Unequal Childhoods

by Annette Lareau

  5. Most of the quotes reported in the book are from tape-recorded interviews or tape recordings made during family observations. At times, following traditional ethnographic work, the excerpts are from field notes that the research assistants and I wrote up immediately after the observations. In those instances, we added quotation marks only if we were certain that we could remember the exchange verbatim. As a result, there are excerpts from field notes that recount speech without the use of quotation marks. (I did not carry notebooks or permit others to write notes during field visits; rather we “hung out.”) In editing the quotes for readability I removed false starts, “um,” “you know,” “like,” and stuttering when they did not appear to be analytically significant. The signal of a . . . indicates the omission of words (or in a few cases a slight reordering of sentences). Finally, the research assistants and I had different nicknames for the family members that we used in our field notes (e.g., “Mr. Tallinger,” “Mr. T.” or “Don”). Rather than tamper with the text of field notes, I have allowed this variability to remain.

  Brackets are used in the field notes to set off text inserted by me, usually for clarification, such as when a person’s name is used in place of a personal pronoun, or as a side comment I added during the writing of the book. Parentheses are used to show the field-worker’s side comments, which were inserted at the time the field notes were written.

  6. For example, on a spelling test, a third-grader composed a sentence in which he said that he wanted to kill his teacher. This unusual incident generated considerable discussion in the hallways.

  7. The average housing value at Swan was around $160,500 in the 1990 census compared to $75,000 in the Lower Richmond area. Compared to many urban areas, housing prices were modest in this geographical region, a pattern that continues to the present.

  8. Parent volunteers for organized activities had similar complaints. A father who oversees the local Cub Scout troops is dismayed by the number of parents who “drop [their] kid off and use the time to go do errands.”

  9. There were differences in important aspects of school life. There was more emphasis on order and control of children’s bodies at Lower Richmond than at Swan. In Lower Richmond, for example, lining up children in an orderly way took longer and involved more teacher input than at Swan School. (There were also separate girls’ and boys’ lines at Lower Richmond, while at Swan there was one, gender integrated, line.) Yard duty teachers yelled more on the playground at Lower Richmond than at Swan school and physical fights were much more frequent at Lower Richmond. These differences in practices, however, should not obscure the important point of the cultural repertoires that teachers sought to enact and envisioned as most appropriate for children. In this regard, as well as in their own personal lives, educators supported the concerted cultivation of children’s talents, particularly the development of their reasoning skills.

  10. See Jean Anyon, Ghetto Schooling, and Jonathon Kozol, Savage Inequalities. See also the U. S. Department of Education, The Condition of Education, 2001.

  11. An exposition of how these beliefs developed, were transmitted, were contested, and changed over time is beyond the scope of this work. Still, it is apparent that professionals’ standards are shaped by multiple forces. These include what teachers learned from their professional training (i.e., teacher education programs), from the publications by National Teachers’ Organizations, from district in-service trainings and materials, and from informal conversation with teachers and administrators.

  12. See especially Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words.

  13. See Joyce Epstein and Mavis G. Sanders, “Connecting Home, School, and Community,” as well as Annette Lareau, Home Advantage.

  14. In this book, all statistics, unless otherwise noted, are targeted to 1993–1995 (usually 1995), which was the time of data collection. William Kornblum, Sociology: The Central Questions, p. 159.

  15. Childhood poverty has been demonstrated to predict a host of negative life outcomes, including lower levels of health, scores on standardized tests, school grades, and emotional well-being. See Greg J. Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, eds., Consequences of Growing Up Poor. For a comparative view of poverty rates in the United States and other industrialized countries, see Rainwater and Smeeding, “Doing Poorly.”

  16. See Greg J. Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, eds., Consequences of Growing Up Poor. In 1997, 20% of all children were officially poor, but for white children the figure was 16% and for Black children it was 37%; for Black children under the age of six, 40% were poor. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt, The State of Working America 1998–1999, p. 281.

  17. For example between 1989 and 1997 the wealth of the top fifth of the country grew by 9% while it declined by 6% for the bottom tenth of the population. Mishel et al., The State of Working America, p, 264. See also Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer, “A Century of Inequality.”

  18. See Dalton Conley, Being Black, Living in the Red, and Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth.

  19. The high school dropout rate in 1995 was 9% for whites and 12% for Black youth; by the end of the decade it had dropped slightly for white youth and increased slightly for Black youth. See U. S. Department of Education, The Condition of Education, 2001, p. 142.

  20. In 1995, 28% of young people 25–29 had completed a bachelor’s degree; by 2000 it had risen to 33%. There is a significant difference between the proportion of white high school graduates who eventually earn college degrees (31% in 1995, 36% in 2001) and Black high school graduates who eventually earn degrees (18% in 1995, and 21% in 2001). For the adult population as a whole, (ages 25–64) the proportion of college graduates is 24%. See U. S. Department of Education, Condition of Education 1995, pp. 245–249, and U. S. Department of Education, Condition of Education 2001, pp. 142, 150–151.

  21. See Dalton Conley, Being Black, Living in the Red, as well as U. S. Department of Education, The Condition of Education, 2001.

  22. See William G. Bowen and Derek Bok, The Shape of the River.

  23. See Donald Barlett and James B. Steele, America: What Went Wrong? and Arne Kalleberg, Barbara F. Reskin, and Ken Hudson, “Bad Jobs in America.”

  24. For example, only 51% of children of high school dropouts can recognize the colors red, yellow, blue, and green by name, but the figures for high school graduates is 78%, for parents with some college it is 92%, and for college graduates it is 95%. For knowing all of the letters of the alphabet, the respective figures are 9%, 19%, 29%, and 42%. U. S. Department of Education, Condition of Education 1995, p. 182.

  25. See U. S. Department of Education, Condition of Education, 1995 and Entwhistle et al., Children, Schools, and Inequality. At the same level of parental education, white students generally receive higher scores than do Black students. See also Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, eds., The Black-White Test Score Gap.

  26. In 1995, 61% of high school graduates enrolled in college; for children of high school dropouts, the rate was 27%, for children of high school graduates 47%, and for children of college graduates, 88%. U. S. Department of Education, Condition of Education, 2001, p. 147.

  27. As Paul Kingston has noted (personal communication) the relationship between parents’ educational level and occupational level is far from automatic. There is a considerable amount of downward mobility. Also, there is variation among brothers and sisters in the same family. Still, parents’ social class position remains one of the most powerful predictors of children’s educational success and life outcomes. See Paul Kingston’s book The Classless Society for an elaboration of this position as well as Christopher Jencks et al., Inequality, and Who Gets Ahead?

  28. Kingston, therefore, does not deny the existence of inequality: “Beyond question, huge inequalities exist and Americans recognize them.” Nevertheless, in his book The Classless Society, he is particularly adamant in asserting that cultural habits—as manifest in family life or childrearing, for example—are
not associated with different economic groups: “My thesis is that groups of people having a common economic position—what are commonly designated as ‘classes’—do not significantly share distinct, life-defining experiences” (p. 1).

  29. Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters, The Death of Class, p. 4.

  30. For examples within this tradition see Paul Willis, Learning to Labour, and Basil Bernstein, Class, Codes, and Control.

  31. It is true, of course, that people do not generally see themselves as anything but middle class. Nevertheless, I am not asserting that powerful patterns of class-consciousness exist.

  32. My debt to Bourdieu is enormous, especially regarding his preoccupation in the transmission of advantage. Although some have critiqued his model of social reproduction for being overly deterministic, a close reading of his theoretical ideas makes clear that Bourdieu sees a great deal of indeterminacy in how life trajectories unfold (see Marlis Buchman’s book The Script of Life for a particularly lucid description of Bourdieu’s model). Still, there is one key way that I have parted company with Bourdieu. As Elliot Weininger has noted in his article “Class and Causation in Bourdieu,” Bourdieu has a gradational (rather than categorical) conception of class structure. In addition, Bourdieu is deeply interested in fractions or divisions within a social class, an issue that space (and sample size) does not permit me to develop here.

  CHAPTER 3: THE HECTIC PACE OF CONCERTED CULTIVATION

  1. Recent national data also suggest that children of highly educated parents have more organized activities and busier schedules. See especially Sandra L. Hofferth and John F. Sandberg, “Changes in American Children’s Time, 1981–1997,” as well as Elliot Weininger and Annette Lareau, “Children’s Participation in Organized Activities and the Gender Dynamic of the ‘Time Bind.’” There are also a number of older studies on children’s organized leisure activities, including the classic piece by Janet Lever, “Sex Differences in the Complexity of Children’s Play”; Elliot Medrich et al., The Serious Business of Growing Up; and Gary Alan Fine, With the Boys.

  2. See David M. Halbfinger, “Our Town,” wherein parents report spending almost $6,000 annually on hockey alone.

  3. As with many American households, the Tallingers had accumulated debt and had limited savings. For a more detailed discussion of the Tallingers’ financial situation (as well as the Yanelli, Driver, and Greeley families), see the dissertation by Patricia Berhau, Class and the Experiences of Consumers.

  4. See Gai Ingham Berlage’s paper, “Are Children’s Competitive Team Sports Teaching Corporate Values?” for a study of fathers of children on hockey and soccer travel teams. Fathers expressed the belief that their son’s participation would increase “teamwork” and “self-discipline.” Still, the actual impact on their work careers is unclear, and a study of college athletes, James Shulman and William Bowen, The Game of Life, challenges some of these assumptions about the long-term effects of athletic participation.

  5. See Melvin Kohn and Carmi Schooler, Work and Personality.

  6. Perhaps in recognition of this reality, Intercounty soccer team organizers require team members to sign a document pledging to make this activity their priority.

  7. Mr. Tallinger believes in the value of spanking, however. With Sam in particular, he uses spanking as a threat. For a detailed look at the role of reasoning in concerted cultivation, see Chapter 6.

  CHAPTER 4: A CHILD’S PACE

  1. Elijah Anderson documents the importance of complying with codes of respect, particularly in children’s relations with adults. See his book Code of the Street.

  2. We did not observe middle-class Black children use such terms; rather they called adults by their first names. We also did not observe poor and working-class white children automatically use honorific terms with adults, which is suggestive of a difference across racial groups in this aspect of family life within working-class and poor families.

  3. During their four-year separation, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Taylor reconciled at one point. They lived together again for eighteen months before splitting up a second time.

  4. Tyrec’s closest friends, the boys we observed him play with daily, all are Black. In an interview, however, his mother reported that he has three good friends who are white.

  5. It is unclear the degree to which Tyrec wanted to sign up again. What is salient here is that the mother was “praying” that he would not want to do so. Unlike in the middle-class families, there was no presumption of children being involved in organizations and activities. For a discussion of the crucial role of mothers in screening programs before allowing children to participate in recreational services, see Dennis R. Howard and Robert Madrigal, “Who Makes the Decision: The Parent or the Child?”

  CHAPTER 5: CHILDREN’S PLAY IS FOR CHILDREN

  1. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination.

  2. Although the Brindles have moved frequently in the past (Jenna, who went to school only through tenth grade, attended twenty different schools), they have been in their current neighborhood for more than two years, and Katie has been in the same elementary school for four years.

  3. Although the person was never caught, Ms. Brindle suspects a neighbor in the apartment building where they lived previously. The man was the father of one of Katie’s playmates.

  4. John is schizophrenic and cannot work; Ryan is illiterate but he is employed.

  5. Unlike Black families from similar economic circumstances, the Brindles lived in a neighborhood that housed families from varying economic circumstances. Overall, Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, have shown poor white families do not experience the same form of hyper-segregation as Black families.

  6. For a discussion of poor mothers’ efforts to make ends meet as they grocery shop, see Marjorie DeVault, Feeding the Family, especially the chapter on “provisioning.”

  7. She is less direct with Katie, but with her, too, there are special, affectionate rituals. For example, when Katie is away from home (typically, at her grandmother’s house) and calls her mother on the telephone, Ms. Brindle says in a warm and loving tone, “I love you,” and, “I miss you too.” In addition, she and Katie have developed a ritual to make it easier to say good-bye. They count to three together, “Okay, one, two, three,” and hang up at the exact same moment. Ms. Brindle explains, “[Katie] doesn’t like to hang up and so we count together.”

  8. Middle-class parents are especially likely to stop what they are doing to watch a child if the child specifically requests that they do so. Although some may ask for a temporary delay before the start of the performance they are supposed to watch, few of these parents simply refuse their children’s requests.

  9. Katie does draw adult attention when she demonstrates her ability to cry on command: “[Katie] scrunches up her face and begins to make fake sobs; she—in an agitated and very persuasive way—begins to frantically run her hands through her hair; she throws her entire body on the couch and the sobs get louder.” This acting stint prompts comments from the adults, but not ones aimed at cultivating Katie’s talents: Ryan says, “That is some job—especially the hands and the hair.” . . . [His mother remarks,] “Oh yeah, she really does a job there.” (Uncle John continues to show no affect of any kind.) See Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words, for a discussion of viewing adults, rather than children, as appropriate conversation partners.

  10. In a setting where the television was virtually always on, and was only casually attended to, this action by Amy appeared to be an effort to gain her grandmom’s attention. Grandmom did not appear to define Amy’s action as disrespectful.

  11. I am surprised that no one is watching. Occasionally, I crane my neck up and around to watch the girls from my spot on the floor.

  12. She suggested that Katie use her birthday money to purchase dark shoes to complete the outfit.

  13. This family was particularly vulnerable to intervention by state officials as their routine child-rearing practices sometimes violated pre
vailing standards. As I discuss briefly in Appendix A, the field-workers and I found visits to this family more difficult than the visits to other families.

  PART II: LANGUAGE USE

  1. Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words.

  CHAPTER 6: DEVELOPING A CHILD

  1. As I explain in Appendix A, Alexander did not attend school where the classroom observations for this study were conducted. Instead, an acquaintance consulted the directory for the private school her daughter attends and supplied me with the addresses of the two Black families with children in the fourth grade. I sent the Williams family a letter. After a series of meetings (and my compliance with their request to see a copy of my previous book and my résumé), they agreed to be in the study. Because of this difference in recruitment, we do not have data from classroom observations or parent-teacher conferences for this family.

  2. This is not to suggest that parent-child talking is the only pathway to academic success. There is compelling evidence of academic achievement in immigrant populations, for example, where this kind of cultivation of language skills is limited. Still, even here, the social origins of the immigrants appear to matter in children’s educational experiences. (See, for example, Alejandro Portes and Dag MacLeod, “Educational Progress of Children of Immigrants.”) In addition, some middle-class children have learning disabilities, differ in achievement motivation, and are subject to other mediating factors that impede school success. Thus, extensive reasoning at home does not ensure school success. The argument is that it can provide a key advantage. Research linking family background to differences in reading levels and aptitude test scores also supports this position. See Betty Hart and Todd Risley, Meaningful Differences.

  3. See Betty Hart and Todd Risley, Meaningful Differences, as well as Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words. See also Jonathan B. Imber, “Doctor No Longer Knows Best.”