Seeing the Visibly Invisible: An Intersectional Analysis of the Employee Experiences of Black Female Rural Educators

Abstract

Background/Context: Progressive human resources thinking has suggested the importance of employee experiences for workforce engagement, inclusion, and retention, but the intentional design of positive employee experiences requires a deep understanding of workers’ lived experiences in order to respond to their differentiated needs. Although the repeated marginalization of educators who are women, people of color, and from rural spaces have each received attention in their respective literature, little scholarship has intentionally studied the work lives of those who claim all three identities simultaneously. Purpose: Based on this omission, the present work employs an intersectionality analysis to seek understanding of the employee experiences of Black female rural educators across their career cycles, with the goal of helping employers better craft supportive work experiences for them. Research Design: Data are collected from semistructured phenomenological interviews with 10 rural Black principals across five school districts, who are asked to reflect on the experiences of their education career journey, from teaching to school leadership. Conclusion/Recommendations: Findings suggest that the participants’ racial, gender, role, and context identities uniquely impacted each phase of their employee life cycle and therefore require customized attention.