Of particular value in Brandt’s study was her intergenerational focus, which allowed the processes of social and economic change as they related to the valuing of literacy skills, to emerge more distinctly as the experiences of one generation was contrasted with those of another. Brandt teased out from her interviews the analytical concept of the literacy sponsor to track connections between individuals and the broader social forces that shaped their literacy opportunities and practices. Sponsors “appeared all over people’s memories of how they learned to write and read, in their memories of people, commercial products, public facilities, religious organizations and other institutional and work settings” (Brandt, 1999, p. 376). These sponsors were not only or always mothers.

Brandt thus complicated the primacy accorded to the role of mothers and family structures in shaping individual children’s literacy trajectories. Brandt linked the significance of her research findings to the teaching of literacy in schools, though her conclusions may also be extended to emergent and family literacy programs that emphasize “early intervention” as a preventative measure for low literacy:

Downsizing, migration, welfare cutbacks, commercial development, transportation, consolidation or technological innovations do not merely form the background buzz of contemporary life. These changes, where they occur, can wipe out as well as create access to supports for literacy learning. They can also inflate or deflate the value of existing forms of literacy in the lives of students. Any of these changes can have implications for the status of literacy practices in school and for the ways students might interact with literacy lessons. (Brandt, 1999, p. 391)

Through their diverse research lenses, the studies reviewed in this chapter contribute to shaping a distinction between, in the first instance, the institutional ideals that link mothering and literacy, and in the second instance, perspectives of literacy and mothering as socially situated practices, located within a particular time and place, and connected to broader social relations. This review provides a basis for constructing a discursive framework for analyzing literacy advice to mothers. This chapter concludes with a description of the features of such a framework.