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Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2025-05
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Educational Leadership
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https://doi.org/10.34944/b1ta-ph95
Abstract
Students in master’s programs who are also caring for children under twelve years old are an understudied population. Accommodations they frequently need, like additional absences and extended time on assignments, are not protected by federal policies and very few higher education institutions provide guidance on how to address the unmet needs of this population. The purpose of this research was to understand the experiences of this population, if those experiences are different based on one’s gender or race, and to develop recommendations for ways to accommodate these students that are fair and equitable. The method used in this study was qualitative multiple case studies with cross-case analysis. Six women and two men participated in two one-hour, semi-structured interviews describing their experiences as parenting master’s students, the challenges they encountered, and their recommendations for accommodations for graduate student caregivers. Most respondents were also working full time or part time while in school and parenting. The themes that emerged from the data indicated that students struggle with time management, childcare, inflexible instructors, group projects requiring meeting outside of school, and finances. Parenting responsibilities fell evenly across both men and women in the study, and both groups experienced stress and conflict related to trying to balance multiple roles. Some respondents felt that race was a significant factor in their experiences and others did not.
The conclusion from this research is that leadership in higher education needs to be aware of the challenges this population faces and to provide training for instructors on how to handle requests for accommodations like excused absences. Advertisement and promotion of existing resources, such as the institution’s Title IX office and lactation spaces if they exist. Additional resources recommended to support this population include access to affordable childcare or childcare stipends, better management of resource timing and allocation for students, financial support, standardizing accommodations in the course syllabus, allowing videos to be turned off temporarily in online courses, recording lectures and making the recordings available to students, limiting group projects or providing time in class to work on them, additional excused absences, priority registration, and mental health resources.
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