2026 Conference Archive
Location
Morgan
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
Women with children are significantly less likely to complete doctoral programs than their male or non-mothering peers (National Science Foundation [NSF], 2023). This gap underscores the urgency of addressing higher attrition rates for doctoral mothers and the unique challenges that contribute to their departure from the academy. In 2022-2023, women earned approximately 58% of all doctoral degrees (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2024). In 2021, the NSF (2021a) estimated the median age of women in research doctoral programs at 31.7, with a median time to completion of 5.8 years (NSF, 2021b). A 2023 National Health Statistics Report further noted that 84.3% of women aged 40–49 had given birth, with the median age of first birth at 24.1 years (Martinez & Daniels, 2023). Put simply: for many women, child-rearing and doctoral study overlap.
This presentation draws from 744 questionnaires and 21 interviews collected in a mixed methods study on doctoral student mothers across the US. We examine how mothering doctoral students describe institutional support that sustained them and gaps where support was missing or inadequate. In doing so, we highlight promising practices and persistent barriers while offering recommendations for faculty, staff, and administrators committed to reducing attrition and creating more equitable pathways through doctoral education.
Keywords
mothering, graduate students, doctoral programs, support systems
Professional Bio
Keisha Lanier Brown is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Perimeter College at Georgia State University. She is also a PhD student in the Educational Policy Studies Department at Georgia State University. Her concentration is in Research, Measurement, and Statistics. Her scholarly and methodological interests focus on two-year colleges, student retention, the pedagogy and andragogy of statistics, program evaluation, meta-analysis, and mixed methods research. Caroline Sutton Chubb is a PhD candidate in the Educational Policy Studies Department at Georgia State University. Her concentration is in Research, Measurement, and Statistics. Her methodological interests focus on research synthesis, meta-analysis, and mixed methods research. Janie Copple is an Assistant Professor of Qualitative Research Methods in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University. Her scholarship focuses on qualitative methodologies and pedagogies, with an emphasis on post-qualitative and feminist critical materialist approaches to narrative, autoethnographic, and arts-based inquiry. She also conducts research on topics related to mothering in formal and informal educational contexts.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Brown, Keisha M.; Copple, Janie; and Chubb, Caroline, "Supporting Mothering Students in Doctoral Programs" (2026). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 19.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2026/2026/19
Supporting Mothering Students in Doctoral Programs
Morgan
Women with children are significantly less likely to complete doctoral programs than their male or non-mothering peers (National Science Foundation [NSF], 2023). This gap underscores the urgency of addressing higher attrition rates for doctoral mothers and the unique challenges that contribute to their departure from the academy. In 2022-2023, women earned approximately 58% of all doctoral degrees (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2024). In 2021, the NSF (2021a) estimated the median age of women in research doctoral programs at 31.7, with a median time to completion of 5.8 years (NSF, 2021b). A 2023 National Health Statistics Report further noted that 84.3% of women aged 40–49 had given birth, with the median age of first birth at 24.1 years (Martinez & Daniels, 2023). Put simply: for many women, child-rearing and doctoral study overlap.
This presentation draws from 744 questionnaires and 21 interviews collected in a mixed methods study on doctoral student mothers across the US. We examine how mothering doctoral students describe institutional support that sustained them and gaps where support was missing or inadequate. In doing so, we highlight promising practices and persistent barriers while offering recommendations for faculty, staff, and administrators committed to reducing attrition and creating more equitable pathways through doctoral education.
