Högskolan i Skövde

The purpose of the essay is to investigate the experience of stress in student mothers, if it turns out that the roles they carry are incompatible. Furthermore, I want to know what factors can create this.

The study is based on a qualitative method and the empirical material is produced via semi-structured interviews in which five student mothers participated.

 The result showed that the roles of student and mother of a student mother are incompatible.

It was also shown that there are factors such as behavioral expectations of a role based on the social context one is in, inadequacy as a mother or student, finding balance between these roles may be a reason for their perceived stress.

It was also stated in the results that the perceived stress has different effects on student mothers' everyday lives. There was a positive impact where their motivation to achieve the goal was increased and negative which contributed to a negative feeling such as insufficiency in order to  internalize the student role with the mother role.