Holding a child, holding a dream: Asian international student mothers’ access to and navigation of doctoral education in the USA

Purpose This study explores how Asian international graduate student mothers (AIGSMs) navigate access to US doctoral education by examining their decision-making trajectories through the lenses of role theory and the Model of College-Going Decisions and Trajectories (MCGDT). The study aims to illuminate how these women negotiate motherhood, culture and scholarship across multiple roles, and how agency emerges as they pursue doctoral study in a transnational context. Design/methodology/approach Using a transcendental phenomenological design (Husserl, 1970; Moustakas, 1994), data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 10 AIGSMs enrolled in doctoral programs at two U.S. R1 universities. Data were analyzed through bracketing, horizonalization and thematic synthesis. The MCGDT framework guided coding across time, information and opportunity dimensions, while Role Theory provided an interpretive lens to capture mothers’ agency and role negotiation. Findings Findings reveal that AIGSMs’ doctoral access trajectories were shaped by time, information and opportunity dimensions. They (1) encountered decisive moments in pursuing long-held dreams while negotiating multiple roles, (2) integrated multi-role information via post-traditional channels, (3) overcame self-doubt in role strain as Asian student mothers to create opportunities, and (4) transformed role overload into agentic opportunities through role integration. Originality/value This study extends existing research on international student mothers by linking the pre-admission trajectories to theoretical understandings of agency and role integration. By combining MCGDT with role theory, it advances a nuanced, theoretically grounded model for interpreting post-traditional students’ doctoral access trajectories and offers insights for institutions to design more equitable, family-responsive graduate pathways.