The presence of different ways of carrying out a socialization activity in families in a particular cultural group raises questions about how ways of acting and cultural identity are represented in studies of cultural practices. It is argued that variability in activities is an inherent property of parenting and cultural identity. This is because the ways of knowing and the ways of acting which constitute a culture are constructed both at a collective and at a personal level. These two levels of culture provide frames of reference for parents' actions which establish boundaries and guidelines for variability. Parenting contributes to the collective culture because it is a form of tacit expertise which entails the construction and modification of ideas about and ways of acting. Studies of early reading and writing activities are used to show the properties of boundaries and the sources of variable ways of parenting in a cultural group. The idea of personal and collective cultures provides a means of examining how frames of reference form, shift and create channels for parenting. Reference to the cultural identity of an individual ideally requires an analysis of how individual constructions (and their variations) are situated within the collective frame.
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