Dr. Jameka Hartley earned her Ph.D. from the University of Alabama. She is a Black feminist scholar with a background as an applied researcher. She teaches and writes about issues of motherhood, popular cultural representations of Black women, child-to-adult outcomes and stigma, focusing primarily on those raised in a mother-led home.
As a trained interdisciplinarian, qualitative researcher and poet she uses a multi-method approach to capture lived experience. Her current research focuses on providing new and nuanced stories about Black single motherhood. She coined the term “mother-led home” to disrupt the stigmatized language used to describe Black mothers parenting without a partner.
Prior to receiving her doctorate, she worked as a clinical social worker supporting children, adults and their families. Her previous clinical experience as a social worker influences how she views the world, her commitment to social justice and equity and impacts her scholarly work.
She is passionate about sharing histories and telling stories that repair common misrepresentations about Black women and girls within the United States. As her mother’s daughter and her daughters’ mother, these simultaneous identities shape both her life and her scholarship.
