Faculty of Education - Theses

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Start date: 2021 × Type: Doctorate × Subject: Gendering of parent-school participation × Subject: Phenomenology ×

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    The Experience of School Participation for Professional Women
    Henriksen, Joanne Lisa ( 2022)
    A significant body of contemporary education research and policy literature conveys connection between forms of parent participation and educational outcomes for children. Yet, the experience of professional women of participation in their child’s schooling remains relatively under-researched. This study focusses specifically on the nature of these women’s experiences, the factors that influence them to participate and schools’ treatment of professional women with regard to the contributions they might make. Attending to experience, the study used phenomenology to guide the investigation. The principal purpose of the study was to illuminate the lived experience of a group of professional women as participants in their child’s school. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with a group of professional women with school-aged children. Moustakas’ (1994) approach to phenomenological reduction and van Manen’s (1997) existential lifeworlds framework were used to guide the data analysis and determine the nature of the experience. The following themes emerged from the participants' stories: the experience of limited participation; the values of school participation; tensions around advocacy, expertise and power, the gendering of participation, and the perceived incompatibility of roles - the good mother and the good professional. Professional women sit at the nexus of competing demands and ideologies around motherhood alongside ideologies rooted in being a professional. The study found that the gendered nature of participatory practices marginalises the role that professional women can play in schools. These women also have knowledge and skills that could greatly benefit schools, however schools are not currently utilising this knowledge. In understanding what professional women with school-aged children experience, schools, teachers and policy makers may be better equipped to enhance the experience of participation and the value it could add to schools. Furthermore, they may become more fully aware of the ethico-politicial issues that attach to parent participation.