Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families

By Annette Lareau. American Sociological Review, 2002

819 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although family life has an important impact on children's life chances, the mechanisms through which parents transmit advantages are imperfectly understood. An ethnographic data set of white children and black children approximately 10 years old shows the effects of social class on interactions inside the home. Middle-class parents engage in concerted cultivation by attempting to foster children's talents through organized leisure activities and extensive reasoning. Working-class and poor parents engage in the accomplishment of natural growth, providing the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leisure activities to children themselves. These parents also use directives rather than reasoning. Middle-class children, both white and black, gain an emerging sense of entitlement from their family life. Race had much less impact than social class. Also, differences in a cultural logic of childrearing gave parents and their children differential resources to draw on in their interactions with professionals and other adults outside the home. Middle-class children gained individually insignificant but cumulatively important advantages. Working-class and poor children did not display the same sense of entitlement or advantages. Some areas of family life appeared exempt from the effects of social class, however.

Subfields: Demography, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e7b08c2f32607accda9a285162efd4d18c5d1a0b

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Citations in the corpus

Under pressure : Gender differences in the relationship between free time and feeling rushed (2006, background): “the proportion in 1975 (Sayer, 2001), and many parents have replaced adult-oriented leisure with child-centered leisure activities, such as organizing, attending, and supervising children's activities (Arendell, 2001; Daly, 2001; Lareau, 2002).”
Shadow Education, American Style: Test Preparation, the SAT and College Enrollment (2010, background): “…education -a construct derived from comparative and international education research- is commensurate with previous efforts among U.S. scholars to delineate how family background isparities are meaningful both inside (Lucas 1999; Oakes 1985) and outside (Downey et al. 2004; Lareau 2002) of school.”
First Grade and Educational Attainment by Age 22: A New Story1 (2005, background): “For instance, middle-class parents more often advocate for their children at school than do working-class parents (Baker and Stevenson 1986; Hess 1970; Lareau 1987, 1992, 2002; Useem 1991).”
Intensive Parenting: Does it Have the Desired Impact on Child Outcomes? (2014, neutral): “Fostering children’s knowledge, skills, and talents has become the hallmark of high SES parenting regardless of child’s gender or racial/ ethnic background (Lareau 2002).”
Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions (2020, background): “…and alienated within those institutions (Goudeau & Croizet, 2016), unable to successfully navigate their way through those educational institutions, and/or unable to support their children through them (Lareau, 1987, 2002; Markus & Stephens, 2017; Okagaki, 2001; Weininger, Lareau, & Conley, 2015).”
Doing Well vs. Feeling Well: Understanding Family Dynamics and the Psychological Adjustment of Chinese Immigrant Adolescents (2008, background): “Parents in middle-class families are likely to have time and resources to be more involved in their children’s lives ( Lareau 2002 ) both before and after migration.”
The effects of scarcity on consumer decision journeys (2018, background): “Moreover, financially resource-rich environments are more likely to emphasize individuality and value personal accomplishments and talents (Lareau 2002).”
From “Middle Class” to “Trailer Trash:” Teachers' Perceptions of White Students in a Predominately Minority School (2005, neutral): “As Lareau (2002) compellingly demonstrated, social background also works within family life to influence how individuals approach institutions and gain institutional advantages.”
Paradoxical Pathways: An Ethnographic Extension of Kohn's Findings on Class and Childrearing (2009, neutral): “The analysis of these data resulted in a series of publications by the second author (Lareau, 2002, 2003) arguing that childrearing strategies tend to vary according to parents’ class location.”