53 pages • 1 hour read
Annette LareauUnequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Myth of the American Dream and How Social Class Persists Through Life
In America, individualism supersedes all other ideologies. There is a strongly held belief that anyone can succeed or mobilize themselves upward through the social classes. All it takes is hard work, persistence, and skill. While it is true that some people do manage to find their way out of the poor and working classes, or even downward into them, most people remain in the social class in which they were raised. Social class is the utmost influence in what opportunities are afforded to children as they move through the education system and into adulthood. According to Lareau, the American dream is a myth that does not apply to most Americans, and through her study on the influence of class on family life and life trajectory, she dispels the idea that failure to succeed is solely the fault of the individual.
Lareau cites a generational phenomenon in which social class persists within families as time goes on. Parents are raised within a certain social class, learn the skills and values associated with that social class, and then teach the same strategies and skills to their children. While the skills obtained in the accomplishment of natural growth are not useless by any means, they are not recognized by institutions as being valuable. Thus, as children fall further and further behind in their educations and feel more and more constrained by the social structure they live within, they become all but powerless to the outlook of their future. This “emerging sense of constraint” (6) leads to a lack of trust in the institutions that are supposed to support children and help them succeed.
When Lareau follows up with her subjects 10 years later, she finds that almost all of them have remained within their childhood social class. Middle-class children, aside from one, are all attending college or university and on the path to a stable and stereotypically successful life; most of them are “content and optimistic about the future” (272). The working-class and poor children from the study are experiencing a very different world. Many have several friends who have died, some are married with children, and some have no idea what the future looks like for them. Their middle-class counterparts reflect back on their childhoods and what led to their current success, and report that it was the result of their own hard work and their parents’. They fail to realize that much of their current social position is the result of the social class in which they were raised and appear “largely unaware of the advantages that had been bestowed upon them” (285).
The Effects of Class on Child Rearing
Within the families that Lareau studies, she identifies two overarching parenting approaches: “concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth” (1). These approaches, she finds, are shaped by the social class in which families live. Middle-class families are overwhelmingly more likely to utilize the concerted cultivation approach while working-class and poor families are more likely to live by the accomplishment of natural growth. Neither parenting style is superior, but each does seem to have a direct relationship with economic status and social position and the result is a “transmission of different advantages to children” (5).
Concerted cultivation is a parenting approach that involves the intentional use of organized activities and reasoning rather than discipline to guide and develop children in a highly specific way. It is designed to prepare children for higher education and a future career. Parents of the middle class lean strongly toward this method for several reasons. First, they are more likely to have been raised this way themselves. They are also more likely to have a formal education and degree, which allows them to teach the skills needed to acquire those things to their children. Second, middle-class parents are more likely to be able to afford the activities, private schools, and top universities that provide opportunities for success; in other words, a process of “social stratification” (7) occurs for families based on class. Children who grow up in the middle class thus are reared to become adults who continue to live within the middle class, and Lareau’s follow-up finds that this is indeed the case for all but one middle-class subject.
The accomplishment of natural growth is the parenting approach most frequently used by working-class and poor parents. Parents do not actively choose which parenting style to use; instead, they are set up to use a certain style based on the way they themselves were raised and the opportunities and education they were afforded. Lareau refers to America as the “land of opportunity [… and] inequality” (3) because people are generationally constrained by class. The accomplishment of natural growth sees parents using language as a directive and disciplinary tool. It also sees extended family as being crucial and part of children’s everyday lives. Parents who use this approach tend to separate themselves from their children to a degree, viewing children’s worlds and their education as separate from their world as parents. These parents focus their efforts on providing basic needs, such as food, shelter, security, safety, and affection. They often do not have the resources to provide organized activities or private schooling, and many see no inherent benefit in such things. Children in these families learn skills, such as independence, respect, and creativity, but these are not skills society deems useful. Children who grow up with the accomplishment of natural growth approach are not granted the same opportunities as their middle-class counterparts because the institutions that shape the values of American society do not deem this approach valuable.
The Influence of Class and Race on Institutional Relationships
There are significant and observable differences in the way institutional relationships unfold for families based on their social class and race. In her study, Lareau seeks to find out the nature of the influence of class and race on the success families have in navigating the state and school. Parents who are raised with and who use the concerted cultivation method of child rearing are more easily able to navigate, negotiate with, and customize institutional settings to fit their and their child’s needs and preferences. Working-class and poor families, on the other hand, tend to use the accomplishment of natural growth and often struggle to meet the expectations and hidden demands of the state and school. Furthermore, Black Americans are more likely to experience discrimination by institutions, particularly police and security, than white Americans.
Lareau finds two key differences within these two parenting strategies that shape their institutional success. Concerted cultivation involves the active investment (of time, money, and energy) in children to support them in the pursuit of various extracurricular activities designed to develop skills they will need in their education and careers. It also involves the intentional use of language to teach and demonstrate reasoning and negotiation skills that parents and children use to customize institutions. This does not guarantee success but does set middle-class families up with the informal knowledge and negotiating power needed to make a difference for themselves. The skills acquired through concerted cultivation are held up by institutions, which then “forms a dominant set of cultural repertoires” (4) families uphold in turn. The accomplishment of natural growth uses language as a practical and directive mechanism and parents focus on providing children with basic needs, affection, and safety. In this setting, children and parents develop skills in independence, resilience, and self-confidence; however, these skills are not as useful in navigating institutional settings. As a result, children and parents of the poor and working-class are often left constrained by the social structure they are living within.
In her study, Lareau also seeks to determine whether race plays a role in how institutional relationships unfold for families. She finds that, although class is the predominant influence, race does impact the types of interactions that Black families have with institutional figures as well as the way they are viewed by the general public. One of her subjects, Alexander Williams, reports being followed by security despite being an Ivy League student. He also explains that since many of his peers “came from all-Black high schools” (271) it was quite an adjustment for many of them to come to a college that is mostly white. Lareau also finds that racism also occurs for one white family when their daughter Wendy is ignored for over a year to be tested for a learning disability. The school’s delay in having Wendy tested meant she was not qualified for special needs classes and thus fell behind academically. Lareau cites a warped view that because Wendy is white, she would likely not need such supports. Overall, race does seem to influence how institutions and families interact with one another.
