The Cultural Significance of “We-Ness”: Motivationally Influential Practices Rooted in a Scholarly Agenda on Black Education

In this article, we introduce the umbrella construct of “we-ness” to unite a broad array of researchers seeking to design motivationally supportive learning environments for Black students. Drawing from a variety of culturally informed perspectives both inside and outside of the psychology discipline, we outline the cultural significance of (1) Freedom Dreaming (2) Stressing the Communal “Why,” (3) Re-membering, and (4) Steering and Voicing. We explain how these motivationally influential practices are essential for acknowledging and leveraging students’ cultural assets in learning contexts, and for supporting students’ development as community leaders and change agents. We propose questions for future research on we-ness in educational psychology and suggest communally engaged methodological approaches that are crucial for advancing school-based partnerships that focus on the we-ness experiences of historically marginalized populations. We end by situating the study of we-ness in a broader set of assumptions that can guide future equity-focused research inquiry on motivation and social processes.