. Navigating graduate school is a lonely road. In the next section, I provide an overview of the becoming teacher educators (BTE) literature relevant to a discussion of teacher educator learning and professional development in doctoral community support spaces. Then, I describe the informal professional learning spaces I experienced at a university-based literacy teacher education doctoral program at a predominantly White university in the southern United States. I then explain how these experiences shaped and influenced my learning and development as a Black female literacy teacher educator.