Publications
Publication details [#5524]
Hammill, Bobbi A. 2005. Models, maxims, and mother metaphors: Perceptions of four women regarding teaching and scholarship in the field of composition. Indiana, Penn.. 162 pp.
Publication type
Ph.D dissertation
Publication language
English
Keywords
Abstract
This qualitative investigation explores the perceptions of four women compositionists regarding mothers, teaching and scholarship in the field of composition. The researcher examines four narrative case studies about four women who have PhDs in composition from the same doctoral program. Results are not generalized to the larger population of women in the field of composition. The researcher interviewed four women with doctorates in composition during a six-month period. Methods used include constant comparative analysis and chunking, rereading of transcripts for patterns and themes, and coding of transcripts. Interview information completed the data pool. Findings indicate that each of the four women who participated in the study perceives her mother as a literacy sponsor and sees her father as a literacy doer. Participants reveal that their mothers supported their educational decisions and encouraged them to gain more education than they, themselves, had. Participants pursued a doctorate for practical reasons such as proximity, cost, job security, promotion and tenure as well as knowing someone else who had done it. Each of them also expresses self-doubt regarding her ability to write and publish academic discourse and prefers to be known as a teacher rather than a scholar even though she likes to write and publish. Three of them consider themselves to be nonfiction writers and one says she is a creative writer. The same three women write mostly for the demands of the job, but the other participant writes for self-satisfaction. Participants view teaching as an ethical responsibility much like mothering and preserve the memory of their mothers in various ways. Although participants separated from their mothers in order to pursue higher education, they still exemplified rhetorical ties to them. Findings do not indicate a specific correlation between participants and their mothers, and so further study of mother literacy and the impact of mothers on literacy needs to be conducted. Compositionists should study mother literacy because of the way mothers directly influence pedagogy and scholarship.
(Bobbi Hammill)