Educational philosophising in the Everyday : UK immigrant mothers navigating identity and praxis during COVID

Abstract

Debates surrounding motherhood have long centred on women's roles as carers. Although motherhood is now more widely recognised within feminist scholarship, it often remains conceptually separate from identities associated with formal educational discourse. Yet mothers frequently act not only as facilitators of learning but also as reflective actors who shape how education is understood and practised in everyday life. This paper engages with these debates to argue that, while mothers undertake care work, they also participate in the facilitation and interpretation of knowledge, engaging with their children's learning at a deeper, reflective level. Drawing on the work of Bell Hooks and Richard Pring, we suggest that mothers may be understood as informal education providers who facilitate holistic learning experiences for their children. At the same time, their everyday engagement with children's education involves reflective interpretation and meaning making, which can be understood as a form of philosophising about education. The identities of mother and teacher therefore intersect, positioning women in transitional spaces of agency in which they continually adapt their practices in response to their children's needs. The analysis draws on narrative interviews with nine mothers of primary school‐aged children (4–11 years) from diverse immigrant communities in England, conducted in 2021 following the major COVID‐19 lockdowns. The pandemic period provided a unique context in which education moved into the home, blurring the boundaries between home and school and creating liminal spaces where learning occurred through multiple modalities. Within these spaces, mothers engaged closely with their children's learning while negotiating their own identities as carers, facilitators and educators. Through a thematic–narrative analysis, the paper explores how mothers construct these identities while integrating play, culture and context into their children's formal learning. In doing so, it contributes to the growing literature on mothers as educational partners and facilitators by proposing that their everyday practices also contain philosophical dimensions. By shaping learning environments, drawing on cultural resources and reflecting on the purposes of education within family life, mothers can be understood not only as supporters of schooling but also facilitate pedagogy through their own philosophical approaches to learning.