Institute of Education London

Identities in process: becoming mothers in Tower Hamlets

Research summary
This study is designed to gain insight into how cultural differences work in the forging of women's identities as mothers, using a design enabling differences and similarities to be explored among women from different ethnic, class and cultural groups.

It focuses on twenty first-time mothers broadly representing the ethnic diversity currently found in Tower Hamlets, one of the most impoverished boroughs in the United Kingdom. Tower Hamlets has been chosen as a site for six Sure Start government programmes designed to give the best possible start in life for all children.

Research participants have almost all been born in the UK and were recruited during the last trimester of their first pregnancy.

Methods
Data are being collected using a combination of free association narrative research interviews and psychoanalytically informed observation sessions. Each participant is interviewed three times during the first year of her baby's life (prior to the baby's birth and when the baby is around 4 months and 12 months respectively).