Unequal Childhoods

by Annette Lareau

  Harold McAllister (African American, poor) and I meet in the apartment he shares with his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, and their three kids. Dressed casually in a T-shirt and jeans, Harold looks older than the others, perhaps because of his closely trimmed beard. He works the 4 P.M. to-midnight shift at a suburban chain restaurant (taking four buses, and two hours, to get there). Harold knows how to drive, but he does not have a driver’s license. “I got to get [around] to that real soon,” he says. He started at the restaurant five years ago, as a busboy. Now he is a waiter.

  Harold began high school in a “school within a school” college prep program. He liked it but was removed after one year and reassigned to his school’s general education program. He is not sure why. He guesses it was because he had been late a few times and had gotten a D in English. Harold recalls his grades as “B’s and C’s” in the general education track. On the athletic front, high school was disastrous. Although during middle school Harold’s basketball prowess had earned him a ranking of seventh citywide, he was not selected for his high school team. He insists this was because the basketball coach (who also coached football) wanted him to play football. (Harold is built like a football player—he is broad shouldered, stands 5 feet 11 inches, and weighs 240 pounds.) He was devastated by the coach’s decision. He explains that he took the busboy job “to get [his] mind off basketball.” By his junior year, he was working full-time. Harold got home late, but because his mother always woke him in time for school, he always went. But when he began staying with his father (in order, Harold says, to avoid having to “deal with all those females”—his mother, his sisters, and their kids), who did not wake him up, he got to school less and less often. He dropped out six weeks before graduation. He hopes to go back to school someday.

  Unlike many African American men who are high school dropouts, Harold has never been “locked up.”20 He had one close call. He was in a fast-food restaurant with a friend who had some marijuana. The police arrived. The officers were convinced Harold was involved in drug possession and sales. A bystander called his mom. She ran to the restaurant, and Harold was released to her. Reflecting on his old neighborhood, he says, “It is really bad down there; seventy percent of my friends are dead or in jail. It is crazy.” Harold feels that Blacks are treated differently from whites, particularly by the police. He recounts a racial profiling incident from his own life. Then he tells me, resignedly, that he does not “dwell on” this kind of experience.

  Looking to the future, Harold says that by age twenty-five, he hopes to be married and expects to have children. He dreams of his own business, possibly a corner grocery store. He wants to earn enough money to be able to retire at thirty-five.

  SECTION 3. RECURRING THEMES AND PERSISTENT PATTERNS OF DIFFERENCE IN DAILY LIFE

  As the portraits make clear, all the young adults followed life paths that were fully embedded in a larger social context; no one grew into adulthood in isolation. The findings that emerged in the follow-up study regarding class differences in everyday life are highly consistent with those of other studies. Many of the patterns I found in the youths’ life paths are echoed in national data.21 As Table D1 in Appendix D shows, the young adults from middle-class families were more likely to graduate from high school, apply to four-year colleges, gain admission, and enroll. This scenario fits three of the middle-class youths; the fourth (Melanie) accomplished each step but decided not to enroll in the four-year school. (Her community college effort also fizzled.) The parents and kids in the working-class and poor families had college aspirations, but these goals were generally not realized. Siblings tended to follow similar paths (see Table D2). Although parents’ situations changed over the decade since the original research (see Table D3), none of the families experienced a dramatic shift in life circumstances. Still, differences between the working-class and poor families were more noticeable by the time the youth had become adolescents. When the kids were in elementary school, economic differences between these families were apparent in the presence (or absence) of food shortages, transportation options, and neighborhood amenities. But, in terms of the specific aspects of the children’s daily lives that were the focus of the original study, it was difficult to discern key differences. By adolescence, there were cleavages in the youths’ high school experiences. Working-class families were better able to avoid unattractive schools than were poor families. Wendy’s grandfather, for example, paid her tuition at a Catholic school. Also, the youth from the poor families entered the labor market earlier and in a more sustained fashion than did the working-class youth.

  Below, I review the most important patterns of difference found across all three social classes, grouped by specific areas of the kids’ lives: high schools; networks, work, and resources; organized activities; neighborhoods and violence; and awareness of their own and others’ social class position.

  High Schools

  Most of the youth stayed in the same general geographic area as they grew into young adulthood. The differences between the schools they attended continued and, in some instances, appeared to increase.

  The neighborhood school for most of the working-class and poor kids was Lower Richmond High School, a large, older, urban public high school that at the time had metal detectors, issues with drugs, fights, and poor attendance. About one-half of the student body came from low-income families. In the follow-up interviews, all of the families whose children were slated to attend Lower Richmond deemed it inferior or, as one parent put it, a “bad school.” Its status as a neighborhood school further diminished Lower Richmond High’s appeal because in this district, going to a neighborhood school was uniformly seen as less desirable than attending a magnet high school, the latter having a reputation for academic quality. Other factors added to Lower Richmond’s image as a last resort. Oversight appeared to be lax. Many students reported that instead of attending classes, they routinely remained in the cafeteria for the entire day. The district reported the graduation rate based on the proportion of students who began their senior year and graduated in June (70 percent).22 (This rate was lower for white males than for African American males.) This figure, of course, did not include the students who dropped out or left to get a GED before their senior year. Some estimate that the overall four-year graduation rate was around 55 percent at that time. Lower Richmond offered a much more basic and slow-moving level of curriculum than that found in the suburban high schools the middle-class adolescents attended. Only about one-quarter of students were found to be advanced or proficient on the state reading and math curriculum. There were no AP (advanced placement) courses, and SAT preparation was not offered in the district. Districtwide SAT scores averaged a combined total of 756 [1134]. There was one guidance counselor per 430 students.23 Although teaching at Lower Richmond and other city schools was widely seen as more challenging than at suburban high schools, average faculty salaries were about 10 percent lower than in suburban districts such as Swan. Per pupil expenditure was about 70 percent of expenditures at Swan and other nearby suburban school districts. In the course of my follow-up research, I learned that the school offered a program to help students with college applications. None of the families mentioned this service during the follow-up interviews.

  The middle-class youth attended four different high schools, and all four were different from Lower Richmond. At the time the youth were attending, these schools appeared to offer a fast-paced, challenging curriculum. For example, the schools emphasized the development of writing skills, they offered a large array of AP courses, and they provided college preparation services unavailable at Lower Richmond. At Swan High School, which Melanie attended, SAT preparation was offered as an elective class. Average class size in Swan high school was about half that in the Lower Richmond District. The passage rate on state proficiency tests was over twice the rate at Lower Richmond. Average Swan SAT scores were 1065 [1598]. Swan’s ratio of 250 students to 1 counselor was approximately one-half that at Lower R
ichmond. Some of the suburban high schools also offered an International Baccalaureate Program, which is a rigorous, selective high school curriculum. The school Garrett attended had very high test scores that consistently put it among the state’s top ten high schools. Garrett’s school and the one Stacey attended were selected for accolades by U.S. News and World Report in the magazine’s ranking of America’s best high schools. Alexander went to a small, elite private high school with a reputation as one of the best private high schools in the area. These schools all had dropout rates under 7 percent and college-going rates over 90 percent. All three of the public high schools also had active parent volunteer programs and educational foundations that annually raised thousands of dollars for school equipment, teacher grants, and college scholarships. The suburban high schools also appeared to bestow many awards. Thus, there are many signs that the middle-class students attended high schools that differed significantly from Lower Richmond in terms of funding, facilities, curriculum, college preparation, and overall reputation.

  Networks, Work, and Resources

  As the youth transitioned to adulthood, nearly all sought to enter the labor market, either by being hired for paid employment or by securing an internship in a work setting. Their parents used their own social networks to help the kids gain access to work.24 But the jobs parents could help their children get differed. The kinds of connections they could make on their children’s behalf were shaped by the parents’ social networks, which were in turn shaped by their social class position. Working-class and poor youth generally were referred to lower-level blue-collar jobs or, in a few instances, lower-level white-collar jobs. Katie’s mother helped Katie get a job cleaning houses alongside her. Harold’s brother-in-law helped him get a job as a busboy in a chain restaurant. Billy’s father helped him get jobs painting houses. By contrast, Alexander’s mother arranged for him to be an intern in a medical office in order to build his resume for his premed college applications. Stacey was a waitress, but she was also a camp counselor, a position with characteristics similar to those needed for a career in education or counseling. Garrett had a “hideous” summer job in an auto parts yard, but it was clear this was an aberration with no bearing on his vision of his future employment. The amount of time the young people spent in the labor force also differed. Harold started working full-time at age fifteen. Wendy worked two jobs in high school. By contrast, Garrett, Alexander, and Stacey had much more limited experience in the labor force.

  All of the middle-class parents and most of the working-class and poor parents owned cars. Many of the young people described their pleasure at (finally) becoming old enough to get a driver’s license. Getting a driver’s license is an important mark of adulthood, a formal institutional recognition of adult status. In addition, it is a resource in the sense that it is a prerequisite for applying for many jobs (e.g., truck driver, forklift operator, pizza delivery driver, babysitter). Still, as Table D1 shows, whether these young people had a driver’s license varied across the sample. Many youth indicated that they knew how to drive, but not all were licensed. Any driving Harold or Katie did, for instance, was technically illegal. Others, including Tyrec, had received their driver’s licenses, but then had them suspended.

  Organized Activities

  In the follow-up interviews, I asked the young adults who had participated in organized activities as children if there were any ways that these activities affected their lives now. Three of the middle-class youth, Garrett, Stacey, and Alexander, enthusiastically discussed benefits from their organized activities.25 Stacey, who had been involved in gymnastics, was effusive:

  I learned the whole essence of what a teammate is supposed to be. I had all these people cheering when I did my routines. I think that helped me a lot with basketball. . . . At the time I loved it all. . . . There was never a bad thing in gymnastics.

  Some of the insights Stacey gained have stayed with her. She learned that she could work through challenges in life, and having people cheer her on taught her the critical role of social support:

  Someone is just off [having a bad day], and you start cheering for someone or talk to them by yourself. If you don’t do well, you have all those people who support you.

  Alexander emphasized the benefits of organized activities for helping him build time-management skills. Garrett, who took piano lessons for eight years, mentioned music as an important, ongoing resource: “If I’m not in a great mood, I’ll just sit down and play [and it] soothes . . . I love it, just love music.” More generally, he saw his experience with organized activities as teaching him goal orientation (“If I have an assignment or a project [I] need to get finished, I won’t stop until I reach the goal”) and other skills likely to be helpful in the world of work:

  I think it will help competitiveness. If my job comes to that, I’m pretty sure it probably will, I’ll have [a] competitive edge or the competitive nature to want to [have] success and do well. And it helps. I play team sports so [it helps in] getting along with people—working together.

  Melanie, however, did not consider her childhood organized activities especially helpful. She did not feel that she had learned anything from Girl Scouts. As an adolescent, she lost interest in church and stopped attending (to her parents’ deep disappointment). She still played piano from time to time. She loved being a high school cheerleader.

  Very few of the working-class and poor young adults had participated regularly in organized activities as children. Those who did have activities had one or, rarely, two rather than the schedule of multiple, concurrent activities typical of the middle-class kids. Tyrec played football, Billy played baseball, and Wendy took dance lessons and religious instruction. During interviews when they were twenty-year-olds, none of the three could think of any particular long-term benefits they had derived from participating in these activities. Their parents concurred with this view. When I asked Ms. Driver if dance lessons had a lasting impact on Wendy, she responded, laughing, “Nah, she is still clumsy.” Referring to her dance classes, Wendy said simply, “I did it to have something to do.” Tyrec could not think of any benefits from his participation in football. From Billy’s perspective, there were neither benefits nor drawbacks from having taken part in a team sport. Echoing Wendy, he said, “It was just something to do.” His mother, though, regretted Billy’s participation in baseball. Ms. Yanelli felt that he lacked natural talent and that his repeated failure on the field had been humiliating for him.

  As the first edition of the book notes, the middle-class parents appeared to see organized activities as filled with “teachable moments” that helped cultivate their children’s talents. As young adults, most of the middle-class kids articulated a similar perspective, readily linking their past activities to enduring life benefits. Working-class and poor parents who enrolled their children in activities generally did so to provide a safe form of entertainment—“something to do.” As young adults, these kids sounded much like their parents, describing their organized activities as a diversion without long-lasting importance.

  Overall, while some young adults spoke positively of their involvement in organized activities, they did not believe that it had significant consequences for the transition into higher education and/or the labor force. It is possible, however, that the young adults were unaware of benefits they accrued from their activities.26 College applications ask about organized activities, and arguably, evidence of participation may give an applicant a competitive edge, particularly in small liberal arts colleges.27 In addition, participation in organized activities gives children experience performing in public. Being comfortable performing in public could be useful in many settings, including in speaking out in a college seminar. Also, one ethnographic study of hiring decisions in an investment bank, a prestigious law firm, and a business firm found that extracurricular involvements were crucial in helping candidates make the cut.28 Still, conclusions about the role of organized activities must await the availability of addi
tional data.

  Neighborhoods, Police, and Violence

  In addition to different family situations, the young people grew up in different neighborhoods. As they transitioned into adulthood, they had unequal exposure to neighborhood conflict, including violence.29 The African American working-class and poor young men in the study spoke at length about the death of good friends. For example, Harold remained shaken by the death of his buddy, a young man he used to “chill” with as they were growing up. He and his cousin separately reported the same tale: this buddy was sitting in a car (in an inner-ring suburb) with his girlfriend. In an attempted robbery, “Two people came up out of nowhere or whatever and tried to rob them and stuff like that. They both got killed that night.”

  Similarly, Tyrec experienced the deaths of two good friends. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges in his life has been learning to cope with these losses. One friend was killed during the winter of what would have been his freshman year in high school; the other in what would have been his junior year. The first death, especially, stunned Tyrec:

  I was just shocked. It was somebody that I used to be able to go, I’d call and be like, “Let’s go here, go there.” Like, it was a hard time getting through that. I just was having a hard time doing everything.

  During his interview, Tyrec seemed visibly depressed about his friends’ deaths. He reported that his girlfriend, Whitney, was an enormous aid in helping him cope with these tragedies.

  Some of the working-class and poor young men in the study also spoke about the role of the police in their neighborhoods. It was a topic that evoked long, passionate commentary from them. Both white and Black males reported police harassment. Harold had moved across town from Lower Richmond to a working-class, low-income neighborhood that was virtually all African American. Some of his family members and neighborhood acquaintances have had run-ins with the police there. He reported, “Cops, they just like harass people for no reason. I don’t like cops.”30