Joanne Kilgour Dowdy
and
Sunny Marie Birney
The Journey of Economic Literacy & Self Sufficiency is a narrative project illuminating the historical legacy of entrepreneurship, self-employment and the collective economics within the Black community, particularly in the lives of women of African descent in the diaspora (i.e. in the United States and the Caribbean). Implementing an Afrocentric and Womanist contextual lens, this study had as its purpose 1) documenting the journeys of specific independent business women, 2) uncovering the literacy skills they employed and implemented, and 3) describing the support networks they relied upon personally and professionally. The qualitative data collection methods utilized in this project were informed by Seidman (1995) and Lincoln and Guba (1985). |
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Author bios |
Joanne Kilgour Dowdy is an associate professor of adolescent/adult literacy at Kent State University. She is a trained actor, with a Juilliard degree, who has performed on stage and television in Trinidad and the United States. Dr. Kilgour Dowdy has pursued scholarship that integrates the performing arts with literacy studies in various educational settings, including schools, museum and communities. Her most recent publications include Readers of the Quilt: Essays on Being Black, Female and Literate, which was nominated for an Ed Fry book award by the National Reading Conference, and PH.D. Stories: Conversations with My Sisters, to be released in Spring, 2007, by Hampton Press. She can be reached at jkilgour@kent.edu Sunny-Marie Birney is a doctoral student at Kent State University. She is studying Curriculum & Instruction as it relates to Multicultural & International Education, particularly the historical and contemporary dimensions of African-centered Education. Ms. Birney’s major areas of research are examining the pedagogy of African-American women educators and the grassroots, community-based & spiritual organizations that have supported their educational traditions. Birney ’s participation in the field of education includes home-schooling her children, starting an educational consulting firm, teaching in the public school system, and instructing in a liberal arts college environment. |