• The Parent Track
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The Parent Track

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Provides an in-depth understanding of diverse parenting experiences at different phases of the academic career in Canada. The anthology not only captures a comprehensive understanding of parenthood...
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  • 24 February 2017
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The Parent Track provides an in-depth understanding of parenting in academia, from diverse perspectives—gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation—and at different phases of a parent’s academic career. This collection not only arrives at a comprehensive understanding of parenthood and academia; it reveals the shifting ideologies surrounding the challenges of negotiating work and family balance in this context. 
Earlier research on parenting has documented the ways in which women and men experience, and subsequently negotiate, their roles as parents in the context of the workplace and the home. Particular attention has been paid to the negotiation of familial and childcare responsibilities, the division of labour, the availability of family-friendly policies, social constructions of motherhood and fatherhood, power relations, and gender roles and inequality. Studies on the experience of parenthood within the context of academia, however, have lacked diversity and failed to provide qualitative accounts from scholars of all genders at varying points in their academic careers who have, or are planning to have, children. This book addresses that gap.

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Price: $43.99
Pages: 296
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Imprint: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publication Date: 24 February 2017
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781771122412
Format: Paperback
BISACs: EDUCATION / Philosophy, Theory & Social Aspects
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If finding work-life balance in academia is, at the best of times, a stretch, then finding work-life balance as caregivers to both classrooms and children seems a near-impossibility. The essays in this collection walk the line between realism and despair, and I found myself nodding in recognition at some of the impossible demands that both family and academia place on us as individuals. I laughed at the rueful self-deprecation of the authors as they acknowledge their own failures to walk those lines well. I felt the pull of the academy’s imperative to produce alongside the affective pull of my home and the people in it. And yet, somehow, these essays brought both comfort and hope. Reading them felt both affirming and galvanizing.
Christina DeRoche is an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology at Nipissing University, North Bay. Her areas of research are special education, special needs, and family relations. She recently published an article on how parents seek out labels in education to afford opportunities for their children.|Ellie Berger is an associate professor of sociology at Nipissing University, North Bay. Her research focuses on age, gender, and work. She has published in the Gerontologist, Canadian Journal on Aging, Journal of Aging Studies, and Age Matters: Re-Aligning Feminist Thinking. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Ageism at Work: Negotiating Age, Gender, and Identity in the Discriminating Workplace.

On Overlaps and Bleeds: A Foreword / Amber E. Kinser

Preface: Pregnant publications pause: Pursuing motherhood and the tenure track / Elizabeth Koblyk

Introduction: Parenting as a Choice or Dilemma / Christina DeRoche and Ellie D. Berger



Part One: Foundational Narratives

Unanswered and Lingering Questions / Christina DeRoche

Work–Family Balance?: A Challenging Yet Rewarding Journey through Gendered Academia / Ellie D. Berger



Part Two: Making the Big Decision

Conversations with Women: Mothers and Academics / Erin Careless

Academia, My Mother and Me: Reflections on Intergenerational Emotional Geographies of Academic Parenting / Sara L. Jackson

Patchwork Academia / Sarah Milmine

Motherhood and Graduate Studies: The Untold Stories of Summer Residency / Melissa Corrente

I’ve Been to Me / Jennifer Barnett



Part Three: Parenting within Academia: Friend or Foe?

Fatherhood and the Ph.D.: Time Management, Perfectionism, and the Question of Value / Geoff Salomons

Going In and Coming Out: Understanding Ourselves as Mama Scholars / Lisa J. Starr and Kathleen M. Bortolin

Longing to Belong: Parenting and Self Realization within Academia / Ilka Luyt

“Dad and Mom Do Not Want to Get Zeroes”: Parenting in Academia / Mildred Tsitsi Masimira

Of Diapers and Comprehensives: A Feminist Exploration of Graduate-Student-Mothering in the Academy / Anita Jack-Davies

He Told Me Babies Sleep: Expectations and Realities about Maternity Leave Productivity / Tarah Brookfield

Legacy and Vulnerability: Queer Parenting in the Academy / Sarah R. Pickett

Surviving Parenthood and Academia: Two Professionals Striving to Maintain Work-Life Balance / Rose Ricciardelli and Stephen Czarnuch

Parent-Student, Student-Parent: A Tale of Two Roles / Kevin Black



Part Four: Ongoing Negotiation in Academia

Navigating Role Conflict in Pursuit of an Academic Career: A.k.a. “You will get used to it” / Jane E. Barker

Engaging Academia as the Nest Empties / Timothy Sibbald

Juggling Fatherhood, Child Disability, and Academia / John Beaton

Hopeful Intrusions: Moments as Both a Dad and a Professor / David Long

A Bridge Too Far? The Elephant in the Ivory Tower: Parenting and The Tenure Track / John Hoben

Baby Step by Baby Step: That Was the Way to Do It! / Michelann Parr



About the Authors

Index