My research explores the experiences of mothers in higher education, with particular interest in the relationship between motherhood, learning and identity transformation. It asks what happens when the experience of becoming and being a mother intersects with participation in higher education, and how these experiences may extend beyond the individual student into family life and intergenerational relationships.
The project is particularly interested in how mothers experience and navigate higher education, the institutional, cultural and material conditions that shape their participation, and the forms of knowledge and capability that mothers may bring with them into educational spaces. It will also explore how mothers understand the influence of their education on their children, families and sense of future possibility.
My interest in this area is informed by both my professional and personal experience. Before beginning postgraduate research, I worked as a primary school teacher and entered higher education myself as a mother of two. My own experience of education as a significant period of personal and professional change led me to question how other mothers experience learning, what enables or constrains their participation, and whether the effects of mothers’ education might travel beyond the individual learner.
Through this research, I hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of mothers as a distinct and often insufficiently recognised group within higher education, while critically examining how universities might better recognise and support the complexity of studying in motherhood.
