Sherelle Ferguson
Biographic Data
| ID | 4274396 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sherelle Ferguson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sherelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Ferguson |
| SIGNATURE | FERGUSON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Families USA |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8868-0287 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Care, Success, and Accountability
Teacher expectations are key predictors of student outcomes, yet how they are produced and negotiated in practice remains understudied. Drawing on ethnographic research in two progressive high schools serving low-income students of color, we show expectations function less as individually held stable beliefs than as institutionally situated judgments that are continuously produced and revised through interaction and interpretation. We identify th…
Hostile Ignorance, Class, and Same-Race Friendships
In the growing literature on upwardly mobile college students, there is evidence of students from working-class backgrounds experiencing exclusion on campus. Yet there has been insufficient attention to interactions between working-class students and their more affluent same-race friends. Drawing on 44 in-depth interviews with undergraduates from working-class backgrounds at two private universities, the authors show that Black, white, and Asian …
Ask Not What Your Mentor Can Do for You
Mentoring relationships between adolescents and adults are an important source of social capital that facilitates young people's academic and social development. Studies show that close relationships with teachers especially benefit socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents, yet little is known about teacher‐mentors’ perspectives on mentorship. This study draws on in‐depth interviews with teachers in low‐income high schools and ethnographic obs…
Taking Up Our Elders' Burdens as Our Own
The following article reports the preliminary research findings of a phenomenological assessment of the experiences of African American women ages 35 to 64, providing individual and collective advocacy supports for elder family members besieged by the contemporary forms of economic terrorism that include community redlining, predatory lending, financial fraud, housing piracy, and home foreclosure. The impetus and precedents for the actions of our…
Carrying Our Burden in the Heat of the Day”
The following article examines both the cultural and bicultural complexities of self-sacrifice as a major familial and communal demand experienced by African American1 professional women at mid-life. As a prelude to this clinical discussion, an examination of the sociological, cultural and inter-cultural dimensions of self-sacrifice are provided. To support clinical intervention and self help, a series of conceptual models, and problem solving an…
Charting Ourselves
and groups in a healthy and catalytic fashion has everything to do with how they themselves are first willing to create and gain access to support vehicles that seed self-revelation and promote their own knowledge of self in relation to others. An ongoing commitment to developing the self is paramount to the establishment of an identity that is centered and grounded. The use of same raced, gendered, dyadic relationships, sister circles, therapeut…
Ruptured Silences
This article identifies the rupture of social mores occurring when sexual identity surfaces as a topic of discussion in group therapeutic encounters for Black professional women. Two heterosexual African American female therapists provide the social historical context for resistances to public dialogue about sexual identity among heterosexual Black women. Using group scenarios to illustrate the implications of this resistance for Black female rel…
There but for the Grace of God
Within African American society, social class separation has long been a historical factor related to cultural assimilation, within group stratification and distressed relational dynamics. Moving from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, two African American female therapists share their experience of class privilege dilemmas that surface in their relationships with African American female clients. Typically, privilege intrudes and is felt as eith…
Clinical analysis of chronic dependency and help‐giving in African American female friendships
This article posits a continuum of chronic dependency behaviors as observed in African American female bonding relationships. We describe these chronic dependency behaviors and the accompanying overextension of the nurturing function as experienced by African American women within same race gender friendships. Case examples from individual and group practice provide illustrations for analysis and discussion of intervention implications
Bringing Organizational Behavior and Therapy Together
This article examines the issue of job socialization failure and its impact on the mental health of African American females of professional status. The realization of the continued "browning": and class diversification of both the therapeutic landscape and the professional labor force holds significant ramifications for therapeutic practice. Such changes dictate that therapists from all backgrounds prepare to meet the Black female professional's…
I am because we are
This article discusses the internalization of communal valuing among African American women. Interpretations of the empowering as well as the decentering consequences of developing one's identity in relationship to community are offered. Narratives drawn from the experiences of two African American female therapists in their work with Black women illustrate both the capacity for communal living as well as the suppression and subversion of communa…
Hostile Ignorance, Class, and Same-Race Friendships
In the growing literature on upwardly mobile college students, there is evidence of students from working-class backgrounds experiencing exclusion on campus. Yet there has been insufficient attention to interactions between working-class students and their more affluent same-race friends. Drawing on 44 in-depth interviews with undergraduates from working-class backgrounds at two private universities, the authors show that Black, white, and Asian …
Ask Not What Your Mentor Can Do for You
Mentoring relationships between adolescents and adults are an important source of social capital that facilitates young people's academic and social development. Studies show that close relationships with teachers especially benefit socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents, yet little is known about teacher‐mentors’ perspectives on mentorship. This study draws on in‐depth interviews with teachers in low‐income high schools and ethnographic obs…
I am because we are
This article discusses the internalization of communal valuing among African American women. Interpretations of the empowering as well as the decentering consequences of developing one's identity in relationship to community are offered. Narratives drawn from the experiences of two African American female therapists in their work with Black women illustrate both the capacity for communal living as well as the suppression and subversion of communa…
Carrying Our Burden in the Heat of the Day”
The following article examines both the cultural and bicultural complexities of self-sacrifice as a major familial and communal demand experienced by African American1 professional women at mid-life. As a prelude to this clinical discussion, an examination of the sociological, cultural and inter-cultural dimensions of self-sacrifice are provided. To support clinical intervention and self help, a series of conceptual models, and problem solving an…
Ruptured Silences
This article identifies the rupture of social mores occurring when sexual identity surfaces as a topic of discussion in group therapeutic encounters for Black professional women. Two heterosexual African American female therapists provide the social historical context for resistances to public dialogue about sexual identity among heterosexual Black women. Using group scenarios to illustrate the implications of this resistance for Black female rel…
There but for the Grace of God
Within African American society, social class separation has long been a historical factor related to cultural assimilation, within group stratification and distressed relational dynamics. Moving from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, two African American female therapists share their experience of class privilege dilemmas that surface in their relationships with African American female clients. Typically, privilege intrudes and is felt as eith…
Clinical analysis of chronic dependency and help‐giving in African American female friendships
This article posits a continuum of chronic dependency behaviors as observed in African American female bonding relationships. We describe these chronic dependency behaviors and the accompanying overextension of the nurturing function as experienced by African American women within same race gender friendships. Case examples from individual and group practice provide illustrations for analysis and discussion of intervention implications
Bringing Organizational Behavior and Therapy Together
This article examines the issue of job socialization failure and its impact on the mental health of African American females of professional status. The realization of the continued "browning": and class diversification of both the therapeutic landscape and the professional labor force holds significant ramifications for therapeutic practice. Such changes dictate that therapists from all backgrounds prepare to meet the Black female professional's…
Bringing Organizational Behavior and Therapy Together
This article examines the issue of job socialization failure and its impact on the mental health of African American females of professional status. The realization of the continued "browning": and class diversification of both the therapeutic landscape and the professional labor force holds significant ramifications for therapeutic practice. Such changes dictate that therapists from all backgrounds prepare to meet the Black female professional's…
I am because we are
This article discusses the internalization of communal valuing among African American women. Interpretations of the empowering as well as the decentering consequences of developing one's identity in relationship to community are offered. Narratives drawn from the experiences of two African American female therapists in their work with Black women illustrate both the capacity for communal living as well as the suppression and subversion of communa…
There but for the Grace of God
Within African American society, social class separation has long been a historical factor related to cultural assimilation, within group stratification and distressed relational dynamics. Moving from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, two African American female therapists share their experience of class privilege dilemmas that surface in their relationships with African American female clients. Typically, privilege intrudes and is felt as eith…
Clinical analysis of chronic dependency and help‐giving in African American female friendships
This article posits a continuum of chronic dependency behaviors as observed in African American female bonding relationships. We describe these chronic dependency behaviors and the accompanying overextension of the nurturing function as experienced by African American women within same race gender friendships. Case examples from individual and group practice provide illustrations for analysis and discussion of intervention implications
Ruptured Silences
This article identifies the rupture of social mores occurring when sexual identity surfaces as a topic of discussion in group therapeutic encounters for Black professional women. Two heterosexual African American female therapists provide the social historical context for resistances to public dialogue about sexual identity among heterosexual Black women. Using group scenarios to illustrate the implications of this resistance for Black female rel…
Charting Ourselves
and groups in a healthy and catalytic fashion has everything to do with how they themselves are first willing to create and gain access to support vehicles that seed self-revelation and promote their own knowledge of self in relation to others. An ongoing commitment to developing the self is paramount to the establishment of an identity that is centered and grounded. The use of same raced, gendered, dyadic relationships, sister circles, therapeut…
Taking Up Our Elders' Burdens as Our Own
The following article reports the preliminary research findings of a phenomenological assessment of the experiences of African American women ages 35 to 64, providing individual and collective advocacy supports for elder family members besieged by the contemporary forms of economic terrorism that include community redlining, predatory lending, financial fraud, housing piracy, and home foreclosure. The impetus and precedents for the actions of our…
Carrying Our Burden in the Heat of the Day”
The following article examines both the cultural and bicultural complexities of self-sacrifice as a major familial and communal demand experienced by African American1 professional women at mid-life. As a prelude to this clinical discussion, an examination of the sociological, cultural and inter-cultural dimensions of self-sacrifice are provided. To support clinical intervention and self help, a series of conceptual models, and problem solving an…
Ask Not What Your Mentor Can Do for You
Mentoring relationships between adolescents and adults are an important source of social capital that facilitates young people's academic and social development. Studies show that close relationships with teachers especially benefit socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents, yet little is known about teacher‐mentors’ perspectives on mentorship. This study draws on in‐depth interviews with teachers in low‐income high schools and ethnographic obs…
Hostile Ignorance, Class, and Same-Race Friendships
In the growing literature on upwardly mobile college students, there is evidence of students from working-class backgrounds experiencing exclusion on campus. Yet there has been insufficient attention to interactions between working-class students and their more affluent same-race friends. Drawing on 44 in-depth interviews with undergraduates from working-class backgrounds at two private universities, the authors show that Black, white, and Asian …
Care, Success, and Accountability
Teacher expectations are key predictors of student outcomes, yet how they are produced and negotiated in practice remains understudied. Drawing on ethnographic research in two progressive high schools serving low-income students of color, we show expectations function less as individually held stable beliefs than as institutionally situated judgments that are continuously produced and revised through interaction and interpretation. We identify th…
Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · African american (3 works) · Counseling Practices and Supervision (3 works) · Law (3 works)