Committed Mothers and Well-adjusted Children: Privatisation, Early-Years Education and Motherhood in Calcutta

This article explores new definitions of good mothering among middleclass families in Calcutta and the way early years education, which has become popular over the last two decades has reshaped women’s lives as daughters-in-law and mothers of successful future white-collar workers. Through a detailed ethnography of mothers attitudes to preschool education and the parenting practices associated with it the article explores their roles as consumers within a highly competitive local educational landscape, and argues that it is in through preschool education and the related practises that these women actively shape discourses of politics and modernity.