Education, like mothering, is a constant yet always changing presence in women's lives, historically and socially defined. Each historical period defines good education and good mothering differently from the previous one. Education and mothering are social constructs, used unproblematically in ordinary ways of speaking, yet meaning different actions in different settings, and changing over time. Mothers participate in education through their practical and supplementary educational work in the home, as teachers and administrators in educational settings, as students at all levels of schooling, and as home schoolers.

What is defined as education and what is taught to children varies from one locality to another. In hunter-gatherer societies, a child's education would include the gender-specific tasks of the group, for example hunting, planting, or harvesting. In industrial ...