Intersectionality, Race-Gender Subordination, and Education

In this chapter, we unpack intersectionality as an analytical framework. First, we cite Black Lives Matter as an impetus for discussing intersectionality’s current traction. Second, we review the genealogy of “intersectionality” beginning with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s formulation, which brought a Black Studies provocation into legal discourse in order to challenge existing antidiscrimination doctrine and single-axis theorizing. The third, and most central, task of the chapter is our account of intersectionality’s utility for social analysis. We examine some of the issues raised by the metaphor of the intersection and some of the debates surrounding the concept, such as the tension between fragmenting and universalizing perspectives mediated by the notion of “strategic essentialism.” Fourth, we review how education researchers have explained race and gender subordination in education since Ladson-Billings and Tate’s Teachers College Record article. We conclude with some remarks concerning future research on intersectionality.