ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two related dilemmas that surfaced in study participants' narratives: the pressure to operate as authoritarian disciplinarians, and the expectation to serve as father figures. It explores the masculinist confrontations with Black male students that challenged study participants' patriarchal authority and masculine credibility. The expectations for Black men in teaching to act as surrogate fathers, much like the expectations surrounding their disciplinary identities and practices, are pervasive but underexplored. Contrary to pervasive expectations of Black student responsiveness to Black male father figures, four participants cited their paternal-like, authoritative status as the very cause for student backlash. Student compliance with women teachers and student defiance of male instructors marked two important obstacles to the legitimacy of their authority: the predominance of women authority figures in the lives of their Black students, and the emotional and psychological resentment harbored by some Black students towards absent fathers.
