Scholar-Caregivers and Perinatal Mental Health: Futuring Equitable Higher Education

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session One
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT011 (Wednesday)

Abstract

Aligned with the AERA 2026 theme, Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures, this paper examines the harms and resistances of scholar-caregivers—a historically excluded population in higher education whose reproductive and academic labor remain undervalued. Drawing on ecological systems and reproductive justice frameworks, we present two in-depth case studies that illuminate how structural inequities, in conjunction with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), shape scholar-caregivers’ wellbeing, participation, and advocacy. Preliminary findings reveal that (1) scholar-caregivers with PMADs are systematically overlooked in research and policy, (2) PMADs hold profound implications for institutional culture and retention, and (3) centering scholar-caregivers’ lived perspectives is essential to transforming higher education toward equity, care, and justice.

Authors

• Alice Blecker, New York University

• Shana E. DeVlieger, NYU

• Ellen Keefe, New York University

• Robin Neuhaus, New York University

• Erin E. O'Connor, New York University