BLACK WOMEN AND MATERNITY AT UNIVERSITY: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

The present work focuses on contributing to the reflections on how motherhood crosses the woman's
life, and how it implies the life of the student mother. Admission to higher education represents a
milestone in the beginning of adult life, but how is this stage experienced by a woman, after the arrival
of her children? Here, we present a mother's life trajectory, how her perceptions of motherhood were
built in her childhood, how she experiences motherhood and what it is like to enter and remain in
higher education. The general objective of this research is to understand how positions in relation to
motherhood permeate the life trajectory of a black woman, mother and student and are reflected in her
academic trajectory and personal experiences. The analysis of results was carried out in search of the
meanings constructed by the participant along her trajectory and which emerged through the
interviewee's narrative. Finally, it was possible to observe that public spaces were not designed for
mothers and children, and that this results from a process that, for a long time, limited them to the
domestic space.