Being ‘mum’: approaching the subjectivity of mothers of disabled children as becoming to explore education inclusion and exclusion

Smith, Sharon Louise (2024). Being ‘mum’: approaching the subjectivity of mothers of disabled children as becoming to explore education inclusion and exclusion. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

ABSTRACT
This post qualitative research inquiry, which has been influenced by the researcher's own experiences as a mother of a disabled child, offers alternative ways of thinking about mothers of disabled children and the inclusion of disabled children that extend beyond the categorisation of mothers being categorised within stable subject positions, and challenges the binaries often presented within existing research exploring inclusive education. Relying on a relational process ontology, the inquiry shifts the focus from individual agency to understanding the subjectivity of mothers of disabled children as emerging through a process of co-constitution within shifting multiplicities. Specifically, this thesis explores mothers’ experiences of the inclusion of disabled children within a framework of relationality and connectivity, to map the assemblages within which parents of disabled children and pupils labelled with SEND are entangled.
Philosophy is employed as a means of research and a way of viewing the world. The onto epistemology employed underpins all aspects of the inquiry. Embracing a feminist new materialist and post humanist orientation, the thesis ‘felts’ (Springgay, 2022) philosophical and empirical research approaches as it puts theory to work. This challenges the perceived binary between philosophy and empirical research, fostering an entanglement of coemergence and co-composition. By adopting this orientation, it becomes possible to dismantle rigid boundaries that position some humans as less than, without relying on negative critique, instead offering generative and affirmative possibilities that can lead to new meanings of difference and inclusion (Naraian, 2020; Braidotti, 2009).
The methodological approach was inspired by Blanchot’s conception of conversation as ‘plural speech’ (Blanchot, 1993). This form of conversation does not seek to ‘annex the other’ or study them ‘as a thing’, instead it is conditioned by ‘a relation of infinity and strangeness’ (Bojesen, 2019:653). What matters is the movement of thought that takes place, rather than what is said or subject development. Seven mothers of disabled children were engaged in ongoing conversations over a period of 12 months, each initiating an exploration of inclusion with a chosen prompt. These ongoing conversations allowed an exploration of uncertainty, contradictions, and tensions, through which it becomes possible to think differently about maternal subjectivity and mothers' approaches to their disabled child's inclusion in education. To avoid reducing conversations to mere data to be dissected, the thesis employs the creative research methods of both collage and poetry. By entangling visual and written materials new meaning-making and knowledges emerge, enabling an affective engagement with the materiality of the subject matter. These are presented throughout the thesis as moments of disruption, intended to supplement and supplant the written narrative, as different displaced and juxtaposed elements that jostle for attention (Morgan, 2000).
The substantive chapters are presented as three theoretically informed ‘threads’ that can be woven together in different ways to explore the assemblages that mothers of disabled children are entangled within that shape possibilities for inclusion and exclusion within education. These chapters discuss disability activist affordances as a way of theorising what mothers of disabled children do, rather than who they are, the materiality of documentation and what it produces, and a more relational approach to thinking about both belonging and inclusion.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):