ABSTRACT
The amount of cultural capital mothers are able to draw on in the present is not simply a consequence of their current situation. Women's personal history and their educational experiences have an effect on their propensity for some types of action over others. Four of the mothers in Milner, Janice, Cathy, Jenny and Carmel, had actually attended the school themselves, while Jill and Christine had both attended a primary school less than a mile away. Working-class women, both black and white, were actively engaged in choosing their child's primary school, but they were making that choice within a framework of constraints that did not operate in relation to middle-class women's decision-making. One recurring theme in the mothers’ accounts of their own school-days was of separation between home and school. Mothers' own educational experiences impact on their involvement in their children's schooling in a powerful process which infuses all aspects of their mothering work.
