We Do This Too : Black Mothers\u27 Engagements With Attachment Parenting In Britain And Canada

This thesis examines black mothers’ engagements with attachment parenting (AP), an increasingly popular parenting philosophy. AP promotes the development of secure attachment between parent (mother) and child, through practices such as breastfeeding, babywearing and bed-sharing. Coined by William and Martha Sears in the 1980s, AP has garnered increasing attention in a neoliberal context, a political rationality that centers the economic and emphasizes self-responsibility, consumption and individualism as defining features of ‘good’ citizenship. In the context of neoliberal retractions in welfare state spending, AP emerges as a particularly apt parenting philosophy as it identifies childrearing as a solution to social ills. However, AP’s emphasis on the importance of childrearing also offers the opportunity to undermine neoliberal values of economic productivity. This thesis explores this tension from the perspective of black mothers. Using a black feminist theoretical framework and drawing data from interviews conducted with nineteen black mothers living in the UK and Canada, I examine the gendered, raced and classed dimensions of AP and the broader ideology of intensive mothering it represents. I identify three themes that capture black mothers’ engagements with AP: 1) expertise, 2) belonging, and 3) the division of parenting labour and find that black mothers negotiate these themes in an effort to claim ‘good’ motherhood. In their varying interactions with AP, black mothers conform to the norms and standards set by neoliberal rationality and upend them, articulating an oppositional or resistive model of good black motherhood that centers black children’s value

Developing a Website for Hamilton Brothers Ranch

The purpose of this project is to develop a website for Hamilton Brother’s Ranch purpose is to evolve Hamilton Brother’s Ranch to modern times and make it easier for the customer to see where their product is coming from. The Hamilton Family has a long history in agriculture and what they think is normal is actually very unique and consumers love reading and feeling as if they are a part of where their food comes from. The overall goal of the project is to promote Hamilton Brother’s operation as a whole through a website that will be able to connect the consumer the products they consume. Growing up on her family’s ranch distilled a passion for agriculture at a young age for the author. She would go to work with her father and come home to do art projects with her mother. The author’s parents have been an influence in so many ways throughout her life and she treasures they engrained a mutual passion for art and agriculture. The author always wanted to mix the two passions together in a way she could promote agriculture but still add a creative twist to the more traditional agriculture world. Keeping the ranch running for years and years to come is the author’s ultimate goal in life. To obtain her goal she’s aware the ranch must evolve as a company with the changing times. A website gives people a way to reach out to the Hamilton Brothers and help respond to the hundreds of calls and emails the author’s family currently fields on their personal phones. Providing information differently can actually enable the family to pursue their ranch work with greater ease and focus as the communication for the ranch improves through the website

Breastfeeding while employed outside of the home during the first postpartum year, a grounded theory : willfully struggling to maintain daily balance

textThe purpose of this study was to examine influences on the maternal process of maintaining lactation while employed outside of home during the first postpartum year as perceived by the mother. The American Academy of Pediatrics specifies human breast milk as the best source of nutrition during the first 12 months of life (Gartner, et. al., 2005). The United States Department of Labor reports (USBLS, 2009) that 56.4% of American women who have children less than 1 year of age, are employed. Employment is often cited as related to early weaning (Johnston & Esposito, 2007; McInnes & Chambers, 2008; Nichols & Roux, 2004; Rojjanasrirat & Sousa, 2010; Stewart-Glenn, 2008; Ryan, Zhou, & Arsenberg, 2006). This research was undertaken to address a significant gap in the empirical literature regarding mothers’ self-description of the process of maintaining lactation upon return to the workplace. Eleven breastfeeding mothers shared personal perspectives of the process that they face in their everyday work lives in semi-structured interviews. This qualitative study led to the development of a grounded theory of this process, which was labeled, ‘Willfully Struggling to Maintain Daily Balance’. Findings captured personal perceptions of critical elements related to this process that may serve to inform the development of effective nursing interventions or policy in support of breastfeeding and employed mothers. The study found that the breastfeeding and employed mothers began the process with a sense of willful self-determination to combine lactation with employment, the influence of role models, and basic breastfeeding knowledge. Mothers struggled with intervening variables that either bolstered or undermined their efforts during the process, such as adequate sleep and/or breast milk supply, and elements of support or non-support. Mothers developed individual strategies for use in maintaining a daily balance between their `breastfeeding and employment efforts and for addressing any intervening variables. The employed and breastfeeding mothers ultimately found ‘a way to make it work’ and/or ‘made their peace with’ resultant outcomes. The research addressed the question of what influences the maternal process of breastfeeding while employed outside of the home during the first postpartum year in a sample of central Texas women.Nursin

National Identification and Selected Aspects of the Cayman Islands Culture

1 online resource (PDF, 52 pages). A Plan B paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree in Mass Communications from the University of Minnesota

Researching parental leave during a pandemic : Lessons from black feminist theory and relationality

In this Open Space piece, my aim is to meditate on the current moment, to draw connections between relationality and black feminist theory and to harness the strategies and tools they might offer; a praxis for living and being in the world as well as changing it. In particular, I will use my project, an intersectional examination of parental leave in the UK, as a lens through which to discover what intellectual and methodological possibilities a relational approach might offer, especially as I carry out research in a post-COVID-19 world, a world in which black lives appear to matter

Academics' experiences of networked professional learning

This paper explores academics' writing practices, focusing on the importance of digital platforms in their processes of collaborative learning. It draws on interview data from the first phase of a research project working closely with academics across different disciplines and institutions to explore their writing practices, adopting the perspective of understanding academic literacies as social practices. The paper outlines characteristics of academics' ongoing professional learning, demonstrating the importance of collaborations on specific projects in generating learning in relation to intellectual and disciplinary aspects of writing, writing strategies and structures, and using digital platforms. A very wide range of digital platforms have been identified by these academics, enabling new kinds of collaboration across time and space on writing and research; but challenges around online learning are also identified, particularly the dangers of engaging in learning in public, the pressures of 'alwayson'-ness, and the different values systems around publishing in different forums