Qualitative analysis of rural-to-urban migrant Chinese mothers’ perceived outcomes and experiences in a parent support and education programme with an existential–narrative approach

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the qualitative findings of practice research on rural-to-urban migrant Chinese mothers’ perceived outcomes and experiences in a parent support and education programme. Informed by an existential–narrative approach to parent education, four intervention groups were provided to 56 migrant mothers recruited from a social service centre in China. Of them, 28 mothers were purposively selected and invited to join four post-intervention focus groups. Themes of their narratives suggest that the programme has helped participants to reconstruct what migrant mothering means to them, reorganise their lived experiences, reflect upon their priorities in life, adjust their parental expectations, deepen their parent–child connectedness by visiting and calling home, express gratitude to their children’s caregivers, reaffirm the role of the children’s fathers in parenting, and facilitate learning from other participants. The findings offer insights into developing parenting programmes for migrant mothers that focus on meaning-making, storytelling and mutual learning.