Degrees of Difference: Reflections of Women of Color on Graduate School

Description

University commitments to diversity and inclusivity have yet to translate into support for women of color graduate students. Sexism, classism, homophobia, racial microaggressions, alienation, disillusionment, a lack of institutional and departmental support, limited help from family and partners, imposter syndrome, narrow reading lists—all remain commonplace. Indifference to the struggles of women of color in graduate school and widespread dismissal of their work further poisons an atmosphere that suffocates not only ambition but a person's quality of life. In Degrees of Difference, women of color from diverse backgrounds give frank, unapologetic accounts of their battles—both internal and external—to navigate grad school and fulfill their ambitions. At the same time, the authors offer strategies for surviving the grind via stories of their own hard-won successes with self-care, building supportive communities, finding like-minded mentors, and resisting racism and unsupportive faculty and colleagues. Contributors: Aeriel A. Ashlee, Denise A. Delgado, Nwadiogo I. Ejiogu, Delia Fernández, Regina Emily Idoate, Karen J. Leong, Kimberly D. McKee, Délice Mugabo, Carrie Sampson, Arianna Taboada, Jenny Heijun Wills, and Soha Youssef | Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Evoking My Shadow Beast:A Critical Analysis of Caretaking as a Woman of Color Doctoral Student Chapter 2. Sett bmit ragel "A Woman as Good as 100 Men": An Arab Woman's Narratives on Discrimination in and outside Academia Chapter 3. You're Going to Need a Team: Community, Mentoring, Self-Care, and Other Lessons from the McNair Scholars Program Chapter 4. Stats and Stories: The Path of One Native Scholar in the Medical Sciences Chapter 5. Disciplinary Peripheries: A Conversation between Canadian Women of Color Chapter 6. For Those Considering Medical School: A Black Queer Feminist Perspective Chapter 7. Finding Grace: An Asian American Womxn's Counterstory to Graduate School Racial Microaggressions Chapter 8. How to Help: Learning the Legacy of the Social Work Professional Epilogue Bibliography Contributors Index Back cover| Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2020 — Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2020 | Kimberly D. McKee is an associate professor in the Integrative, Religious, and Intercultural Studies Department at Grand Valley State University and the author of Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States. Denise A. Delgado received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University and works as an analyst and trainer.