Identity Intersectionalities, Mentoring, and Work-Life (Im)Balance

Educators (Re)Negotiate the Personal, Professional, and Political

Katherine Cumings Mansfield, Anjalé D. Welton, Pei‐Ling Lee, Katherine Cumings Mansfield, Anjalé D. Welton, Pei-Ling Lee

• Publisher: Information Age Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781681235554
  9781681235561
• eBook ISBN:
  9781681235578
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

Identity matters. Who we are in terms of our intersecting identities such as gender, race, social class, (dis)ability, geography, and religion are integral to who we are and how we navigate work and life. Unfortunately, many people have yet to grasp this understanding and, as a result, so many of our work spaces lack appropriate responses to what this means. Therefore, Identity Intersectionalities, Mentoring, and Work-life (Im)balance: Educators (Re)negotiate the Personal, Professional, and Political, the most recent installment of the work-life balance series, uses an intersectional perspective to critically examine the concept of work-life balance.

In an effort to build on the first book in the series, that focused on professors in educational leadership preparation programs, the authors here represent educators across the P-20 pipeline (primary and secondary schools in addition to higher education). This book is also unique in that it includes the voices of practitioners, students, and academics from a variety of related disciplines within the education profession, enabling the editors to include a diverse group of educators whose many voices speak to work-life balance in unique and very personal ways.

Contributing authors challenge whether the concept of work-life balance might be conceived as a privileged –and even an impractical-endeavor. Yet, the bottom line is, conceptions of work-life balance are exceptionally complex and vary widely depending on one's many roles and intersecting identities. Moreover, this book considers how mentoring is important to negotiating the politics that come with balancing work and life; especially, if those intersecting identities are frequently associated with unsolicited stereotypes that impede upon one's academic, professional and personal pursuits in life.

Finally, the editors argue that the power to authentically 'be ourselves' is not only important to individual success, but also beneficial to fostering an institutional culture and climate that is truly supportive of and responsive to diversity, equity, and justice. Taken together, the voices in this book are a clarion call for P-12 and higher education professionals and organizations to envision how identity intersectionalities might become an every-day understanding, a normalized appreciation, and a customary commitment that translates into policy and practice.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Identity Intersectionalities, Mentoring, and Work–Life (Im)Balance
• Identity Intersectionalities, Mentoring, and Work–Life (Im)Balance: Educators (Re)Negotiate the Personal, Professional, and Political
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION: Why a Book on Identity Intersectionalities, Mentoring, and Work–Life (Im)Balance?
• 1: TRANSGRESSING BOUNDARIES OR REMAPPING TERRAIN?: Where Culture, Disability, Work, and Home Inhabit the Same Space
• 2: A TALE OF TWO PROFESSORS: Navigating Work–Life Balance in a Dual Academic Career Household
• 3: CONFLICTING IDENTITIES, WORK–LIFE CHALLENGES, AND STEREOTYPE THREAT AMONG DIVORCED CATHOLIC FEMINIST MOTHERS
• 4: WORK–LIFE BALANCE FROM AN AFRICAN-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE
• 5: THE COOL KIDS
• 6: “IF NOT AT UNIVERSITY, THEN WHERE?”: Toward Intentionally Welcoming a Woman-Mother-Scholar
• 7: LIVING ON THE HYPHEN: Intersectional Identities and the Eternal Quest for Integrated Lives and Careers
• 8: DISABILITY AND THE PRIVILEGES OF THE PROFESSORSHIP
• 9: GLASS CEILINGS IN A HOUSE OF CARDS
• 10: KEEPING ON THE ACADEMIC TRACKS: Promoting Wellness in the Face of Potential Derailment
• 11: “WHY DO I NEED TO LEARN TO ‘COPE?’”: How Racial Stress Becomes a Woman-of-Color Problem Rather Than an Institutional One
• 12: HIGHLIGHTING THE BRIGHT SIDE: Pioneer Arab Women in Israeli Higher Education
• CHAPTER 13: An Autoethnographic Exploration of an African American Male Professor Who Stutters
• 14: “SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?”: Women Doctoral Students Make Sense of Their Lived Experiences
• 15: ASIAN FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN SCHOLARS EXPERIENCE A TRIPLE THREAT TO WORK–LIFE BALANCE
• 16: “CHECK ALL THAT APPLY”: Identity, Choice, and Balance
• 17: INTERROGATING WORK–LIFE BALANCE DISCOURSES: An Alternative Explanation for Black, African, Female, International Students in the United States
• 18: TOWARDS A MORE SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
• 19: A MODEL FOR MENTORING NEW FACULTY MEMBERS: One College’s Approach
• 20: WOMEN SENIOR STUDENT AFFAIRS OFFICERS AT FOUR-YEAR PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS: Work–Life Integration and Mentorship
• 21: PRIMING THE PIPELINE: Meeting the Need for Mentoring of Black Females in Higher Education
• 22: INTERSECTIONALITIES OF ADVISORS AND ADVISEES: A Dialogic Parsing of Politics and Processes for Mid-Career Doctoral Students
• 23: CONCLUSION: Intersectionality as Practice: Embracing All of Who We Are in Work and Life
• ABOUT THE EDITORS
• ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS