The International Motherhood Study (IMS), based in Australia, launched in May 2009. The IMS is a comprehensive 131-point anonymous on-line questionnaire gathering demographic information as well as capturing data of mothers’ emotional and motivational states.
In the first phase the IMS, (approved by the National Ethics Committee in Australia), has amassed 4708 female participants in Australia and New Zealand. The second phase, starts up this year and takes the project into the United States and United Kingdom. Statisticians and researchers have hailed that the IMS stands to become a landmark study in the new century insofar as understanding the emotional and motivational components of mothering and womanhood.
The IMS researchers, motherhood author Jodie Hedley-Ward, and clinical psychologist Dr Angela Huntsman will be presenting in New York City this May, at the Mamapalooza “Representing Motherhood: Mothers in the Arts, Literature, Media and Popular Culture” conference, May 21st, 2010, New York City. They will also be addressing the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI) conference in Toronto on May 22nd, 2010. There they will discuss the centrality of motherhood in our cultures, within social sustainability, and within the emotional fabric of our daily lives along with much awaited key findings from the data analysis.
The critical early findings indicates that within the field of mothering and motherhood, the IMS may hold more concentrated power of information than has been gathered about mothers at any one time or for any one purpose to date.
Jodie Hedley-Ward (www.yousexymother.com.au)
Jodie Hedley-Ward holds a Master of Business degree (Otago University, New Zealand) and is the author of ‘You Sexy Mother – a life changing approach to motherhood’ (Exisle Publishing, 2008) and You Sexy Mother: The Journal (2010). Jodie has a third motherhood-related book scheduled for release in 2010, and is the Associate Researcher for the International Motherhood Study.
Dr Angela Huntsman
Dr Angela Huntsman is the Director of the Australian Institute of Human Development and Principle Researcher of the International Motherhood Study. Angela is a California and Queensland licensed clinical psychologist with over 18 years experience in a combined practice of teaching, consultation and research.
