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Parenting & Privilege: Race, Social Class and the Intergenerational

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Parenting & Privilege: Race, Social Class and the Intergenerational Parenting & Privilege: Race, Social Class and the Intergenerational Transmission of Social Inequality Jeremy Pienik A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Sociology Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: Francois Nielsen Peggy Thoits Kenneth Bollen Guang Guo Cathy Zimmer ABSTRACT JEREMY PIENIK: Parenting & Privilege: Race, Social Class and the Intergenerational Transmission of Social Inequality (Under the direction of Francois Nielsen and Peggy Thoits) Drawing on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’ Childhood Developmental Supplement, I employed structural equation modeling to test four hypotheses derived from Annette Lareau’s concerted cultivation theory of the social reproduction of inequality: 1) that an underlying construct, which Lareau labels “concerted cultivation”, manifests itself across a number of interrelated parenting practices; 2) that concerted cultivation is tied to social class, with middle-class parents providing more concerted cultivation than working-class and poor parents, and with the working and poor classes providing similarly low levels of such parenting; 3) that, adjusting for social-class status and other potential confounding factors, race is not independently predictive of parenting practices; and 4) that middle-class advantages in positive youth development are significantly mediated by concerted cultivation. Results were supportive of Lareau’s claims. Concerted cultivation: 1) could be modeled as a latent construct with acceptable measurement properties; 2a) was found to be greater within the middle class than among the working class or the poor, and b) did not differ between the poor and working class; 3) was not related to race independently of social class; and 4) mediated the relationships between familial social class and youth intellectual skills, along with a wide-range of positive psychosocial developmental outcomes. Limitations and suggestions for future research are considered. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................................................vi Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 II. CONCEPTUALIZING CONCERTED CULTIVATION...........................................13 Parental Values and Attitudes.…………..…………………………………………..14 Physical/Material Home Environment ……………………………………………...24 Parental Behavioral Traits…………………………………………………………...28 Responsiveness ……………………………………………………………………...29 Demandingness……………………………………………………………………...32 Cognitive Stimulation ……………………………………………………….............35 Hybrid Concepts …………………………………………………………………….39 III. THE CLASS BASIS OF THE CONCERTED CULTIVATION …………………..44 Theorizing the Relationship between Social Class, Socioeconomic Status and Childrearing……………… ……………………………………………..52 Investment model …………………………………………………………………...54 IV. RACE VERSUS CLASS …………………………………………………………...58 V. YOUTH OUTCOMES ……………………………………………………………...63 Contributions ………………………………………………………………………..70 VI. METHODS…………………………………………………………………………..72 iii Data …………………………………………………………………………………72 Sample …………………………………………………………………………........75 Measures …………………………………………………………………………….78 Testing Latent Variable Measurement Models ……………………………………..84 Evaluating Concerted Cultivation Measurement Models …………………………..86 Outcome variables …………………………………………………………………..88 Controls ……………………………………………………………………………..92 Analytical Strategy ………………………………………………………………….94 Model Testing ……………………………………………………………………….98 VII. RESULTS …………………………………………………………………...............99 Hypothesis 1: Concerted Cultivation as a Latent Construct ………………………...99 Hypothesis 2: Social Class and Concerted Cultivation .…………………………….99 Hypothesis 3: Race and Concerted Cultivation ……………………………………100 Hypothesis 4: Social Class and Youth Outcomes …………………………………100 Hypothesis 5: Mediating Effects of Concerted Cultivation on Relations Between Social Class and Youth Outcomes ………………………………………101 Non-Hypothesized Tests for Mediation—Parental Verbal Skill, Parental Education, and Household Income ………………………………………………...102 VIII. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………….105 Contributions to Conceptualization and Measurement of Key Concepts …………106 Contributions Concerning Connections between Social Class and Parenting …….109 Contributions with Respect to Race and Concerted Cultivation …………………..118 Contributions Regarding the Connection between Parenting and Youth Development………………………………………………………………..119 Concerns and Limitations ………………………………………………………….122 Final Thoughts ……………………………………………………………………..126 iv APPENDICES ………………………………………………………………………………………151 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………153 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1a. Frequencies and Bivariate Relationships, Social Class and Control, Mediator, and Outcome Variables, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 & 2002/3. (unweighted)………………………………………………………………129 1b. Frequencies and Bivariate Relationships, Social Class and Control, Mediator, and Outcome Variables, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 & 2002/3. (weighted)…………………………………………………………………132 2. Confirmatory Factor Analyses: Factor Loadings and Fit Indices for Latent Constructs, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 2002/3 ……………..136 3a. Structural Equation Model of the Relationship between Social Class and Concerted Cultivation (Middle Class Omitted), Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 and 2002/3……………………………………………….137 3b. Structural Equation Model of the Relationship between Social Class and Concerted Cultivation (Working Class Omitted), Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 and 2002/3……………………………………………….138 4a. Relationship between Social Class and Youth Outcomes (Middle Class Omitted), Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 and 2002/3 …...139 4b. Relationship between Social Class and Youth Outcomes (Working Class Omitted), Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 and 2002/3…...142 5a. Mediating Influence of Concerted Cultivation on the Relationship between Social Class and Youth Outcomes (Middle Class Omitted), Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 and 2002/3 ………………………………………..145 5b. Mediating Influence of Concerted Cultivation on the Relationship between Social Class and Youth Outcomes (Working Class Omitted), Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement: 1997 and 2002/3 ……………………………148 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Why do the children of middle-class parents often end up in positions of privilege themselves, while many from the poor and working-classes struggle to rise in social standing? Do parents who encourage their children to learn to play the piano or participate in Girl Scouts end up providing them with skills that carry over into schooling and other realms of life? Do childrearing practices and strategies differ across racial groups as well as social classes, or are we just as likely to find Black middle-class parents as White middle-class parents shuttling offspring from one activity to the next in the hope of cultivating their child’s innermost potential? These are just a few of the questions that have occupied the debate concerning the role that social class and race play in the socialization of offspring and the place families have in providing advantages to children, advantages which some scholars maintain materialize in children’s school success, verbal facility, confidence in communicating with adults, and persistence in the pursuit of valued goals. Social class and racial differences in parenting values and practices have long been of interest to social scientists and policy-makers (Dubois 1908; Frazier 1939; Moynihan 1965; Coleman 1968; Kohn 1976; Lareau 2000; Conger and Elder 1994; McLoyd 1990, 1998) in large part because such differences are thought to contribute to the reproduction of inequality. Indeed a central assumption of the Wisconsin model of status attainment (Sewell and Shah 1968; Sewell, Hauser, and Featherman 1976), Bourdieu’s (1981) “cultural capital” theory of social reproduction, Kohn’s (1959; 1977) “class and conformity” hypothesis, the “family stress” models of Elder (1974), Conger and Elder (1994) and McLoyd (1990), Ogbu’s (2003) “culture of opposition” theory, and, most recently, Lareau’s (2003) “concerted cultivation” model, is that differences in parental involvement with their children’s intellectual and socio-psychological development contribute to intergenerational continuity in educational and occupational achievements. By implication, parenting practices associated with children’s socio-psychological and cognitive advancement differ systematically by social class and, some scholars assert, by race as well (Kohn 1959, 1967; Coleman 1966; Sewell and Shah 1968; Jencks et al., 1972; Lareau 2000; Ogbu 2003; Cheadle 2008). Surprisingly little is known, however, about how specific parenting practices associated with children’s socio-psychological and cognitive development vary by class and race in the contemporary United States (Murray, Smith, & Hill 2001; Lareau 2003; Chin and Phillips 2004), or whether intergroup differences in achievement are attributable to differential parental “inputs” (Phillips, Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, Kiebanov, and Crane 1998;
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