Date of Conferral

3-26-2025

Date of Award

March 2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Counselor Education and Supervision

Advisor

Janeé Steele

Abstract

Despite calls from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) and the American Counseling Association (ACA), counseling programs struggle to recruit and retain Black women. One contributing factor to this issue is gendered racism directed toward Black women in the counseling profession. However, the research surrounding the race-based stress (RBS) and race-based traumatic stress (RBTS) experienced as a result of encounters with gendered racism among Black women leaders in this profession remains limited. This inquiry utilized a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative methodology and the race-based traumatic stress inquiry model as a conceptual framework to explore the nature of 10 Black women leaders’ experiences with gendered racism or race-based encounters, RBS, RBTS, and their coping strategies. Ten semistructured interviews and a focus group of three were used for data collection. Thematic analysis integrated into a process rooted in hermeneutic phenomenology was used for data analysis. The findings of this study uncovered that Black women leaders in counselor education continue to experience gendered racism in the form of racial discrimination, racial harassment, discriminatory harassment, and stereotypes. Further, Black women leaders primarily cope through connection to various communities, spirituality, and boundaries. These findings could be used to help inform counselors and counselor educators on how to better recruit, retain, and support Black women in the counseling profession. Implications for positive social change include more beneficial outcomes and experiences for Black women in counselor education.

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