International Graduate Student Parenthood: Engaging in Closeting Labor to Constitute Productive Work-Family Negotiation During Transitions to Parenthood

Abstract

ABSTRACT Guided by the Intersectional Theory of Closeting (ITC), our study analyzed in-depth interviews of how international graduate student-parents (IGSPs) negotiate their new parental identity, which was considered as deviating from the ideal graduate student norms at a U.S. public research university. Findings revealed that IGSPs enacted various closeting configurations— fully closeting, involuntary uncloseting, and coming out of the closet— to conceal and/or disclose their parental identity to workplace contacts. We developed the concept of closeting labor to capture IGSPs’ efforts to achieve work and family goals including labor outside the closet to “pass” as “normal” graduate students; inside the closet as IGSPs engaged in privatized work-family negotiations often without institutional support, and inbetween the closet door as IGSPs constantly assessed the necessity to (un)closet and crafting strategies to minimize negative career impact. Our analysis captures the adaptive and transformative negotiations with normative structuring of academic workplaces and advocates for systematic changes to queer ideal graduate student norms.