Written in Her Own Voice

The contributors to Written in Her Own Voice illuminate how gender and gender roles affect women's advancement, educational success, and life aspirations. Chapters provide thick, rich descriptions of the authors' lives, using heuristic and phenomenological inquiry as guiding theoretical frameworks. These women write about how power relations within society continue to promote exclusion and marginalization along race, gender, class, and religious lines around the globe. They examine the influences of families, communities, and societies in their educational and professional lives. This unique project has produced fascinating stories from real-life anecdotes, examining the role of families in developing one's sense of self vis-à-vis others and the role of culture and community in the development of personhood. Diasporic experiences give voice to adaptations and changes that occur when two cultures (i.e., Western and native cultures) collide. The authors courageously narrate how they find their voices amidst the noises that threaten to drown them out.

Autorentext

Dolapo Adeniji-Neill is Associate Professor of Education at the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education at Adelphi University. She is a social anthropologist, ethnographer, and social sciences educator, and an educational researcher, writer, and poet. Her research interests and work include sociological and cultural implications influencing individual and group educational opportunities in the U.S. and internationally; class and gender influences in K-12 and higher education settings; immigrant education; African philosophy, and multiculturalism. Anne Mungai is Professor of Education, Chair of the Curriculum and Instruction Department, and Director of the Graduate Special Education Program at the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education at Adelphi University. Her research agenda over the last several years has revolved around multicultural, special education inclusion, staff development, gender, and learning issues. She is the author of Growing up in Kenya: Rural Schooling and Girls (Peter Lang, 2002) and a co-editor of Pathway to Inclusion: Voices from the Field (2005) and In the Spirit of Ubuntu: Stories of Teaching and Research (2009). She is the vice-president of the Caroline W. Mungai Foundation.