A experiência da maternidade e ser estudante: scoping review

Success in higher education is a huge challenge for student mothers. Investigating the factors that determine the pursuit of these two roles requires knowing their influencing factors and the implementation of strategies. Objective: To map the knowledge available in scientific literature about the experiences lived by student mothers. Materials and methods: Joanna Briggs Institute Methodology. The bibliographic research was done in databases via EBSCO, without linguistic limits, of publications in the last 5 years, with the combination of the following terms: student-mothers, maternity, parenting, university and education. Gray literature was also added through Google Scholar and RCAAP. Results: 631 articles were obtained, 12 of which are part of this scoping review. Opinion articles and articles without an abstract available were excluded. Student mothers report attending higher education added value to their lives and of their children. However, reconciling these two roles makes being a student mother a huge challenge. Influencing factors range from the emotional burden resulting from the absence of children to the lack of institutional support and greater economic burden. Conclusion: Balancing motherhood and academic life is a huge challenge, favoring one role or the other in the incessant search for balance, determination and optimism.