Third, in interpreting advice literature as gendered practices of power rather than as representations of institutional truths, the study prompts researchers and practitioners working in the field of early literacy development and parental involvement in schools to reflect critically upon the discourses of mothering and of domestic literacy that shape their research designs and data interpretation. In recommending closer relationships between home and school literacies or the need to bolster out-of school literacy practices, it is possible to overlook the implications of these reforms for the work of mothering and thus unwittingly perpetuate mothering discourses. Indeed, if these ideas are not critically examined, they may be reproduced in research and educational practices in ways that may blind us to new and more useful perspectives. The significance of this study, in the words of Edmonston, is the provision of a historical and critical analysis of literacy advice that will encourage educators, researchers and policy makers to “consider where something has come from and why it is here — indeed reading more broadly [which involves attending to] social relations that bring a phenomenon to fruition in a culture” (Edmonston, 2001, p. 620).

While feminist scholars provided ample evidence to show how mothering work is invisible yet vital to the work of schools and to cultural and social reproduction (Reay, D, 1998), that research often does not adequately consider literacy as an aspect of this work. Critical and ethnographic literacy research has contributed useful critiques of family literacy policies on the basis of their reliance upon modernist concepts of the “traditional” family (Luke and Luke, 2001) and value school forms of literacy over the literacies in homes and community settings (Pitt, 2000). Mace (1998) made a substantial contribution to this line of research in calling attention to the myths surrounding mothers’ positioning as their child’s first and most important teacher. Yet research associated with the new literacy studies has not adequately attended to the gendering of literacy practices both historically and within the domestic sphere, nor fully attended to the implications of mothers’ domestic literacy work for the social and cultural reproduction of academic advantage. But deepening our understanding of these processes has become particularly important as children’s early literacy knowledge acquires pride of place as a determinant for long-term scholastic success (Hertzman, 1999).