Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant

Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant is a womanist social scientist who researches everyday and embodied experiences of racialized gender. Her published work has examined the impact of cultural notions of womanhood on the identities and pedagogy of Black women teachers committed to social justice. Several articles as well as her 2009 monograph, Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman: Voice and the Embodiment of a Costly Performance (Temple University Press), investigate the socio-cultural expectation of being strong and the ways it undermines contemporary Black women’s physical and emotional wellbeing. Her work has appeared in Teachers College Record, Meridians, The Urban Review, the Journal of Teacher Education, Girlhood Studies, Qualitative Sociology, and Gender Society. She is currently completing a book on the educational philosophy of Howard University’s Dean of Women, Lucy Diggs Slowe. A pioneering early 20th century student affairs professional, Slowe encouraged a co-curricular philosophy of “living abundantly” among her women students.