Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant, Ed.D.
Visiting Scholar
Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant is a visiting scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) for the 2013-2014 academic year while on sabbatical from her position as professor of women's studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. She holds an AB in English literature from Bryn Mawr College, an MA in Africana Studies from Cornell University, and an Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Dr. Beauboeuf-Lafontant is a feminist sociologist with interests in racialized gender, embodiment, girlhood, and alternative femininities. Her research, which has been published in Teachers College Record, The Urban Review, Meridians, Gender & Society, and Qualitative Sociology, has examined teachers’ negotiations of race and gender in their identities and pedagogy, and the incorporation of feminine standards of goodness into the body and psyche. The latter is most recently investigated in her book, Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman: Voice and the Embodiment of a Costly Performance (Temple University Press: 2009).
During her time at WCW, Dr. Beauboeuf-Lafontant is working on a book manuscript focused on the rise of the “school girl” and the “college woman” as social identities, and their developmental and ethical impact on the lives and work of a group of Progressive Era social reformers.
