Family Issues - Research Article

Assignment 1 – Research Article Summary

Patrice M. Buzzanelli; Rebecca Meisenbach; Robyn Remke; Meina Liu; Venessa Bowers; Cindy Conn.   The good working mother: managerial women’s sense making and feelings about work.   Family Issues, Sept 2005 v56 i3 p261 (25)

The researchers in this study did not use any particular theoretical perspective.   They were interested in

determining the discourse and practice of female employees in positions of management and other professional

roles to determine how they made sense of their work and family choices.   The focus was on this group to

determine how these women made their way through the challenges of every day life and work synonymously.  

These women engaged in child care searches and relational negotiations taking into consideration their professional

and feminine roles, their work opportunities and careers all awhile becoming mothers and handling work-family

issues.  

Researchers choose 11 participants, which were managerial women, out of a database of 102 pre and post-

maternity leave experience-focused interviews that were conducted on women of different occupations.   A series of

interview questions were developed to determine the reasons women returned to work, what kind of child care

arrangements were made and when, and how these women felt about returning to work and in the first few

weeks of being back at work.   A series of audio taped interviews were also conducted on women the interviewers

knew who had taken maternity leave.  

Interviewers transcribed the surveys and audiotapes onto 120 pages of data and a thematic analysis

was conducted.   Researchers determined that the participants developed their good mother image into a good

working mother role that fit their lifestyles and interests.   There were three thematic processes that were

determined from the analysis that supported this;   good working mothers arranged quality child care, are equal...