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As the First Lady, Michelle Obama stated that she had a number of priorities but that the first year would be mainly about supporting her two girls in their transitions to their new life in the White House. Her choice to be mom-in-chief drew unusually intense and rather puzzling, scrutiny. The chapter briefly discusses the range of reactions along the political spectrum as well as African-American feminists’ analyses of the stereotypes of Black women underlying those reactions. This analysis engages the debates from a different perspective. First, the chapter addresses the under-theorizing of the racialized gender norms embedded in the symbolism of the White House and the role of First Lady. It challenges the presumption of traditional notions of true womanhood and the incorrect conclusion that mothering would preclude public engagement.

Second and most importantly, this chapter argues that there are fundamental misunderstandings of what mothering meant for Michelle Obama as African-American woman. Cultural traditions and socio-historical conditions have led Black women, both relatives and non-kin, to form mothering relationships with others’ children and to appreciate the interdependence of “nurturing” one's own children, other children, and entire communities. Those practitioners whose nurturing activities encompassed commitment and contributions to the collectivity were referred to as community othermothering. Using primary sources, this chapter examines in detail Michelle Obama's socialization for and her practice of community othermothering in her role as First Lady. Attention is focused on her transformation of White House events by extending hospitality to more within Washington, DC, and the nation, plus broadening young people's exposure to inspiration, opportunities, and support for setting and accomplishing their dreams. Similarly, the concept of community othermothering is also used to explain Michelle Obama’s reinterpretation of the traditional First Lady's special project into the ambitious “Let's Move” initiative to end childhood obesity within a generation. The othermothering values and endeavors have helped establish the White House as “the People's House.”

Because preservice teachers (PSTs) need effective strategies to address the risks of teaching hard history, teacher educators must select approaches and strategies for teaching PSTs how to avoid, contain, or embrace the risks of teaching hard history. The purpose of this study was to explore one teacher educator’s strategies for teaching PSTs how to contain the risks of teaching hard history.

This study reports partial findings from Phase I of a multiple case research study of PSTs during their secondary social studies methods class and student teaching experiences during the 2021–2022 academic year. Data included surveys, semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, and documents.

Findings indicate that the teacher educator taught five strategies for containing risk while simultaneously enacting risk containment herself. Four of the risk containment strategies shared characteristics with prior research; one strategy, grounding teaching in the state social studies standards, is a novel strategy that adds to the existing body of research.

This study contributes to and extends the research on containing the risk of teaching hard history in secondary social studies. One strategy taught by the teacher educator, grounding teaching in the state social studies standards, adds to the body of scholarship on teacher educators’ strategies for containing the risks of teaching hard history.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a profile of Michelle Walker.

In this single case study, Michelle gives a short background to the development of her depression and is then interviewed by Jerome.

Michelle sets out the reasons she developed depression. These map onto the research conducted by Brown and Harris some 50 years ago, showing how social factors can create a vulnerability to develop depression.

Single case studies provide us with one person’s narrative. That narrative is, however, unique and can often offer us insights that are lost in large statistical surveys.

Michelle found that the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) approach really helped her. However, she should never have had to wait as long as she did for that help. Mental health services must respond quickly, even if only to offer a triage assessment.

Brown and Harris identified four key vulnerability factors for depression in women. Michelle met three of these. How many other women are in a similar situation and are suffering in silence?

We can learn a lot from the factors that helped Michelle recover from her depressive episode: medication, CBT, the support of her mother, education, finding her soulmate and, although she does not say it, her own rugged determination and personal resilience.

If you knew one of your child’s friends smoked pot with her mom, would that worry you? If you knew another one of your child’s friends spoke in tongues, would that worry you more or less?

Newspapers provide the context to how the public understands the role of race and gender in America. Both are portrayed commonly as having lost their power. Taking an intersectional approach, here I examine the role race and gender play in black newspaper coverage of Michelle Obama from August 2008 through July 2009. Analyzing 31 papers, gathered from Ethnic NewsWatch, I examine 175 articles, notes, and editorials that addressed the first lady in some capacity. Most narratives highlighted traditional first lady duties, her “family” values and fashion. Female reporters were focused on Obama's values and duties before the election, but emphasized her duties and looks after. Although from December, their reporting was more diffuse, having no particular focus, male reporters also focused on her duties pre-election, but values and looks were relatively unimportant. Race remained an important element in many narratives, especially for male reporters. It was mostly invoked in ways that were ceremonial and abstract, with little attention to the specific plight of black communities. In contrast, female reporters made the intersection of race and gender important (both before and after the election), and Obama's looks (particularly after). Overall, these papers were supportive; and they almost appear in awe of a black family in the White House. As a result, little attention was given to exploring how “change you can count on” would affect black America particularly.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Michelle Robinson Obama are two First Ladies of the United States whose racial-ethnic, personal, and family characteristics made them the objects of inordinate public fascination. Using Patricia Hill Collins's concept, the “outsider within,” this chapter explores Kennedy and Obama's emergence as cultural icons and their marginal relationship with the white Protestant American governing class. As wives of presidents and specific to her generation, each woman brought superior professional credentials to their public roles. As cultural icons who differ from the white racial frame, they are subjected to excessive media scrutiny, evaluation, and supervision. Both women exercise cultural agency from their positions as cultural icons, particularly utilizing ceremonial activities and the power of the White House to oppose cultural erasure and exclusion of minority groups and to provide models of social inclusion. Analysis of their roles highlights the continuing importance of wives to the acquisition and maintenance of power and to the role of elites in offering models of social justice.

This study aimed to investigate the sensemaking strategies employed by early-career employees working within organizationally constrained environments.

Grounded in the sensemaking-as-accomplishment framework, a longitudinal multi-case study was conducted, involving three early-career employees. These participants were interviewed multiple times concerning tasks they themselves identified as anomalous and ambiguous.

The study's findings illuminate how early-career employees utilize sensemaking strategies to accomplish anomalous-ambiguous tasks. These strategies are interwoven with deliberate efforts to mitigate organizational constraints that exist in the organization or arise during the execution of complex tasks.

Notable limitation pertains to the time gap between task completion and the interviews. Conducting real-time interviews concurrently with task execution or immediately afterward was not feasible due to constraints in participant availability. This research has implications for organizational learning initiatives, particularly those encompassing employee-driven self-learning components. Insights derived from studies like this can inform the development of effective self-learning schemes within organizations.

Previous sensemaking research focused on what takes place in high-reliability organizations. This study explored sensemaking strategies in workplaces that are organizationally constrained.

The purpose of this paper is to examine three high school teachers’ beliefs about how their understanding of historiography influences their teaching.

The authors engaged in a qualitative multiple-case study based on semi-structured interviews and artifact analysis.

The analysis describes the teachers’ understanding of historiography in relation to ideas about historical perspective-taking, textbook use, the incorporation of primary sources in the classroom, and tensions between teaching content and teaching skills. The study concludes that while undergraduate exposure to historiography is potentially useful and can help history teachers manage the complexity of the profession, drawing upon historiographical understandings in order to recognize the construction of historical narratives in the classroom remains a persistent challenge.

Much of the work addressing the potential role of historiographical understanding for teachers has focused on teacher preparation and the ideas held by teaching candidates. This research emphasizes experienced teachers’ beliefs about the role that historiography plays in their teaching.

Purpose – Within cultural discourse, prescriptions for “good” motherhood exist. To further the analysis of these prescriptions, we examine how media conversations about Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and First Lady Michelle Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign illustrate existing notions of good motherhood.Methods – Using qualitative content analysis techniques, we review media discourse about Palin, Clinton, and Obama during this campaign. We use existing feminist literature on motherhood and an intersectionality perspective to ground our analysis, comparing and contrasting discourse about these political figures.Findings – The 2008 campaign represented a campaign for good motherhood as much as it represented a campaign for the next president. Discourse on Palin, Clinton, and Obama creates three very different characterizations of mothers: the bad, working mother and failed supermom (Palin), the unfeeling, absent mother (Clinton), and the intensive, stay-at-home mother (Obama). The campaign reified a very narrow, ideological standard for good motherhood and did little to broaden the acceptability of mothers in politics.Value of paper – This article exemplifies the type of intersectional work that can be done in the areas of motherhood and family. Applying an intersectionality perspective in the analysis of media discourse allows us to see exactly how the 2008 campaign became a campaign for good motherhood. Moreover, until we engage in an intersectional analysis of this discourse, we might not see that the reification of good motherhood within campaign discourse is also a reification of hegemonic gender, race, class, age, and family structure locations.

The aim of this paper is to describe how the authors made a film about recovery.

A number of service users were auditioned for the Recovery Film and four chosen to participate. The film was directed and edited by the second author who has lived experience of mental health problems.

Five main themes are covered in the film: the experience of being mentally ill; causes of peoples' mental illness; personal definitions of recovery; what helps people; and the process of recovery for each of the four participants.

The Recovery Film was short‐listed for a Mind Media Award, has been shown at a number of national conferences and is available on the internet.