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This book reports on innovative interdisciplinary research in the field of cultural studies. The study spans the early twentieth to twenty-first centuries and fills a gap in our understanding of how girls' and women's religious identity is shaped by maternal and institutional relations.
The unique research focuses on the stories of thirteen groups of Australian mothers and daughters, including the maternal genealogy of the editor of the book. Extended conversations conducted twenty years apart provide a situated approach to locating the everyday practices of women, while the oral storytelling presents a rich portrayal of how these girls and women view themselves and their relationship as mothers and daughters.
The book introduces the key themes of education, work and life transitions as they intersect with generational change and continuity, gender and religion, and the non-linear transitional stories are told across the life-course examining how Catholic pasts shaped, and continue to shape, the participants' lives.
Adopting a multi-methodological approach to research drawing on photographs, memorabilia passed among mothers and daughters, journal entries and letters, it describes how women's lives are lived in different spaces and negotiated through diverse material and symbolic dimensions.
List of contents
Part 1 Beginnings.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Catholic Mothers and Daughters: A Conversational Tale of Two Families.- 3 My Maternal Genealogy: Remembering and Looking Back.- 4 Girls and Catholic Education.- Part II Fluid Transitions: Continuity and Change in Education, Training and Work.- 5 Education and Training, Career Aspirations: 'That's What I Remember'.- 6 Career, Uncertainty and Working Life: 'Being Classified as Temporary'.- 7 Life After Study and Training: 'Building Something'.- Part III A Woman's Life Reflected.- 8 Mobility, Travel and Work: 'I'd Like to live Overseas Again'.- 9 Hopes and Dreams: Capturing What Is Not Yet There.- 10 Lies, Secrets and Silences: 'That was a Disappointment'.- 11 Stories that Memorabilia Tell in Mother-Daughter Exchanges.- 12 Conclusion: A Coming of Age with Familiar Friends.
About the author
Anne Keary is a lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Monash University. She is an experienced educator who has taught across the early childhood, schools and higher education sectors. Anne¿s research, teaching and engagement work has focused on the provision of socially just education in a range of diverse communities. Her current research interests include qualitative longitudinal research into intergenerational relationships, the impact of conflict through the generations, and pedagogies for language education.
