Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School

College for Education and Engaged Learning

Department/Program

Teacher Education and Teacher Development

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Monica Taylor

Committee Member

Emily Klein

Committee Member

Jeremy Price

Abstract

As a secondary–level English teacher and the mother of three school-age children, I have learned that women’s knowledge and their ways of knowing (Belenky et al., 1986), specifically in relation to their roles as mothers, is marginalized in the world of PreK–12 schooling. In this qualitative study, through use of co/autoethnography (Coia & Taylor, 2013) and by way of group meetings, written reflections, and participatory arts–based data collection, I examined and documented how women’s roles as mothers impact their teaching in the patriarchal field of education, and worked to determine the ways in which women navigate this dialectical relationship in both their personal and professional lives. Framed by Matias’s (2022) concept of motherscholar and poststructuralist feminism (Ellsworth, 1989; St. Pierre, 2000; Weedon, 1987), MotherTeachers in elementary, middle, and high school came together over a ten–month period to explore their myriad identities and share their lived experiences in order to form critical understandings of what happens when the worlds of women who are both mothers and teachers converge. My findings suggested that MotherTeachers experience a continuum of tensions and contradictions in accordance with their dual caregiving identities, which are fluid, messy, and are marked by the invisible and undervalued work that has long been the work of women.

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