Classifying Feminist Research: Exploring the Psychological Impact of Social Class on Mothers' Involvement in Children's Schooling

Drawing on a research study exploring mothers' involvement in their children's primary schooling, this article attempts to bring together two superficially unconnected areas of research; feminist work on mothering and theorizing on social class. When the experience of being working or middle class is explored psychologically the psychology of social class emerges as something that permeates women's experience of their children's schooling. In particular, a wide range of emotions, both positive and negative, infuse mothers' activities. While there are important commonalities in mothers' emotional responses to children's education, the psychological impact of being working or middle class translates into a very different emotional relationship to children's schooling for the mothers in this study.