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This article presents a theoretically based narrative analysis of conversations held with six women in South Africa who position themselves as mothers of disabled children. We examine the dominant socio-cultural narratives that impact the lives of the mothers as they enact motherhood, and the counter-narratives that emerge in the process. Three key themes are discussed: struggle, resiliency and agency; motherhood and the intersections of personal histories, spirituality and Ubuntu; and the economics and politics of negotiating access to social benefits, including early intervention and education. The study highlights the contextual, situated and diverse nature of motherhood and the disabled child in contexts of early education and care.

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This article examines two teachers’ discourses of literacy as social practice in advantaged and disadvantaged early childhood centres for three- to four-year-olds. The intention is to make sense of the dominant discourse of literacy, its constitutive nature and its effects on children, teaching and learning. Foucault’s theory of discourse is used to make salient the influence of interpretive frames of references on the understanding and practice of literacy. The data for the study was produced through a qualitative approach using in-depth semi-structured interviews. The findings show that teachers in both the advantaged and disadvantaged contexts are located in the dominant discourse of early literacy as a technical, autonomous skill. This discourse foregrounds children as adults-in-the-making (the becoming child) and a maturationist-environmentalist view of readiness for early literacy development. This narrow view of literacy discounts young children’s positioning as social actors, issues of diversity and contextually situated practice.