This qualitative critical phenomenological study describes the lived experiences of Black collegiate women student-athletes attending predominantly White institutions. The concept of exceptionalism is used to ground Black women in the context of physical performance among their peers and also to demonstrate their experiences with marginalization and oppression. Interviews and written narratives of fifteen Black woman student-athletes who attend NCAA Division I-FBS colleges or universities will be analyzed. Wilen’s (2007) critical scholarship, policies, and practices of inclusion and exclusion in recruiting are applied to the embodied lived experiences described by Moustakas (1994) to capture the circumstances and configurations of recruitment._x000D_
This dissertation will integrate Intersectionality and Organizational theories to describe the relationship of the Black woman student-athlete to her college or university. The Cynefin framework categorizes these student-athletes’ decision-making process and explains how they perceive and make sense of their recruitment. The Complex Decision-Making Framework for Intersecting Identities is the conceptual framework. The explication of the data captures the system-, process- and group-centered objectives of critical analysis. Emerging themes will reveal the emotions embedded in the decision-making process of Black woman student-athletes.