Date

5-22-2024

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)

Chair

Lucinda Spaulding

Keywords

Women faculty in academia, Mothers in academia, Perinatal experiences of women faculty, Challenges facing women faculty in academia, Maternity, Perinatal period, Women faculty success, Mercer, Bronfenbrenner, Postpartum in academia, Working mothers

Disciplines

Higher Education | Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the meaning women faculty in academia in the United States ascribe to their perinatal experiences and how these experiences affect the integration of their academic and maternal identities and outlook on continuing in the academy. The theories guiding this study were Mercer's theory on becoming a mother and Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model. The study was comprised of 10 women who became a mother with their first child within the last seven years of the study's initiation while holding a faculty position in academia that included teaching, scholarship, and service responsibilities while pregnant and during the first nine months postpartum. Data collection methods included questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and a letter-writing exercise. Data analysis was founded upon van Manen's hermeneutic approach and supplemented by Saldaña's data analysis and coding methods. Through cyclical coding and condensing, the data was organized into five major themes and sub-themes to capture the essence of the participants’ perinatal experiences in application to the study’s central and sub-research questions. Among the findings, two crucial implications included the need participants had for supportive relationships and institutional policies during the perinatal period, along with a recognition of the dynamic changes that occur in one’s identity of becoming a mother.

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