Outside looking in: Gendered roles and the wellbeing of working student mothers studying for a part-time PhD

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Cronshaw, S orcid iconORCID: 0000-0002-9004-823X, Stokes, P and McCulloch, A (2023) Outside looking in: Gendered roles and the wellbeing of working student mothers studying for a part-time PhD. Higher Education Quarterly. ISSN 0951-5224

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Abstract

This article contributes to the growing evidence base on well-being in doctoral study. It draws on 35 qualitative, in-depth interviews to explore how the well-being of an understudied group - working doctoral student mothers - is affected when undertaking part-time PhDs. Whilst there is a growing literature on the research student experience and an increased awareness of mental health issues in doctoral study, there has been little exploration of the experiences of part-time PhD students. Moreover, this is particularly true of mothers undertaking doctorates on a part-time basis. The experiences of this sub-group of research students constitutes the gap to which this paper responds. It explores the consequences of having to straddle a number of competing domains and examines how the gender role conflict, marginalisation and lack of support experienced by doctoral student mothers impacts on their psychological, physical and social well-being. The article concludes with a number of recommendations which institutions may wish to consider.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: wellbeing; working student mothers; gender equality; doctoral study; part-time; 1301 Education Systems
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions: Liverpool Business School
Publisher: Wiley
Date of acceptance: 17 September 2023
Date of first compliant Open Access: 24 October 2023
Date Deposited: 19 Sep 2023 11:05
Last Modified: 04 Jul 2025 16:30
DOI or ID number: 10.1111/hequ.12471
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/21507
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