In this study, it is these varieties of mothering discourses that are of interest. In the analysis of feminist literature on mothering and literacy in Chapter Three, discourses of intensive mothering (Hays, 1996), domestic pedagogy (Walkerdine & Lucey, 1989), and the “normal” family seem to frame institutional ideals of literacy and of mothering. The thesis is concerned with identifying how these mothering discourses intersect with ideals surrounding the “mother as teacher of literacy” in ways that link the “ideal” mother with “ideal” forms of literacy. This involves analysis of how statements related to mothers’ role in their children’s literacy development become “true” and are reproduced as “normal,” with implications for the forms of mothering and literacy that accrue status and power. This thesis is concerned not only with describing these processes, but with considering their effects with respect to educational and gender inequalities.

A further aim of this study is to highlight women’s literacy work in the home as socially and educationally important but often invisible as real work. While scholars have documented mothers’ work in the service of schools and broader nation-building goals, there is little research that documents and highlights women’s domestic literacy work in the home in the pre-school years. This work is implicitly and explicitly connected to the realization of the nation-building vision of a fully literate society³ (ABC Canada, 2005; Government of British Columbia, 2005; Literacy Alberta, 2004). Indeed, as newspapers across Canada professed in 2005, research shows children have a better chance of becoming fully literate adults if reading is encouraged in the home (CanWest Global, 2005). This thesis’ emphasis on women’s domestic literacy work provides an opportunity to build on the existing research documenting women’s work for schools, while it also attends to realms outside of schooling in which women have been called upon to carry out pedagogical work in support of a “fully literate” society and other shifting national visions of ideal children and ideal families.

³ The vision of a “fully literate society” is ubiquitous in policy documents, mission statements, conferences and funding strategies in Canadian and international education, business, and social planning institutions, in particular since the year 2000. The precise meaning attached to such a vision and the characteristics of such a society are rarely detailed. As some scholars have noted, in the past it has not been expected or required that each and every person in a society be “fully literate” in order for that society to achieve its social and economic goals, nor is there a common understanding of what fully literate means across diverse social and economic contexts (Puttman, 2000).