The Lived Experience of African American Women Mentors: What it Means to Guide as Community Pedagogues

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In The Lived Experience of African American Women Mentors: Community Pedagogues, Wyletta Gamble-Lomax explores the lived experiences of six African American female mentors working with African American female youth. The works of philosophers Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Edward Casey are intertwined with the writings of Black feminist scholars such as Patricia Hill Collins and Audre Lorde, while Max van Manen guides the phenomenological process with pedagogical insights and reminders. Through individual conversations with each muse, the power in care and the importance of listening in mentoring relationships is uncovered as essential components. The significance of place, the complexities of Black femininity, and the benefits of genuine dialogue are all explored in ways that bring new understanding to African American female experiences and how they connect to todays educational climate. This study concludes with phenomenological recommendations for educational stakeholders to pursue partnerships with school, family and community.

Reviews

Gamble-Lomax's work is a poignant reminder of the importance of relationships between Black women. She and her muses display powerful vulnerability as they share their pain, their joys, and ultimately their passion for mentorship, inspiring us all to be more present in the lives of Black youth. -- Kimberly Griffin, University of Maryland
Wyletta Gamble-Lomax is a "mentoring muse" personified as she lives out the metaphor she creates to "show" mentoring in its transformative potential. She "un-silences" the dialogue between African American women mentors and their African American adolescent charges through the "care-full" power of phenomenological naming. The call for "community pedagogues" sheds new light on what it truly means to care as the tension between distrust and trust is lived out in this dialogical struggle. Mentoring dwells in this poetic place between. -- Francine Hultgren, University of Maryland
Dr. Gambles work is absolutely necessary and provides a rare and much-needed glimpse into lives of Black women and how they traverse traditional and non-traditional educational spaces. She (re)centers critical voices that are often relegated to the margins and underscores these narratives with a thoughtful and rich spirit of humanity. -- Steve D. Mobley, University of Alabama

Author Bio

Wyletta Gamble-Lomax is adjunct professor at Bowie State University.