Although they want to advance their education and many make attempts to do so, they often cannot continue a program to completion. They know their options turn into an impossible dream when they accept their role as mother and provide the childcare and other needs for their children. Women in the study spoke about feeling that they are in a state of crisis. For example, Michelle talked about feeling like she was bound by chains held together with a padlock and no key available.

The women in the study suffer from both a physical and psychological isolation. They rarely venture outside their neighbourhood because they lack access to reliable transportation. In the process of enculturation of their children to the ways of their world, they are socially reproducing their values, beliefs and attitudes. Their children also have had limited opportunities to explore other worlds.

The women are isolated psychologically with a restricted circle of friends and limited social network that they can call upon. They have also cut ties with many members of their extended families and so can not call upon them for support or assistance as might be needed from time to time.

Summary

These six discourses – hope, invasion, time, space and mobility, the female body, and maternity – serve to offer a frame for the women in the study to give voice to their realities. They also show how notions of social reproduction, habitus and cultural capital may link to these discourses.