ABSTRACT
Behind the scenes created in the texts of conventional sociologies of education, women have been at work as mothers. Neither mothers’ involvement in their children's education nor mothering more generally are seen as worthy, substantial or theoretical topics by academics working in the mainstream. In the 1970s and early 1980s housework and, to a lesser extent, mothering were written about by feminists in terms of work. Much of the writing on parental involvement assumes that all parents share an identical experience of involvement in their children's schooling. The literature on parental involvement is made up of a number of halftold stories. It leaves out not only difference and diversity, but the ways in which differences are rooted in inequalities. Mothers are no more an homogeneous group than the fictional, undifferentiated parents of many of the texts.
