Ebony O Mcgee
Biographic Data
| ID | 910896 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ebony O Mcgee |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ebony |
| FAMILY NAME | O Mcgee |
| SIGNATURE | MCGEE E O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vanderbilt University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0499-2620 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 251 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
STEM 's Dirty Secret: How Grit and Resilience Mask Systemic Racism
STEM fields perpetuate systemic racism under the guise of meritocracy, forcing Black, Latino, and Indigenous students—particularly women—to endure racialized stress, institutional exclusion, and the psychological toll of weathering and racial battle fatigue. This paper argues that narratives of “grit” and “resilience” individualize these systemic failures, pathologizing rational responses to hostile environments as personal deficits like “imposte…
Women of Color Administrators: Entering, Disrupting, and Changing Higher Education Engineering Ecosystems
The purpose of this qualitative study is to highlight the trajectory of Women of Color (WoC) administrators in a key STEM discipline: engineering. WoC are underrepresented in higher education, representing fewer than 10% of administrators. Through this study, we provide a nuanced perspective on how the presence of WoC administrators change and potentially disrupt the space typically dominated by men. Drawing upon stereotype management and social …
Blackwomen in STEM entrepreneurship: Networking toward an equitable future
Purpose Within the business landscape, shaped by systemic barriers, Blackwomen in STEM are increasingly entering and navigating complex entrepreneurial pathways. This study explores the distinct networking practices that support Blackwomen in their STEM ventures. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a phenomenological approach to social network theory, we analyze semi-structured interviews with 21 Blackwomen founders to illuminate how these entre…
Black and (E)raced: Socializing high-achieving Black students to minimize racism
Dying to Succeed: Unveiling the (Un)Hidden Toll of Academic Advancement for Black Women
As a Black woman recovering engineer, I shine a light on the damaging effects of racial stereotypes in academia, notably on Black women scholars. The unchecked emphasis on relentless pursuit of traditional academic excellence often results in profound negative consequences. Drawing from personal experiences and illuminating case studies of high-achieving Black women who met tragic ends prematurely, I underscore the pervasive systemic educational …
Mixed reviews on diversity initiatives: Toward an institutional change model for Black faculty in engineering and computing
Introduction Universities across the United States have implemented initiatives to enhance diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, focusing on improving outcomes for racially minoritized students. While many diversity initiatives target undergraduate programs, there is a gap in support for STEM graduate students. Recognizing the persistent underrepresentation of racially diverse populations in STEM, the Biden…
Wage Disparities in Academia for Engineering Women of Color and the Limitations of Advocacy and Agency
The devaluation of women of Color (WoC) by way of gender discrimination and systemic racism is well documented. For WoC in engineering a chief cause is the observable wage gap. Women who identify as Asian, Black/African American, Latina/Chicana, Indigenous/Native American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Native Alaskan, and/or multiracial have reported stark wage disparities. In this paper, we offer a phenomenological study of how WoC engineer…
Interrogating the Relationship between Racial Activism and Academic Career Interest among STEM Doctoral Students
Purpose: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are not known for producing a high number of racial activists. On the contrary, scientific discourse often traffics in race-neutral language and ideologies, all the while producing racist science and technologies. This research explored the relationship between racial activism and academic career intentions of underrepresented and racially minoritized (URM) STEM doctoral stu…
How do Black engineering and computing doctoral students analyze and appraise their (depleted) STEM diversity programming
Purpose Local and national U.S. programs focused on diversifying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in academia and industry have created academic pathways for Black Engineers. However, most STEM diversity programs in doctoral education typically end or availability significantly decreases. This absence leaves little or limited guidance during the challenging process of completing this terminal degree and seeking employment.…
Development and Validation of the Workplace Climate and Persistence Scale for STEM Faculty Framed in Intersectionality of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Background
Accelerating Racial Activism in STEM Higher Education by Institutionalizing Equity Ethics
Background/Context: The United States invests in STEM education, but this investment is racialized and political. The country wants to maintain global economic domination, but there are also calls to diversify the STEM workforce (Baber, 2015; Basile & Lopez, 2015; Vakil & Ayers, 2019). This context leaves Black and Brown people to navigate racially hostile, toxic, and oppressive STEM learning and working environments (Bullock, 2017; Erete et al.,…
How women of colour engineering faculty respond to wage disparities
Women of Color (WoC) engineering faculty in higher education differ in their approaches to coping with inequities and salary disparities. This study draws upon McGee's Stereotype Management [McGee, E. O. 2016. “Devalued Black and Latino Racial Identities: A By-Product of College STEM Culture?” American Educational Research Journal 53 (6): 1626–1662; McGee, E. O. 2020a. Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation. Cambr…
Factors contributing to Black engineering and computing faculty’s pathways toward university administration and leadership
Trends in the underrepresentation of women of color faculty in engineering (2005–2018)
How Black Engineering and Computing Faculty Exercise an Equity Ethic to Racially Fortify and Enrich Black Students
U.S. universities are fraught with institutional barriers that challenge Black faculty members’ ability to thrive in academia, while they also make attempts to broaden access and participation in fields like engineering and computing. The diversity-related service requested of Black faculty members can negatively complicate their chances for tenure and promotion. This qualitative research centers on the narratives of 39 Black faculty members in e…
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism intersects imagination, technology, the future, and liberation – a way of imagining possible futures through a Black/Afrocentric cultural lens. science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and occupations are designed to attract White men who are heterosexual, abled-bodied, Christian or atheist, and at least middle class. The STEM practices that breed a Eurocentric White male norm are framed to ignore how they pr…
Racism camouflaged as impostorism and the impact on Black STEM doctoral students
Black doctoral students in engineering and computing fields experience racialized stress, as structural racism in STEM takes a toll on their sense of belonging and acceptance as intellectually competent in comparison to White and some Asian peers and faculty. Black doctoral students are often told by campus administrators that the source of this racialized stress is impostorism and it is curable. In this article, we employ phenomenological analys…
Fear, fuel, and fire: Black STEM doctoral students’ career decisions during the Trump presidency
President Trump’s education policies continue to marginalize Black STEM students at the highest levels of education. Responding to a survey on their racialized educational experiences and future career trajectories, an ethnically diverse group of Black STEM doctoral students expressed anxiety about trying to pursue a STEM career during the Trump presidency. Their responses reflected their heightened sense of urgency to be change agents for racial…
Risk, Protection, and Identity Development in High‐Achieving Black Males in High School
The resilience of high-achieving Black male students is often overshadowed in scholarly literature by narratives of deficit, disorder, and disdain that position Black males as particularly vulnerable in educational spaces. This study builds from two prior analyses of a group of mathematically high-achieving Black males living in high-poverty urban communities and attending underresourced schools during their middle school years and focuses on the…
Interrogating Structural Racism in STEM Higher Education
The racialized structure of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) higher education maintains gross inequities that are illustrative of structural racism, which both informs and is reinforced by discriminatory beliefs, policies, values, and distribution of resources. Thus, an examination into structural racism in STEM is needed to expose the marginalization of underrepresented groups in STEM and to improve understanding of the STEM …
The agony of stereotyping holds Black women back
Black Mathematics Educators: Researching Toward Racial Emancipation of Black Students
The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM
We examine the experiences of 3 high-achieving Black undergraduate and graduate women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Our findings reveal that structural racism, sexism, and race-gender bias were salient in the women's STEM settings. These experiences were sources of strain, which the women dealt with in ways that demonstrate both resilience and trauma. We discuss how their experiences might motivate institutions to o…
The Equity Ethic: Black and Latinx College Students Reengineering Their STEM Careers toward Justice
This article describes the study of career aspirations of high-achieving black and Latinx undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) students and uncovers a concern for helping others—an equity ethic. A lack of racial and ethnic diversity persists in STEM education and industries; consequently, the inspiration of black and Latinx students in STEM warrants exploration. Data were collected from 38 black and Latinx STEM stude…
Black engineering students’ motivation for PhD attainment: Passion plus purpose
Purpose Much of the extant research, practice and policy in engineering education has focused on the limited persistence, waning interest and lack of preparation among Black students to continue beyond the post-secondary engineering pipeline. However, this research suggests that many Black PhD students persist and succeed in engineering, fueled by various motivational strengths. To better understand the motivations of Black students in engineerin…
You Would Not Believe What I Have to Go Through to Prove My Intellectual Value!” Stereotype Management Among Academically Successful Black Mathematics and Engineering Students
Stereotype management is introduced to explain high achievement and resilience among 23 Black mathematics and engineering college students. Characterized as a tactical response to ubiquitous forms of racism and racialized experiences across school and non-school contexts, stereotype management emerged along overlapping paths of racial, gender, and mathematics identity development. Interviews revealed that although stereotype management facilitate…
Interrogating Structural Racism in STEM Higher Education
The racialized structure of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) higher education maintains gross inequities that are illustrative of structural racism, which both informs and is reinforced by discriminatory beliefs, policies, values, and distribution of resources. Thus, an examination into structural racism in STEM is needed to expose the marginalization of underrepresented groups in STEM and to improve understanding of the STEM …
Devalued Black and Latino Racial Identities: A By-Product of STEM College Culture
At some point most Black and Latino/a college students—even long-term high achievers—question their own abilities because of multiple forms of racial bias. The 38 high-achieving Black and Latino/a STEM study participants, who attended institutions with racially hostile academic spaces, deployed an arsenal of strategies (e.g., stereotype management) to deflect stereotyping and other racial assaults (e.g., racial microaggressions), which are partic…
The burden of being “model: Racialized experiences of Asian STEM college students
Understanding Black Male Mathematics High Achievers from the Inside Out: Internal Risk and Protective Factors in High School
Colorism as a Salient Space for Understanding in Teacher Preparation
In this article, we posit the salience of colorism as an important aspect of race in the knowledge construction and preparation of teachers. Although many more teacher education programs across the United States have begun to infuse aspects of race into their curricula, there is sparse literature about the role of colorism in teacher preparation and its potential impact. This article explicitly focuses on darker-skinned students, who experience t…
Risk and Protective Factors in Mathematically Talented Black Male Students: Snapshots From Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade
Within urban elementary schools are Black students who continue to challenge the normative deficit characterization of the educational opportunities of students like them. This study attempts to provide a more holistic picture of the scholarly trajectories of 13 African American males who are particularly talented in mathematics and who attended urban schools. PVEST to used to explore stage-specific outcomes to identify dynamic and situational ri…
The Equity Ethic: Black and Latinx College Students Reengineering Their STEM Careers toward Justice
This article describes the study of career aspirations of high-achieving black and Latinx undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) students and uncovers a concern for helping others—an equity ethic. A lack of racial and ethnic diversity persists in STEM education and industries; consequently, the inspiration of black and Latinx students in STEM warrants exploration. Data were collected from 38 black and Latinx STEM stude…
Entertainers or education researchers? The challenges associated with presenting while black
How black faculty experience presenting their research in educational venues within the context of historical objectification of black people as sources of entertainment is an underexplored topic in higher education research. Presenting research has far-reaching implications for black academics' advancement, such as future employment and opportunities for research collaboration. Thus, how black faculty are perceived while presenting has significa…
Black Parents as Advocates, Motivators, and Teachers of Mathematics
Ebony McGee, Margaret Beale Spencer, Black Parents as Advocates, Motivators, and Teachers of Mathematics, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 84, No. 3, Out-of-School Time and African American Students: Understanding the Health, Environmental, and Social Determinants of Academic Success (Guest Editors: Nadine Finigan-Carr and Yolanda Abel) (Summer 2015), pp. 473-490
How Black Engineering and Computing Faculty Exercise an Equity Ethic to Racially Fortify and Enrich Black Students
U.S. universities are fraught with institutional barriers that challenge Black faculty members’ ability to thrive in academia, while they also make attempts to broaden access and participation in fields like engineering and computing. The diversity-related service requested of Black faculty members can negatively complicate their chances for tenure and promotion. This qualitative research centers on the narratives of 39 Black faculty members in e…
Black engineering students’ motivation for PhD attainment: Passion plus purpose
Purpose Much of the extant research, practice and policy in engineering education has focused on the limited persistence, waning interest and lack of preparation among Black students to continue beyond the post-secondary engineering pipeline. However, this research suggests that many Black PhD students persist and succeed in engineering, fueled by various motivational strengths. To better understand the motivations of Black students in engineerin…
Threatened and Placed at Risk: High Achieving African American Males in Urban High Schools
Racism camouflaged as impostorism and the impact on Black STEM doctoral students
Black doctoral students in engineering and computing fields experience racialized stress, as structural racism in STEM takes a toll on their sense of belonging and acceptance as intellectually competent in comparison to White and some Asian peers and faculty. Black doctoral students are often told by campus administrators that the source of this racialized stress is impostorism and it is curable. In this article, we employ phenomenological analys…
Black Mathematics Educators: Researching Toward Racial Emancipation of Black Students
Dying to Succeed: Unveiling the (Un)Hidden Toll of Academic Advancement for Black Women
As a Black woman recovering engineer, I shine a light on the damaging effects of racial stereotypes in academia, notably on Black women scholars. The unchecked emphasis on relentless pursuit of traditional academic excellence often results in profound negative consequences. Drawing from personal experiences and illuminating case studies of high-achieving Black women who met tragic ends prematurely, I underscore the pervasive systemic educational …
Fear, fuel, and fire: Black STEM doctoral students’ career decisions during the Trump presidency
President Trump’s education policies continue to marginalize Black STEM students at the highest levels of education. Responding to a survey on their racialized educational experiences and future career trajectories, an ethnically diverse group of Black STEM doctoral students expressed anxiety about trying to pursue a STEM career during the Trump presidency. Their responses reflected their heightened sense of urgency to be change agents for racial…
Trends in the underrepresentation of women of color faculty in engineering (2005–2018)
You Would Not Believe What I Have to Go Through to Prove My Intellectual Value!” Stereotype Management Among Academically Successful Black Mathematics and Engineering Students
Stereotype management is introduced to explain high achievement and resilience among 23 Black mathematics and engineering college students. Characterized as a tactical response to ubiquitous forms of racism and racialized experiences across school and non-school contexts, stereotype management emerged along overlapping paths of racial, gender, and mathematics identity development. Interviews revealed that although stereotype management facilitate…
Threatened and Placed at Risk: High Achieving African American Males in Urban High Schools
Risk and Protective Factors in Mathematically Talented Black Male Students: Snapshots From Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade
Within urban elementary schools are Black students who continue to challenge the normative deficit characterization of the educational opportunities of students like them. This study attempts to provide a more holistic picture of the scholarly trajectories of 13 African American males who are particularly talented in mathematics and who attended urban schools. PVEST to used to explore stage-specific outcomes to identify dynamic and situational ri…
Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing, and the Pathway to Liberatory Praxis
Long‐standing theoretical education frameworks and methodologies have failed to provide space for the role mental health can play in mediating educational consequences. To illustrate the need for such space, Ebony McGee and David Stovall highlight the voices of black undergraduates they have served in the capacities of teacher, researcher, and mentor. Building from the theoretical contributions of intellectual giants like Frantz Fanon and W. E. B…
Entertainers or education researchers? The challenges associated with presenting while black
How black faculty experience presenting their research in educational venues within the context of historical objectification of black people as sources of entertainment is an underexplored topic in higher education research. Presenting research has far-reaching implications for black academics' advancement, such as future employment and opportunities for research collaboration. Thus, how black faculty are perceived while presenting has significa…
Understanding Black Male Mathematics High Achievers from the Inside Out: Internal Risk and Protective Factors in High School
Black Parents as Advocates, Motivators, and Teachers of Mathematics
Ebony McGee, Margaret Beale Spencer, Black Parents as Advocates, Motivators, and Teachers of Mathematics, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 84, No. 3, Out-of-School Time and African American Students: Understanding the Health, Environmental, and Social Determinants of Academic Success (Guest Editors: Nadine Finigan-Carr and Yolanda Abel) (Summer 2015), pp. 473-490
Black engineering students’ motivation for PhD attainment: Passion plus purpose
Purpose Much of the extant research, practice and policy in engineering education has focused on the limited persistence, waning interest and lack of preparation among Black students to continue beyond the post-secondary engineering pipeline. However, this research suggests that many Black PhD students persist and succeed in engineering, fueled by various motivational strengths. To better understand the motivations of Black students in engineerin…
Devalued Black and Latino Racial Identities: A By-Product of STEM College Culture
At some point most Black and Latino/a college students—even long-term high achievers—question their own abilities because of multiple forms of racial bias. The 38 high-achieving Black and Latino/a STEM study participants, who attended institutions with racially hostile academic spaces, deployed an arsenal of strategies (e.g., stereotype management) to deflect stereotyping and other racial assaults (e.g., racial microaggressions), which are partic…
The burden of being “model: Racialized experiences of Asian STEM college students
Colorism as a Salient Space for Understanding in Teacher Preparation
In this article, we posit the salience of colorism as an important aspect of race in the knowledge construction and preparation of teachers. Although many more teacher education programs across the United States have begun to infuse aspects of race into their curricula, there is sparse literature about the role of colorism in teacher preparation and its potential impact. This article explicitly focuses on darker-skinned students, who experience t…
The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM
We examine the experiences of 3 high-achieving Black undergraduate and graduate women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Our findings reveal that structural racism, sexism, and race-gender bias were salient in the women's STEM settings. These experiences were sources of strain, which the women dealt with in ways that demonstrate both resilience and trauma. We discuss how their experiences might motivate institutions to o…
The Equity Ethic: Black and Latinx College Students Reengineering Their STEM Careers toward Justice
This article describes the study of career aspirations of high-achieving black and Latinx undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) students and uncovers a concern for helping others—an equity ethic. A lack of racial and ethnic diversity persists in STEM education and industries; consequently, the inspiration of black and Latinx students in STEM warrants exploration. Data were collected from 38 black and Latinx STEM stude…
Black Mathematics Educators: Researching Toward Racial Emancipation of Black Students
Risk, Protection, and Identity Development in High‐Achieving Black Males in High School
The resilience of high-achieving Black male students is often overshadowed in scholarly literature by narratives of deficit, disorder, and disdain that position Black males as particularly vulnerable in educational spaces. This study builds from two prior analyses of a group of mathematically high-achieving Black males living in high-poverty urban communities and attending underresourced schools during their middle school years and focuses on the…
Interrogating Structural Racism in STEM Higher Education
The racialized structure of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) higher education maintains gross inequities that are illustrative of structural racism, which both informs and is reinforced by discriminatory beliefs, policies, values, and distribution of resources. Thus, an examination into structural racism in STEM is needed to expose the marginalization of underrepresented groups in STEM and to improve understanding of the STEM …
The agony of stereotyping holds Black women back
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism intersects imagination, technology, the future, and liberation – a way of imagining possible futures through a Black/Afrocentric cultural lens. science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and occupations are designed to attract White men who are heterosexual, abled-bodied, Christian or atheist, and at least middle class. The STEM practices that breed a Eurocentric White male norm are framed to ignore how they pr…
Racism camouflaged as impostorism and the impact on Black STEM doctoral students
Black doctoral students in engineering and computing fields experience racialized stress, as structural racism in STEM takes a toll on their sense of belonging and acceptance as intellectually competent in comparison to White and some Asian peers and faculty. Black doctoral students are often told by campus administrators that the source of this racialized stress is impostorism and it is curable. In this article, we employ phenomenological analys…
Fear, fuel, and fire: Black STEM doctoral students’ career decisions during the Trump presidency
President Trump’s education policies continue to marginalize Black STEM students at the highest levels of education. Responding to a survey on their racialized educational experiences and future career trajectories, an ethnically diverse group of Black STEM doctoral students expressed anxiety about trying to pursue a STEM career during the Trump presidency. Their responses reflected their heightened sense of urgency to be change agents for racial…
Factors contributing to Black engineering and computing faculty’s pathways toward university administration and leadership
Trends in the underrepresentation of women of color faculty in engineering (2005–2018)
How Black Engineering and Computing Faculty Exercise an Equity Ethic to Racially Fortify and Enrich Black Students
U.S. universities are fraught with institutional barriers that challenge Black faculty members’ ability to thrive in academia, while they also make attempts to broaden access and participation in fields like engineering and computing. The diversity-related service requested of Black faculty members can negatively complicate their chances for tenure and promotion. This qualitative research centers on the narratives of 39 Black faculty members in e…
How do Black engineering and computing doctoral students analyze and appraise their (depleted) STEM diversity programming
Purpose Local and national U.S. programs focused on diversifying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in academia and industry have created academic pathways for Black Engineers. However, most STEM diversity programs in doctoral education typically end or availability significantly decreases. This absence leaves little or limited guidance during the challenging process of completing this terminal degree and seeking employment.…
Development and Validation of the Workplace Climate and Persistence Scale for STEM Faculty Framed in Intersectionality of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Background
Sociology (29 works) · Political science (24 works) · Gender Studies (22 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Gender Studies (16 works) · Higher Education Research Studies (15 works) · Pedagogy (15 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Career Development and Diversity (14 works) · Racism (14 works)