Mothering as Epistemology: Dismantling the Traditional Framework for Parental Involvement

• In Event: Mothering as Methods: Centering Care, Storying Experience, and Re-envisioning Knowledge in Education

Abstract

Objectives:
This presentation proposes a reconceptualization of professional immigrant mothers’ parental involvement through the lens of mothering as an epistemology. Traditional models of parental involvement (Epstein, 1995, 2001) often stress a school-centric direct involvement that requires physical presence. For example, volunteering in school activities, forming committees to participate in school’s decision-making, and helping students with homework following specific instructions provided by teachers. These expectations for parental involvement represent white middle-class stay-at-home mothers and their lived realities. Thus, these traditional models fail to capture the culturally situated, nuanced, affective, and non-traditional labor-intensive practices of working immigrant mothers (Abdi & Pittman, 2024). Drawing on black feminist theory, this paper argues that mothering is not merely a set of tasks but a complex, politicized, and relational practice that challenges dominant narratives of parental involvement. By centering professional immigrant mothers’ voices and experiences, this framework reveals how their acts of care, advocacy, and resistance constitute meaningful forms of involvement, often overlooked by schools and policy.

Theoretical Framework:
This study is grounded in Collins’ (1995) conceptualization of motherwork, which serves as a critical framework for analyzing the intersections of race, gender, and maternal labor. It reframes maternal responsibilities not merely as private, domestic tasks but as vital forms of labor that sustain families and communities, particularly under conditions of racial and economic oppression (Collins, 1995, 2016).

Methodology:
I have employed collaborative action research (Mertler, 2012) to work with three Bangla speaking immigrant mothers, youths, and their teachers to understand effective ways to foster parent-school relationship that aligns with the linguistic and cultural practices of the families. The data for this presentation is part of this bigger study. Here, I will be presenting data collected from semistructured interviews with mothers and my researchers’ notes throughout the data collection process. I will be adopting mothering lens to interpret data to unveil nuanced and non-traditional ways of parental involvement that would have been otherwise invisible.

Key Findings:
Bengali immigrant mothers engage in “invisible” forms of involvement, such as inspiring youths to maintain their heritage language, cultural mediation, and emotional scaffolding.
Working immigrant mothers show indirect form of care to their youths and create trust-based opportunities for their youths while not physically present with their children.
Mothering practices for these immigrant women are shaped by transnational ties, and community-based care.

Implications:
This study underscores the significance of theorizing mothering as a critical framework for recognizing immigrant mothers not as passive participants, but as knowledgeable and resourceful contributors to their children’s educational success. Reframing parental involvement through the lens of mothering highlights the need for more inclusive and equitable educational policies. For instance, schools can adopt flexible participation models such as virtual engagement platforms to accommodate the demanding schedules of working mothers, rather than relying solely on physical presence. Furthermore, this framework calls for the development of linguistically and culturally responsive engagement strategies that affirm and integrate immigrant mothers’ language practices, values, and worldviews into the school community.

Author

• Sudhashree Girmohanta, University of Toronto - OISE