The recluse mother: a pedagogical reflection

Abstract

For a long time, motherhood has been a destiny for women even before being an existential condition and/or a conscious choice. This paper investigates, from a pedagogical perspective, what it means and what it entails, on a symbolic and material level, to be a mother when one is deprived of freedom and forced to exercise the parental function within the walls of a penitentiary or at any rate in sentence expiation facilities where the exercise of rights is constantly conditioned by structural obstacles, but above all by a culture fueled by stereotypes, prejudices, and counter-narratives.