‘Educated and educating as a Black woman’ – an auto/biographical reflection on my grandmother’s influence on my academic and professional outcomes

ABSTRACT

Adopting an auto/biographical approach, I discuss the impact my grandmother, Nana Elizabeth (Lizbet) Beyie had on the academic and career outcomes of myself and other female descendants. The paper begins with an exploration of Lizbet’s biography and how she overcame struggles in terms of ensuring my mother’s education in an era and context where female education was not prioritised. Following this, the paper moves to a focus on my continuation of Lizbet’s legacy though my work in academia. I reflect on my career journey and positive and challenging experiences, as a Black female academic. I discuss the value of an auto/biographical approach to exploring these issues, since it enables reflections on the relationships between structural issues (e.g. racism/sexism; the education system; Ghanaian/British society) and personal experience/action as a result, not least our decision to help educate the next generations and allows for the voices of marginalised groups (including Black women) to be heard.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional labour
• culturally relevant support
• academic legacies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Excerpt from my forthcoming research paper ‘Great Expectations’ A case study exploration of attainment and impacts on employability levels of Black and Minority ethnic students in a post-1992 University (2018).

2 Attaining 1st/2.1 significantly impact on the representation of the subject area, university and students’ graduate employability, which also bears on a University/Programme’s league table place.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Louise Owusu-Kwarteng

Dr Louise Owusu-Kwarteng is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader in Sociology and combined honours degrees at the University of Greenwich, has taught at this institution since 2005. Recently she also became Director of Undergraduate Research in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Prior to this, on completing her Masters’ degree in Social Policy, she worked as a community development officer at Oxford City Council. Louise was then seconded from Oxford City Council to the Community Cohesion Unit at the Home Office, where she worked alongside government advisors such as Ted Cantle and Baroness Paola Uddin to facilitate political engagement amongst marginalised groups in the North West, North East and parts of the Midlands. Before moving to Oxford, Louise was an advocate for children at risk of school exclusion from inner city schools in Nottingham.