File(s) not publicly available
Troubling reflexivity: the identity flows of teachers becoming mothers
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 11:22 authored by Rachel ThomsonRachel Thomson, Mary Jane KehilyThis paper explores the transition to first-time motherhood as experienced by a small sub-sample of women engaged in the professional care of young children. In the context of a wider study of motherhood in the UK, their experience of combining work with new motherhood was distinctive. Women who professionally care for young children present a counter-narrative to the view that teaching and motherhood can be blended. Negotiating the boundaries between work and motherhood produced a troubling reflexivity in which difficult feelings emerged and collided. Working in urban education involves emotionally intense forms of attachment that are disrupted by pregnancy. Becoming a mother prompts a renegotiation of professional and personal boundaries, leading women to pursue mothering as a separate enterprise, marked by individual solutions to care and career. Separating themselves from their working environment, women simultaneously isolate themselves from their middle-class counterparts who pay for childcare and return to work.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Gender and EducationISSN
0954-0253Publisher
Taylor & FrancisExternal DOI
Issue
3Volume
23Page range
233-245Department affiliated with
- Education Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes