“Navigating Early Motherhood in Hawai‘I”: Korean American Mothers’ Early Parenting Experiences

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Families as Social Context

Abstract

This study examines early motherhood experiences of Korean American mothers in Hawai‘i during the first year after childbirth, focusing on how caregiving and place based adaptation shape early parenting as educational practice within complex social contexts. Grounded in educational anthropology, it centers maternal narratives as spaces where cultural knowledge, caregiving, and identity are negotiated and shaped over time. By framing early caregiving as foundational to education, the study challenges dominant frameworks that overlook immigrant caregiving experiences. It highlights how Hawai‘i’s unique social, cultural, and geographic environment informs these practices and decisions. This research broadens understandings of education by recognizing everyday mothering as a critical site for care, identity formation, and cultural engagement rooted in place and community.

Author

• Shin Ae Han, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa