Mothers in Academia

While more mothers are increasingly occupying institutions of higher learning, they still struggle to make headway in a world that privileges a commitment to countless hours of scholarly research and study. Despite some advances in institutional policy, these women continue to feel isolated and the need to strive for respect.Featuring forthright testimonials by women who are or have been mothers as undergraduates, graduate students, academic staff, administrators, and professors, this volume intimately portrays the experiences of women at various stages of motherhood while theoretically and empirically considering the conditions of working motherhood as academic life has become more laborious. As higher learning institutions move toward more corporate-based models of teaching, the immense structural and cultural changes are transforming womens academic lives and, by extension, their families. Gendered parenting is also explored within the contexts of colonialism,...

Mari Castañeda is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and the director of diversity advancement for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the coeditor of Soap Operas and Telenovelas in the Digital Age: Global Industries and New Audiences. Kirsten Isgro is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh. She has published essays in Women and Children First: Feminism, Rhetoric, and Public Policy; Fundamentalisms and the Media; Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies; and Feminist Media Studies.