Mothering: Ideology, Experience and Agency (Perspectives on Gender)

This volume presents a variety of perspectives on mothering as a socially-constructed relationship focused on caring and nurturing. Crossing a range of ethnicities and classes, it addresses different ideas and practices of mothering, the need to go beyond biological determinism and "family values", and the conditions and resources of mothering. Since mothering is central to the reproduction of social relations - the main vehicle by which people form their first identities and learn their place in society - it constitutes a contested terrain. This work brings together important voices on the most examined and "essential" aspect of female being.