#LeadingMamas: A Visual Ethnography

This study begins to fill the void of the challenges women who are mothers face while being an educational leader. Using an emergent feminist post-structural method, this study explores how women who identify as educational leaders and mothers negotiate these identities in their everyday lives. Four participant collaborators employed visual ethnographic methods to create representations of their leader and mother identities and explored the meaning of these representations through focus groups and digital communication tools (Instagram, texting, and Facebook). The findings support other studies that suggest women struggle to meet the expectations of intensive mothering (Hays 1996). The study also reveals an associated struggle with the expectations of what we call intensive leadership. Leadership and mothering identities are not separate from one other, but rather integrated in the everyday life of women.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School Improvement

Grantor

Texas State University

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Baker, Sarah J.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Nelson Baray, Sarah
• Werner, Patrice

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Aidman, Barry J.
• Jacobs, Jennifer

• mothering
• school leaders
• ethnography

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10877/7834

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.library.txst.edu:10877/7834