A Teacher/Mother’s Journey Toward Liberation: An Autoethnographic Account

Through my first professional decade as an educator, I simultaneously raised a daughter with special needs. The journey into motherhood challenged what I thought I knew about teaching and learning. This compelled me to move inwards and (re)connect with my body through Yoga. This way of being shifted my ontology and epistemology from positivist into a more interpretive critical standpoint. Researching this shift, I was drawn to autoethnography. It allowed me to understand the socio-cultural context of education in a deeper, more nuanced manner. Weaving the personal and the professional ultimately allowed me to understand the impact of these shifts on my professional identity and classroom practice. Using Freire (1970) and hooks (1994), I draw closer to the potential for liberation in education by placing my own liberation at the center of my practice. My intention in this research is to move more deeply into liberation and to offer my experiences towards the possibility of collective benefit.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Faculty of Education

Department dc:contributor.department

Department of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies in Education

Grantor

Brock University

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Raithby, Melissa

• Autoethnography
• Critical Pedagogy
• Motherhood
• Embodiment
• Neoliberalism

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10464/17828

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:brocku.scholaris.ca:10464/17828