Transformative Motherscholarship and Art: Public Pedagogies of Childhood

This book considers the identity of the motherscholar, a mother who draws from their practice of mothering to inform their art and scholarship and from their scholarship to inform how they mother.

By considering the identity of the motherscholar the contributors from the Canada, Finland, India, and the USA work to reconceptualize feminist approaches to childhood research and uncover formerly invisibilized public pedagogies of childhood. Through theoretical research, visual art, stories and oral histories, the contributors explore how their fused identities affect and multiply structural and interpersonal transformation in homes, in communities, and in pedagogical spaces. They describe a mother as a self-identifying or non-binary person with caregiving responsibilities including but not limited to biological mothers, adoptive mothers, stepmothers, alloparents, grandmothers, mothers who are childless, mothers who are grieving, and mothers who are experiencing infertility.

Georgina Badoni is Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at New Mexico State University, USA.

Shana Cinquemani is Department Head and Graduate Program Director for the Department of Teaching and Learning in Art and Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA.

Elizabeth Garber is Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of Arizona, USA.

Marissa McClure is Professor of Art Education and Women’s and Gender Studies Affiliate Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.