Conflicting roles of mother and academic? Exploring the use of arts-based self-care activities to encourage wellbeing

TY - JOUR

T1 - Conflicting roles of mother and academic?

T2 - Exploring the use of arts-based self-care activities to encourage wellbeing

AU - CohenMiller, Anna

AU - Demers, Denise

PY - 2019/9

Y1 - 2019/9

N2 - Mothers in academia (“motherscholars”), whether faculty or doctoral students, are confronted by structures and policies often impeding promotion and movement through the academic pipeline. While research has examined these struggles, such as our own research over the last few years, this study addresses these issues from a new perspective — wellbeing. Using an arts-based participatory study, this article discusses how six motherscholars (including the authors) living in the US, Kazakhstan, and New Zealand sought to alleviate their conflicting roles of mother and academic through sharing online practices and struggles through self-care activities. Findings demonstrated how collaborative encouragement, and even pressure, to focus on self-care appeared to support participants’ daily lives in and out of academia as participants became aware of themselves as individuals, beyond being a mother or an academic. Implications suggest the importance of informal support networks (especially when formal structures do not exist) for motherscholars to reduce role conflict by encouraging wellbeing through self-care.

AB - Mothers in academia (“motherscholars”), whether faculty or doctoral students, are confronted by structures and policies often impeding promotion and movement through the academic pipeline. While research has examined these struggles, such as our own research over the last few years, this study addresses these issues from a new perspective — wellbeing. Using an arts-based participatory study, this article discusses how six motherscholars (including the authors) living in the US, Kazakhstan, and New Zealand sought to alleviate their conflicting roles of mother and academic through sharing online practices and struggles through self-care activities. Findings demonstrated how collaborative encouragement, and even pressure, to focus on self-care appeared to support participants’ daily lives in and out of academia as participants became aware of themselves as individuals, beyond being a mother or an academic. Implications suggest the importance of informal support networks (especially when formal structures do not exist) for motherscholars to reduce role conflict by encouraging wellbeing through self-care.

KW - arts-based research

KW - self-care

KW - motherscholar

KW - wellbeing

KW - role conflict

KW - online research

KW - Mother in academia

KW - qualitative research

KW - gender

M3 - Article

VL - 4

JO - Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

JF - Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

SN - 2371-3771

IS - 2

ER -