Families and Social Class

Families and Social Class Family Focus On... Families and Social Class Issue FF33 IN FOCUS: Unequal Childhoods: Professor as Student: What my Undergraduate Students have Taught me Inequalities in the about Social Class page F3 Rhythms of Daily Life African American Family Strategies for by Annette Lareau, PhD, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland Moving Into and Staying In he intersection of race and class in they sat around watching TV and as they the Middle Class American life is an important but played outside in the yard or the street. By often vexing subject for sociologists. the standards of social science research, this page F5 T The power of social class is often obscured by was an unusually intensive study. the visibility of race. I wrote Unequal Child- Family Social Class and What we found was that although all hoods: Class, Race, and Family Life (University parents want their children to be happy and Educational Attainment of California Press, 2003) in part because I to thrive, social class makes a very substan- page F8 wanted to make class real by showing how tial difference in how this universal goal is it works in everyday life. I hoped that by met. Middle-class parents Does Minority Status capturing the day-to-day promote what I call rhythms of life in different Put an Individual At-Risk? What we found was that concerted cultivation. kinds of families—those of page F9 although all parents want They actively foster middle-class, working-class, their children to be happy their children’s and poor whites and African Female Educational talents, opinions, Americans—I could help bring and to thrive, social class and skills by Attainment and the seemingly intractable makes a very substantial enrolling the children Family Formation: problem of inequality into difference in how this in organized activities, clearer focus. universal goal is met. Which Comes First? reasoning with them, and page F11 Most of the 88 families closely monitoring their my research assistants and I interviewed experiences in institutions such as schools. Reaching for Success during the first stage of research had children The focus is squarely on children’s individual from a Place Seen as in the third or fourth grade in elementary development. As a result of this pattern of schools in a large northeastern city and its concerted cultivation, children gain an ‘Second Best’: Social Class, suburbs. From this initial pool, we selected emerging sense of entitlement. Most of the Trailer Park Residence twelve families, six African American and six middle-class families in the study were and Youth Development white, for more intensive study. Nearly every extremely busy; this pattern held for white day for three weeks we spent time, usually a and African American middle-class families. page F12 few hours, with each family. We went to Children attend soccer games, go on Girl Race, Class, and Extended baseball games, church services, family Scout trips, do homework, and go to birthday reunions, grocery stores, beauty parlors and parties; parents need to arrange these activi- Family Involvement barbershops. We even stayed overnight with ties as well as get children there and back. page F14 most of the families. We saw siblings squabble Despite the busy schedule, most parents and heard parents yell. We joined kids as worked full time and some had job-related Unequal Childhoods continued on page F2 35749 Focus.pmd 1 2/5/2007, 12:26 PM Family Focus On... Families and Social Class UNEQUAL CHILDHOODS continued from page F1 overnight travel. In addition to meeting Unquestionably, the families we studied matter in other their workplace responsibilities, parents differed in terms of how they raised their respects: most of the had to manage the details of family life: children. But are these differences impor- children lived in they had to go grocery shopping, prepare tant—do they really matter? Neither the racially segregated dinner, do laundry, monitor homework, approach of concerted cultivation nor neighborhoods, oversee children’s showers, and participate the accomplishment of natural growth is middle-class African in bedtime rituals. I detail in the book what without flaws. Both have strengths and American parents children’s schedules mean for family life. weaknesses. Middle-class children, for complained of race- In describing the middle class, I use the example, are often exhausted, have vicious based difficulties in Annette Lareau, PhD term “the frenetic family.” Things are so fights with siblings, and do not have as the workplace, and hectic that the house sometimes seems to much contact with their extended families African American middle-class parents be little more than a holding space for the as working-class and poor children. But were very worried about their children brief periods between activities. when children are in settings such as schools being exposed to racial insensitivity at and healthcare facilities, middle-class school. These parents also tried to promote The differences we observed between parents’ strategy of concerted cultivation a positive racial identity for their children these middle-class families and those of the complies much more closely with the (for example, by taking them to a pre- working class and poor families are striking. current standards of professionals than dominately middle-class African American Parents in working-class and poor families does the accomplishment of natural church). But in terms of the overall rhythm promote what I call the accomplishment of growth strategy that working-class and of children’s family lives, and the ways in natural growth. These parents care for their poor parents rely on. Middle-class parents which parents address their own and their children, love them, and set limits for them, routinely make special requests of teachers, children’s concerns, class emerged as much but within these boundaries, they allow the asking, for example, that they provide their more important than race. Other studies children to grow spontaneously. Children children with individualized instruction. also show substantial divisions between do not have organized activities. Instead, These parents expect the institution to middle-class African Americans and work- they play outside with cousins and siblings; accommodate them, and this expectation ing-class and poor African Americans. they watch television. Parents use directives typically is met. Middle-class children are The findings presented here, and in much rather than reasoning with children. And taught to ask doctors questions and to feel greater detail in Unequal Childhoods, are children generally negotiate institutional that they have the right to challenge people based on an intensive study of only twelve life, including their day-to-day school in positions of authority. Thus, the data families. Can we trust these results to tell experiences, on their own. The working- suggest that middle-class children gain us anything of significance? I believe that class and poor parents in the study often advantages, including potential benefits in we can. The book’s conclusions support were very distrustful of contacts with “the the world of work, from the experience of established findings in social science re- school” and healthcare facilities. They concerted cultivation. Working-class and search, which, using statistical techniques were fearful that professionals in these poor children are not taught these life and nationally representative data, have institutions might “come and take my kids skills, and thus do not gain the associated shown important differences in how parents away.” Rather than an emerging sense of benefits. In short, class matters. raise children. Rather than using numbers, entitlement, children in these families Unequal Childhoods uses the stories of real developed an emerging sense of constraint. What about race? We found that in terms families to highlight important social Working-class and poor families struggled of children’s time use, parents’ methods of patterns. Moreover, American society is in with severe economic shortages (including talking to children, and parents’ interactions a time of change. Children are being raised lack of food in the poor families) that often with schools and other institutions, African differently today than in earlier decades: led to additional labor or complexity (long American middle-class children had much middle-class children have more organized bus rides, missed appointments), but the more in common with white middle-class activities than in the 1950s and 1960s, for pace of their daily life was much less hectic children than with African American poor example. This shift has important implica- than that of the middle-class families. or working-class children. Still, race does tions for family life that our research helps expose by providing detailed insight into intimate details of daily life in families with young children. It gives us a chance to step back and reflect on how we are spending our time in family life as parents, and how we are choosing to raise our children. It also reminds us of the fact — all too often neglected— that there are important Unequal Childhoods continued on page F3 Family Focus March 2007 F2 35749 Focus.pmd 2 2/5/2007, 12:26 PM Family Focus On... Families and Social Class Professor as Student: What my Undergraduate Students have Taught me about Social Class by Stephen R. Marks, Professor of Sociology, University of Maine n recent years I’ve asked students in after school; adult-organized and adult- have acquired enough middle-class cultural my undergraduate Microsociology managed activities are what mc kids do. capital to get on board. Exactly how that Icourse to come to terms with their Non-negotiable directives and scant focus happened is the challenge of the term paper. social-class origins in a term paper. They on cognitive and reasoning skills are the Earnestly, my students stretch to fit them- borrow concepts from Annette Lareau’s approach of wc parents; verbal negotiation selves to these concepts, and many of them Unequal Childhoods and Julie Bettie’s and an intense cultivation of cognitive skills do so splendidly.

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