Maternity and higher level education

The principle of human dignity and the challenges of student mothers

Abstract

Pregnant women and/or new student mothers deal with motherhood in parallel with their academic training. Therefore, the research problem is to analyze the challenges that these women encounter on this arduous journey and how the principle of human dignity can alleviate these challenges and difficulties. The principle of human dignity, an important principle of the Brazilian legal system, is established in art. 1st, III, of the Federal Constitution of 1988. In this sense, the State's view of these student mothers is important. As a guarantor of rights, the State has the central role of guaranteeing a fair and egalitarian society, where everyone has not only the same duties, but also the same rights. Starting, then, from the assumption that the university is a place to seek both professional and personal fulfillment, the importance of analyzing the factors that make it difficult for these women to remain in a higher education institution must be taken into consideration, factors that may result in the discontinuity of their studies, considering that for a long time such factors reflected inequality between genders, making it impossible to compare the realities of each individual, man and woman, if we are to analyze, in this case, the difficult journey of Brazilian mothers that unfold to fulfill their role as mother, homemaker and student.