Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

Concerted cultivation is the second parenting approach Lareau examines in her study on the influence of class and race on parenting. This parenting style is practiced largely by middle-class parents who not only have the income to support numerous extracurricular activities but who are also convinced they must develop their child in as many ways as possible to help them succeed. This approach involves parents being extremely hands-on and sacrificing most or all their free time (and sometimes work as well) to usher children and support them in their pursuits. Children raised with this approach are often exhausted and irritable and sometimes lack close family ties with siblings or extended family. However, they are set up with what the schools and state deem as necessary and valuable skills that will allow them to have a comfortable future. These skills include negotiating with figures of authority, customizing situations to fit one’s needs, reasoning and vocabulary language skills, and confidence and assertiveness. Because these skills are considered highly valuable by institutions, they are more likely to get high grades and go onto college and careers. Aside from one subject, the children in Lareau’s study who were raised with this approach went on to college and all had high aspirations of bold careers. This was in stark contrast to the children from working-class and poor families, who were not afforded the same opportunities due to their economic and social position.

Lareau uses the definition from another source to fully define this term:

Jepperson (Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism, 145) defines an institution as ‘a social order or pattern that has attained a certain state or property […] Put another way, institutions are those social patterns that, when chronically reproduced, owe their survival to relatively self-activating social processes (388).

Examples of institutions include marriage, family, race, social class, and education. These institutions shape the lives of people and are also shaped by the people who support the institutions. In Lareau’s study, she looks into the influence of class and race on how families interact with institutions and their success (or lack of) in doing so. She finds that working-class and poor families often lack the vocabulary and informal knowledge base to be able to adequately understand educators or fight for their children’s rights within the system. There is also a lack of trust both by these parents toward education and vice versa. Middle-class parents, on the other hand, seem to be armed with these skills, and many are successful at customizing institutions to suit their and their children’s needs and wishes. Because class affects the way people interact with institutions, children from middle-class families are at a strong advantage in school and in life.

Social class refers to the economic, financial, institutional, social, and familial position children and parents have. Social class is not something people actively choose, as is often thought to be the case in America. Instead, social class is something people are born into. Some may be able to mobilize to a slightly higher social class, but most remain in the same general position they were raised in. Social class affects the way children and families interact with institutions, specifically school. Middle-class families take a more assertive and entitled approach, whereas working-class and poor families often feel constrained by institutions and a mutual lack of trust. Since education is such a key component of success today, families who have this disconnect from schools suffer the most. There are three social classes featured in Unequal Childhoods: middle-class, working-class, and poor. These classes are examined through the lens of 12 families to shed light on how social class affects not only children’s experiences in family and school but also their futures. Lareau points out that many scholars argue against the existence of social class in modern society and prefer to view this status as a gradient. However, Lareau believes that social classes do still exist and finds through her study that this is true. Social class has palpable influence on children’s upbringing and the position they find themselves in as adults.