Black Women’s Counter-Stories of Resilience and Within-Group Tensions in the White, Patriarchal Space of Mathematics Education

This article proposes and employs a framework that characterizes mathematics education as a white, patriarchal space to analyze undergraduate Black women’s narratives of experience in navigating P–16 mathematics education. The framework guided a counter-storytelling analysis that captured variation in Black women’s experiences of within-group tensions—a function of internalized racial-gendered ideologies and normalized structural inequities in mathematics education. Findings revealed variation in Black women’s resilience through coping strategies for managing such within-group tensions. This analysis advances equity-oriented efforts beyond increasing Black women’s representation and retention by challenging the racialized-gendered culture of mathematics. Implications for educational practice and research include ways to disrupt P–16 mathematics education as a white, patriarchal space and broaden within-group solidarity, including Sisterhood among Black women.