Contact
Biography
Current status:
PhD fulltime, ESRC-funded
Biography:
Rachel has 20 years experience teaching in primary education and the further education sector. During this time, she co-created and managed a parent involvement programme for the parents of primary pupils which focused on developing their awareness of, and skills in, supporting literacy and numeracy development in the home. She has taught across the primary age range, and has also taught and assessed on a range of programmes in the further education sector: Teaching Assistant students, HNC/D students and adult Literacy, Numeracy and Functional Skills students.
Research Topic Title:
Mothers Constructing Narratives of Primary School Homework
Research Summary:
Primary homework is commonplace in the UK. Support for it in the home setting is a gendered activity, with mothers the main parent involved. Rachel's PhD research takes a narrative approach to explore mothers' experiences of homework. It seeks to explore how mothers construct their understandings of homework and their homework role, and reveals their resulting homework narratives. Data is gathered through semi-structured interviews, films of mother-child homework interactions and stimulated participant reflection.
Research Interests:
Primary homework, mothering, parental involvement, home-school boundaries, narrative and feminist approaches, netnography
Research Supervisors:
Dr Jane Medwell https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/education/people/jane.medwell
Professor Pat Thomson https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/education/people/patricia.thomson
Primary Funding Source:
ESRC Doctoral Training Centre
Publications:
Hidden Views on Homework: Do social networking sites offer mothers cyber-agency? Doctoral Research Conference, Birmingham School of Education, November 2017 - conference proceedings
Negotiating the Ethics of Netnography: Developing an ethical approach to an online study of mother perspectives (2020), The International Journal of Social Research Methodology, vol.23 (2), pp.123-137, DOI:10.1080/13645579.2019.1634879
Good Mother, Bad Mother?: Maternal Identities and cyber-agency in the primary school homework debate (2020), Gender and Education, vol.33 (3), pp.285-305, DOI:10.1080/09540253.2020.1763920
Conference Papers and Presentations:
Hidden Views on Homework: Do social networking sites offer mothers cyber-agency? Doctoral Research Conference, Birmingham School of Education, November 2017 - paper presentation
Social Networking Sites and Mother Views on Homework: What about the ethics? Doctoral Research Conference, Birmingham School of Education, November 2017 - poster presentation
Social Networking Sites and Mother Views on Homework: What about the ethics? School of Education PGR Conference, University of Nottingham, November 2017 - poster presentation
A Netnographic Study of Mother Perspectives on Primary School Homework, School of Education PGR Conference, University of Nottingham, November 2018 - paper presentation
Whose Space, Whose Voice, Whose View?: The discourse of mothering for schooling in mother-led digital spaces, Geographies of Gender Conference, University of Winchester, January 2019 - paper presentation
"The Whole Thing is Just a Game": How do some mothers negotiate primary homework to create practices which enhance and protect their maternal identities?, ESRC MGS Conference, University of Leicester, June 2019 - paper presentation
Mothers "Playing the Game" of Primary School Homework: Maternal identities, protective practices and 'bounding' homework, Gender and Education Association (GEA) Conference, University of Portsmouth, June 2019 - paper presentation
"A Mother's Role is to Make Them Flourish": Mothers resisting, reframing and succumbing to school homework practices, Australian Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (AMIRCI) Conference, University of Sydney, July 2019 - paper presentation
'Homework is a Mother's Job': Mothers who succumb to homework and mothers who reframe it, School of Education PGR Conference, University of Nottingham, November 2019 - paper presentation
Mothers Playing the Game of Primary School Homework, School of Education PGR Conference, University of Nottingham, November 2019 - poster presentation
Mothers Supporting Primary School Homework - School of Education PGR Conference, University of Nottingham, April 2021 - Three Minute Thesis presentation
Mothers Supporting Primary School Homework - Faculty of Social Sciences Three Minute Thesis Competition, University of Nottingham, May 2021
Awards and Nominations:
Best Poster Award - Doctoral Research Conference, Birmingham School of Education, November 2017
BERA Masters Dissertation Award nominee 2018
Winner - School of Education '3 Minute Thesis' Competition 2021
Winner - Faculty of Social Sciences '3 Minute Thesis' Competition 2021
Memberships:
School of Education Athena Swan SAT
BERA - British Educational Research Association
GEA - Gender and Education Association
MIRCI - Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement
Research Summary
Doctoral Research:
Mothers' perspectives and experiences of primary school homework.