Engendering Social Reproduction: mothers in the educational marketplace

Abstract

This article highlights the centrality of women to social reproduction through a focus on the social and cultural processes embedded in parental involvement. It argues that, in the context of a flexible labour market, middle‐class reproduction increasingly has to be worked for and describes some of the gendered class processes all the mothers were at times actively engaged in. While all the mothers helped children with schoolwork and talked to teachers, it was only the middle‐class mothers who had the power and resources to act effectively to shape the curriculum offered to their children. I conclude by arguing that a market system of education provides the middle‐classes with a competitive edge, of which they will increasingly take advantage.