Exclusion through (in)visibility: what parenting-related facilities are evident on Australian and New Zealand university campus maps?

ABSTRACT

A range of structural, interpersonal and individual factors contribute to the extent to which people can access higher education and experience inclusion and equity once there. This paper considers the experiences of parents in higher education settings, and examines the extent to which universities in two countries support parents’ inclusion through the facilities and services evident on their campus maps. The inclusion of such parent-related facilities and services on campus maps reflects not only a commitment to providing support infrastructure, but importantly to making them visible, promoting a culture of normalisation of parents and parenting in higher education. We used manifest content analysis to examine the campus maps of Australia’s n = 37 and New Zealand’s n = 8 public universities, with a total of 281 distinct physical sites identified. Childcare services, parents’ rooms, baby change tables, nursing areas and parking-related services were identified, although the prevalence within and across sites varied greatly. A lack of clarity in labelling and inconsistency across different modes of maps pose barriers to access and visibility in some cases, and overall, reporting of parenting-related infrastructure was limited. Our analysis indicates that parents attending university campuses may face ongoing challenges as they navigate their dual academic and parenting responsibilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education institutions
• campus
• parenting
• equity
• inclusion
• visibility

Introduction

In today’s climate, inclusive higher education is arguably both a moral and a marketable good. Higher education cohorts are more diverse than ever before, and discussions of (de)colonisation (e.g., Jansen, 2019), epistemic injustice (e.g., Boni & Velasco, 2020) and inclusion (e.g., Collins et al., 2019) in higher education are prominent. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have access to more and better guidance than ever before regarding what it might involve for them to become truly inclusive (e.g., US Department of Education, 2016). There are both social justice and economic reasons for institutions to cater for diverse communities (Stentiford & Koutsouris, 2022; Tomlinson, 2018) – and yet in some respects, at least, higher education remains stubbornly exclusionary.

One such respect concerns the inclusion and visibility of parents in higher education. Parenthood is often viewed – implicitly or explicitly – as incompatible with higher education (Mason et al., 2023). There are a number of ways in which HEI campuses are ‘informally designated “child-free”’ (Burford & Hook, 2019, p. 1345). One way that has been given little attention is the lack of physical infrastructure that might otherwise promote inclusion of parents and children on campuses. For example, Springer et al. (2009) explain how campuses fail to include graduate student mothers:

Student mothers experience awkward pauses rendered by pregnant bodies on-campus, struggle to navigate strollers in classrooms, and search to find clear and discreet places to feed their babies … There are constant reminders in the social and physical environment of the university that graduate student parents and their children do not truly belong. (p. 439)

In this study we consider the use of HEI campuses by both staff and students who are also parents, or taking on a parent-like role. We argue that no matter their ‘status’ or position in the institutional hierarchy (staff – academic, professional, administrative, or ancillary; or student – undergraduate or postgraduate), parents need equitable access to physical infrastructure, which includes the ‘public, physical, and organizational structures’ that help them succeed (Payne et al., 2022, p. 1). Without adequate infrastructure, parents’ use of HEI campuses is rendered difficult, if not impossible.

Parents face significant challenges within higher education settings. For example, a nationwide United States study found that while student parents had on average higher GPAs, they were 10 times less likely than those without dependent children to complete a bachelor’s degree within five years (Wladis, 2018). There are challenges to career progression for academic staff who are parents, including fathers (Marotte et al., 2011). However, these challenges are most acute for mothers, who tend to have lower average salaries (Calka, 2020), lower rates of tenure (Morgan et al., 2021), higher rates of attrition (Cech & Blair-Loy, 2019) and less representation in senior positions (Grummell et al., 2009). Unfortunately, the literature in general tends to focus more heavily on academic staff than other staff, who often face further marginalisation in HEIs (Caldwell, 2022). Thus, the provision of adequate infrastructure for all parents is an imperative to address inequalities in the system.

In this study, we focus on HEIs in Australia and New Zealand, both of which have achieved relative gender balance among staff and students, and have strong national policies to support parents. However, there are still considerable challenges facing parents in HEIs, and no studies could be located that analyse the infrastructure for parents on campuses. Without a strong empirical foundation to draw on the types of physical infrastructure that might support parents, we look to the available legislation and guidance.

Provision of parent-related infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand

Under Australia’s Federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984, discrimination on the basis of a person's sex, marital status, family responsibilities, breastfeeding or (potential) pregnancy is prohibited. However, few policies or laws could be found relating to the provision of infrastructure in HEIs (or elsewhere). While the National Quality Framework (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2012) was introduced to ensure quality standards for child care and after school care services, there is no legislative scope to ensure access to such services for all parents. This is despite the lack of affordable childcare being one of the biggest barriers to access and success in higher education, particularly for those from low income backgrounds (Andrewartha et al., 2022; Williams et al., 2022).

For breastfeeding parents, employers are obliged to ‘reasonably accommodate’ the needs of breastfeeding employees (Smith et al., 2013). However, it is generally at the state level that provision of facilities is addressed (or not). For example, in Queensland, where paid lactation breaks are available, ‘workplace facilities should be provided, where practicable, for employees who choose to express breast milk or breastfeed their child during work hours’ (Queensland Government, n.d., p. 1). The policy states further:

The minimum requirements for an appropriate workplace facility would include, where practicable: a private, clean and hygienic space which is suitably signed and lockable, appropriate seating and a table or bench to support breastfeeding equipment, access to a refrigerator and a microwave, and an appropriate receptacle for rubbish and nappy disposal. (pp. 1–2)

The repeated use of the term ‘where practical’ opens the guidelines to interpretation. The only Australia-based legislation that could be identified in relation to baby change facilities was by the New South Wales Government (2012), requiring the provision of accredited facilities in all education and care services that involve direct care of young children. Thus, HEIs would not be covered.

In New Zealand, no legislation absolutely requires workplaces or public buildings to include facilities for parents. The Employment Relations (Breaks, Infant Feeding and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2008 requires employers to provide employees with ‘appropriate’ facilities for breastfeeding or expressing breastmilk ‘so far as is reasonable and practicable in the circumstances’, taking into account the employer’s operational environment and resources. A supporting explanatory (but not legally binding) document, the Code of Employment Practice on Infant Feeding (Employment New Zealand, 2010), calls for employers to ‘take a practical and good faith approach to supporting [those] returning to work after childbirth’ but confirms that ‘there is no absolute obligation on employers to provide … [breastfeeding] facilities.’ The document discusses the types of facilities needed for breastfeeding, noting that ‘toilets are not considered an appropriate place to breastfeed or express breast milk.’ There is no legislative requirement to provide baby changing facilities, but published good practice guidelines suggest that ‘baby changing and feeding facilities provided should consider the needs of all building users’ (Building Performance, n.d.).

The importance of visibility

We draw on the work of Hinojosa and Caul Kittilson (2020), whose investigations into women in positions of power in politics informed the development of their visibility cue theory of representation. They argue that the inclusion of women in politics ‘must be visible to ordinary citizens’, and that only with visibility can this lead to broader social changes in attitudes about the position of women in politics. They highlight the importance of women seeing ‘people like me’, reflecting the words of children's rights activist Marian Wright, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’.

Parents and parenthood are often marginalised in HEIs, which arguably ‘are involved in the maintenance of academic norms that position care-work [such as parenting] as invisible and out-of-place/space’ (Burford & Hook, 2019, p. 1343). Cronshaw et al. (2022) similarly argue that parents are relegated to ‘perpetual peripherality’. Because parenthood is seen as a liability in higher education, there is a tendency for parents to hide or downplay challenges, silencing aspects of their identities that are in truth central to who they are as they come into HEIs (Locke & McChesney, 2023). This creates a cycle where necessary support becomes more difficult to attain due to reduced wider awareness, and where parenthood is further marginalised (Mason et al., 2023).

Applying the notion of visibility to our study, we contend that while it is important that HEIs provide infrastructure for campus users, it is equally important to also make them visible. On the one hand, highlighting the presence of facilities and services on campus supports parents in a practical way. This is vital as past research has found that student parents in particular do not always know what supports are available to them on campus (e.g., National Union of Students, 2009). On the other hand, and perhaps more profoundly, providing and making visible support infrastructure may contribute to promoting a stronger culture of acceptance and normalisation of parents on campuses. This culture can influence all campus users, including those who may become parents in the future; prospective students or staff; and members of the wider community who may visit a HEI campus.

Research approach and methods

In this paper, we report on the findings of the first of a series of ongoing studies that aim to explore the extent to which HEIs visibly acknowledge, support, and normalise parents, parenting and pregnancy. In our overarching study, we will analyse a range of different information sources to investigate if and how parenthood is visibly represented to campus users and to the general public, including via institutional websites, annual reports and campus maps. It is the latter that is the focus of this study. Specifically, we aim to answer the question, What do Australian and New Zealand university campus maps reveal about facilities, visibility and inclusion of parents and parenting?

Data source – campus maps

One of the first sources a campus user may look to for information on parent-related facilities is the campus map, making such maps an important resource to scrutinise. The importance of maps for HEI campus users has previously been highlighted by Cain et al. (2021), in relation to emergency alert information, and by Stanton et al. (2021), in relation to depicting sustainability features on campus. However, it has also previously been noted that campus maps do not always contain the information that users seek (Chao, 2016). In terms of visibility, campus maps are used by many different campus users, not just parents, and so the inclusion of facilities related to parenting may play an indirect role in reflecting a culture of inclusion and normalisation of parents and parenting beyond those who directly require the available services and facilities.

A number of past studies have successfully used maps as research data, including in the context of higher education. For example, Heilig (2018) audited the functional accessibility of interactive digital campus maps in the US, finding that existing maps were not necessarily suitable for use by students with disabilities. She also examined the presence or absence on the maps of facilities and support services for disabled students. Importantly, Heilig required that ‘for a service to be identifiable, a user would not have to navigate away from the campus map or its host page to locate it’ (p. 429), a stance we similarly took in conducting our study. Other examples of university campus maps studies include Masubuchi et al.’s (2018) analysis of the barriers evident in Japanese campus maps and Rosati et al.’s (2019) use of campus maps to examine where students experienced a sense of belonging at a US university.

Data collection

Our study included all public universities in Australia (n = 37) and New Zealand (n = 8). The websites of these universities were searched to identify all domestic teaching and/or research sites. We included metropolitan and regional campuses, research centres, field stations and study hubs. However, we did not include sites embedded in partner locations, such as affiliated medical and dental clinics or industry partners where some learning and teaching may take place, recognising that the facilities available in such settings may not necessarily be (wholly) determined by the university itself. For each identified site, manual and keyword searches were conducted between September and November 2022 to locate any available maps or floor plans. We downloaded and/or collated links to all maps identified, regardless of the focus (campus map, accessibility map, parking map, etc.) or mode (downloadable pdf file, interactive map, online map, etc.).

Each map was manually reviewed to determine whether campus-level information was reported. A large number of street-level maps were excluded as they did not provide specific detail about a campus’s facilities but only depicted its geographic location and/or the location of its buildings.

A few universities provided additional maps and information via a downloadable app. As we are interested in the visibility of parenting in HEIs, we limited our searches to public-facing information. Thus, we did not (and could not) include those apps for which current enrolment was an access requirement. We did include data from the one institution (Massey University, New Zealand) that had a publicly accessible app with a searchable online map tool.

As shown in Table 1, while a total of 281 domestic teaching and/or research sites were identified across the 45 universities, only 181 (64%) provided maps with campus-level detail. All 45 universities provided campus-level maps for their main campus. A majority of universities (n = 37, 82%) provided maps for more than half of their sites, with over one third of universities (n = 16, 36%) providing campus-level maps for all of their sites.

Table 1. Summary of sites and campus-level maps included in the analysis.

	Australia	New Zealand	Combined
Public universities	37	8	45
Teaching and research sites, by university	Total: 250 Range: 1–14 Average: 6.8	Total: 31 Range: 1–8 Average: 4.0	Total: 281 Range: 1–14 Average: 6.3
Sites with campus-level maps, by university	Total: 161 (64%) Range: 1–10 Average: 4.4	Total: 20 (65%) Range: 1–6 Average: 2.6	Total: 181 (64%) Range: 1–10 Average: 4.0

Data analysis

For each of the 181 sites with campus-level maps available, a manifest content analysis was conducted. Manifest content analysis involves the extraction of easily observable data from texts ‘without the need to discern intent or identify deeper meaning’ (Kleinheksel et al., 2020, p. 128). This involved the researchers analysing each map, and inputting details of any included parent-specific facilities or services into a shared spreadsheet.

As with any map, campus maps generally include the main diagram alongside a legend. They may also include additional lists of points of interest, detailed descriptions and/or additional textual or visual information. We manually scrutinised all elements of each map, complementing this with keyword searches where possible (keywords used: child, baby, parent, care, school, kinder+, nurs+, feed+, play). We recorded the type and number of facilities or services, as well as how they are presented on the map (as labels, pictographs, textual details).

In some cases, different modes of map from the same site provided different information. For example, a parents’ room may have been included in the online map but not on the downloadable pdf. Our reporting for each site involves a collation of data from all sources.

Results

Just over half (56%, n = 101) of the 181 university sites across Australia and New Zealand for which maps were publicly available indicated via those maps the presence of at least one parenting-related facility on campus. Notably, including the additional 100 sites that were eligible for our study but did not have publicly accessible campus maps online, only 36% of all 281 campus sites reported at least one parenting-related facility (Figure 1). Potential users of almost two-thirds of Australian and New Zealand public university campuses thus have no publicly available/online indication of any parenting-related facilities.

Figure 1. Inclusion of parenting-related facilities on 281 campus sites.

Our analysis identified a typology of five types of support infrastructure for parents: child care services, parents’ rooms, parking-related services, parking-related facilities, baby change facilities and nursing facilities (the latter two capturing facilities separate from those that may be included in a parents room). Table 2 reports the number of sites that include at least one of each type of support. Then, focusing only on those sites, Table 3 provides further details that have been gleaned from the maps. Additional details are also provided, as necessary, of any ways in which the services or facilities are made further visible beyond labels, legends and icons that would usually be expected on a map, such as the inclusion of photographs or additional information for users.

Table 2. Campus sites that include parent-specific facilities on their campus maps^a.

Service/facility	All main campuses			All sites with campus maps			All campus sites
	Australia (n = 37)	NZ (n = 8)	All (n = 45)	Australia (n = 161)	NZ (n = 20)	All (n = 181)	Australia (n = 250)	NZ (n = 31)	All (n = 281)
Childcare services	30 (81%)	8 (100%)	38 (84%)	61 (38%)	12 (60%)	73 (40%)	61 (24%)	12 (39%)	73 (26%)
Parents’ rooms	23 (62%)	4 (50%)	27 (60%)	65 (40%)	4 (20%)	69 (38%)	65 (26%)	4 (13%)	69 (25%)
Baby change facilities^b	7 (19%)	1 (13%)	8 (18%)	17 (11%)	1 (5%)	18 (10%)	17 (7%)	1 (3%)	18 (6%)
Nursing facilities^b	2 (5%)	0	2 (4%)	2 (1%)	0	2 (1%)	2 (1%)	0	2 (1%)
Parking-related services	2 (5%)	0	2 (4%)	2 (1%)	0	2 (1%)	2 (1%)	0	2 (1%)

^aTable reports the number of sites that include at least one of each listed service or facility.

^bSeparate to those that may be found in a parents’ room.

Table 3. Additional details about services and facilities as reported on campus maps.

Service/facility	Sites (services)	Number and additional details of services across sites
Childcare services	73 (98)	Childcare services ranged in number from one to four. Includes: childcare centre/service, early childhood care/centre/learning, kindergarten, crèche, ‘kids uni’, daycare and preschool. (One ‘school age care’ service implied inclusion of older children.) One online map included a photograph of the outside of each of their two childcare facilities.
Parents’ rooms	69 (163)	Parents’ rooms ranged in number from one to 14. Includes: ‘parenting room’, ‘parent’s room’, ‘Parents room/baby change facilities’, ‘Parents Room, Nursing and food prep’, ‘Breast feeding and baby change room’. (One parents’ room doubled as a first aid room.) One parenting room clarifies that it is ‘for use by students or visitors,’ while specific details about facilities offered are provided for students at University of Technology Sydney (See next section)
Baby change facilities	18 (72)	Baby change facilities ranged in number from one to 17. (Separate to those that may be in a parents’ room.) Only one map notes explicitly that ‘Baby changing facilities are available in shared and private toilets across campus’, although many appear to be positioned inside male, female and/or ‘unisex’ toilets.
Nursing facilities	2 (3)	Nursing facilities include one ‘nursing and food prep’ area and two ‘feeding rooms’. (Separate to those that may be in a parents’ room.) Only one map notes explicitly that ‘Feeding rooms are private, lockable rooms available for you to express milk, breastfeed, and care for your baby or young children.’
Parking services	2 (2)	Parking-related services include a 30-minute childcare permit, and a childcare set-down parking area.

Discussion

Type of parenting-related services on campus maps

Through our analysis of campus maps, we identified five different types of facilities and services for supporting parents. The most common form of provision related to child care, a positive finding considering that on-campus childcare has been found to improve success rates among students with children (Cruse et al., 2018), and to improve productivity and well-being among staff with children (Dominiak, 2020). For the most part, services appear to be for those under school age, though it is not clear from maps alone who is able to access the services.

Parents’ rooms were the second-most commonly reported facility on campus maps. For example, University of Technology Sydney depicts Parents’ Rooms ‘available for staff, students and visitors. These rooms offer a change table, sink and comfortable chair for breastfeeding in a quiet space.’ One essential criteria of Parents’ Rooms is that they provide privacy (Tavoi et al., 2020), and so while they may include facilities for baby change and nursing (though not necessarily, as we discuss later), Parents’ Rooms are listed in our analysis as a distinct source of support.

Baby change facilities and nursing rooms were less commonly signposted on maps, though the number may be higher than that shown on maps if such facilities are included within a Parents’ Room (again, discussed later). Regardless of the location, providing appropriate spaces for breastfeeding is important for working parents, with van Dellen et al. (2022) noting that ‘the challenging combination of breastfeeding and work is one of the main reasons for early breastfeeding cessation’ (p. 1). Based on a study in The Netherlands, Hentges and Pilot (2021) have specifically called on universities to support staff who are breastfeeding, including through the provision of appropriate on-campus facilities.

The final type of support identified, though small in number, was parking-related services. Parking and transportation services have been raised as a major structural barrier for parents and pregnant students, in particular (Brown & Nichols, 2013), and so these services play an important role in supporting parents.

In analysing campus maps, a typology of support begins to emerge that may be useful in informing inclusion initiatives and future research. However, we note that there is scope for further development, with some potential sources of support missing from the maps we examined. For example, we did not find any facilities for engaging or entertaining children who visit campuses, such as playground equipment. There is also scope for the inclusion of dedicated spaces for parents to meet each other, important because feelings of isolation are common among parents, and sharing experiences and advice is a vital source of support (Mason et al., 2023).

Prevalence of parenting-related services on campus maps

Overall, our findings reveal a relatively limited presence of parenting facilities and services on Australian and New Zealand public university campus maps. Only around half of the 181 sites for which maps are available indicated any parenting facility. This reflects either (a) a lack of provision of facilities or (b) a lack of active efforts to make available facilities visible on campus maps. For campus users, especially those (as yet) unfamiliar with a campus, the result is ultimately the same. Looking at the broader picture of all university sites, we found that one third of sites did not provide any (publicly/online accessible) campus maps, again meaning no access to information about any potentially available parenting facilities.

In some cases, a lack of clear labelling made it challenging to determine the prevalence of facilities, such as the case for baby change tables, since in many cases the inclusions in a Parents’ Room are not always evident (we discuss this issue in the next section). However, a changing table may be the most common (and sometimes the only) facility offered within a so-called ‘Parents’ Room’, and so if we assume that all facilities labelled as Parents’ Rooms contained changing facilities and combine these facilities with the specifically labelled baby change facilities, then we get an upper bound of 79 campus sites (44% of sites with maps, or 28% of all sites) potentially indicating at least one facility in which a child could be changed. This still means that more than half of sites with maps, and over 70% of all sites, did not show any facility suitable for baby changing.

More parenting facilities were found on universities’ main campuses. This pattern may be expected due to these campuses’ larger student and staff populations. Nevertheless, inclusive practice requires that all students are given equitable access to the support they need to succeed in higher education (McChesney, 2022). Given that students in regional, rural and/or remote areas may face greater barriers to success in higher education (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019; Devlin & McKay, 2017), it is important to continually consider how HEIs can provide and promote services to support parents in all contexts.

It is not only the presence of facilities across sites that is important, but also the number of a particular facility within individual sites. Australian and New Zealand university campuses generally encompass multiple separate low-rise buildings and parking areas (Ross, 2019). This means that if a campus has only one parent’s room, accessing it may require considerable time and energy to move across campus. It is imperative that HEIs also consider the number and location of facilities, noting that pregnant people and parents may be limited in their mobility (e.g., if heavily pregnant, accompanied by small children, or using a stroller).

Visibility of parenting-related services on campus maps

In the majority of cases, parent-related services and facilities were indicated on maps through a listing in the legend referring to an icon or location on the map, and/or in some cases with a text label on the map itself. A total of five facilities in three HEIs were reported with additional textual detail to describe the facility and/or its location. For example, at Murdoch University in Australia, map users are made aware that ‘baby changing facilities are available in shared and private toilets across campus’ and that ‘feeding rooms are private, lockable rooms available for you to express milk, breastfeed, and care for your baby or young children’, with information included on where to access the room key. In one case, additional visual information was provided, in the form of two photographs showing external views of each of the two childcare services at University of Western Australia. These added details not only aid users in accessing and using the services if required, but also make the services more prominent, taking up more space on maps.

We observed several cases where parent-related facilities reported on one map (such as an online map) were not included on another from the same site (such as a downloadable pdf). This inconsistency may not only lead parents to receiving incorrect information, but also limit the visibility of parenting to the wider population of campus users, depending on which map users choose to use. It is also important to note that in our analysis we were specifically searching for parent-related facilities. In many interactive maps, the presence of these services is only evident if and when using specific search terms. In other words, in such cases it is not likely that a non-parent user would incidentally see a parent-related facility, thus again limiting chances to make parenting visible and to normalise its presence on campus.

Clarity of information of parenting-related services on campus maps

Our analysis was complicated in a number of ways due to a lack of clarity of campus maps, and these same challenges are likely to be faced by campus map users. For example, only University of Technology Sydney describes their Parents’ Rooms clearly – ‘UTS parents rooms are available for staff, students and visitors. These rooms offer a change table, sink and comfortable chair for breastfeeding in a quiet space.’ Thus, for the most part, it is unclear to campus users (at least from the campus map alone) what a Parents’ Room contains. The location and presentation of these rooms on campus maps in numerous cases suggested that facilities may be limited to a baby change table inside a female, male, or unisex toilet. Both Australian and New Zealand guidelines (as reviewed earlier) indicate that toilets are not appropriate spaces for breastfeeding.

Maps of four sites across different Australian universities (including one main campus) reported having ‘change rooms’. It was not immediately apparent whether these were facilities for parents or areas for changing clothes (for example, when playing sport); in classifying these, we used only contextual cues provided within the maps themselves. Based on the icon used (which indicated both a wheelchair-accessible toilet and a baby change table), we classified one of the facilities as suitable for baby changing. We excluded two facilities based on their physical locations (one alongside showers, and the other next to a sports ground away from the main buildings). The final facility was also excluded because maps for a different site within the same university referred to ‘baby changing facilities’, and so we inferred that different wording implied a different type of facility.

Further, two universities (one in each country) reported at least one ‘women’s room’. However, no further information was provided to indicate whether this could possibly (also) be used for parenting-related needs. As such, these rooms were also not included in our counts of parenting facilities.

Given the difficulties of interpreting some of the maps in our analysis, it seems that more accurate and descriptive naming is necessary. For example, if a facility consists of only a baby change table, then it should be named as such and not as a ‘Parents’ Room’. More descriptive naming on maps could prevent confusion (such as in the case of clothes/sports changing rooms vs baby changing rooms) and also build public transparency in regards to what HEIs offer to support parents.

Limitations and directions for future research

It is important to acknowledge that given the design of the study, we cannot conflate the absence of parent facilities on a campus map with their absence in reality. That is, infrastructure may be available on a campus even though it is not reflected on publicly available campus maps. In order to determine the extent to which campus maps accurately reflect available resources, it would be necessary to undertake site visits, such as Tavoi et al.’s (2020) review of parents’ rooms at New Zealand government agencies. Nevertheless, our methodology deliberately reflects ways current and prospective campus users may seek information about relevant facilities.

Our selection of campus maps as the data source in this study did not allow for investigation of the cost, quality or accessibility of the facilities reported on campus maps. By their nature, campus maps can not provide these details. In our ongoing investigations in this space, the authors also plan to analyse the content of institutional websites, and this data source may provide more detailed information to parents about the nuances of support infrastructure.

Conclusion and recommendations

According to Gulson and Symes (2007), ‘the language of exclusion is, by and large, spatial; who's in, who's out, at the heart, on the margins’ (p. 99). The research reported in this paper is the pilot phase of a wider project exploring ways in which parents are included or excluded through their visibility within universities’ online materials. Examining such materials allows us to make inferences about who is ‘in’ or ‘out’; who is ‘at the heart’ and who still finds themselves ‘on the margins’.

Our findings show that there remains significant need for improvement among Australian and New Zealand public universities in terms of the most basic forms of physical provision for those among their student and staff cohorts who also happen to be parents. Without these provisions, parents remain on the margins, burdened by the added pressures of parenthood with limited acknowledgement of or support for those pressures.

Moving beyond the practical implications of a lack of parent-related infrastructure on university campuses, the visibility cue perspective offered by Hinojosa and Caul Kittilson (2021) highlights the deeper significance of our findings. Their visibility cue theory describes how visible cues depicting women’s presence in a particular environment ‘send a signal to women that [this environment] is not just for men’ (p. 46). Likewise, since our work focuses not specifically on gender but rather on all parents, we argue that the lack of visibility of parent-related infrastructure on HEI campus maps sends a corresponding message that such campuses are not, in fact, really for parents to inhabit. This is yet another manifestation of the way HEIs reproduce ‘child-free’ constructions of their inhabitants (Burford & Hook, 2019, p. 1345), pushing some current or aspiring students and staff to hide, distance themselves from, or pretend not to be encumbered by the messiness of parenting or care responsibilities. The lack of inclusion of parent-related facilities and services on campus maps, whether or not they are available in actuality, reflects a campus culture that does not acknowledge the many parents that use their campuses, and the unique challenges they face.

Supporting parents is a social justice issue, and importantly a feminist issue, as patriarchal structures within and beyond the academy unjustly impact mothers. It is incumbent on HEIs to include parents in their espoused agenda of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Moreover, as part of equity and inclusion work, Hinojosa and Caul Kittilson (2020, p. 40) offer the important challenge that ‘visibility should not regularly be assumed but should instead be empirically tested’. HEIs’ aspirations for diversity, equity and inclusion must be examined through concrete evidence of progress and outcomes. Our study is one example of such empirical work, which seeks both to document positive progress and to highlight further needs for change.

Given our findings, we offer the following practical recommendations for HEIs:

• Ensure that maps are available for all campus sites, and that these maps include up-to-date information about the parenting facilities available at each site.

• Ensure maps use accurate and descriptive naming of parent-related facilities, and provide specific information about their inclusions. Links to further details on the university website could also be included.

• Consider developing parent-specific maps, following the trend to offer other targeted maps (e.g., walking/cycling maps, accessibility maps) and also include other facilities that might assist parents, such as elevators and ramps for strollers, or lawn areas for visiting children to play on.

• Even if a parent-specific map is developed, retain the visibility of parent-specific facilities on main campus maps in order to promote the visibility of parents and children on campus, normalise their presence, and send a message of acceptance to current and future campus users, regardless of their parental status.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).