"Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of ""leisure"" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security. Lareau shows how middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of ""concerted cultivation"" designed to draw out children's talents and skills, while working-class and poor families rely on ""the accomplishment of natural growth,"" in which a child's development unfolds spontaneously-as long as basic comfort, food, and shelter are provided. Each of these approaches to childrearing brings its own benefits and its own drawbacks. In identifying and analyzing differences between the two, Lareau demonstrates the power, and limits, of social class in shaping the lives of America's children.
The first edition of Unequal Childhoods was an instant classic, portraying in riveting detail the unexpected ways in which social class influences parenting in white and African American families. A decade later, Annette Lareau has revisited the same families and interviewed the original subjects to examine the impact of social class in the transition to adulthood."
By:
Annette Lareau
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 2nd edition
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 28mm
Weight: 635g
ISBN: 9780520271425
ISBN 10: 0520271424
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 20 September 2011
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgments 1. Concerted Cultivation and the Accomplishment of Natural Growth 2. Social Structure and Daily Life Part I. Organization of Daily Life 3. The Hectic Pace of Concerted Cultivation: Garrett Tallinger 4. A Child's Pace: Tyrec Taylor 5. Children's Play Is for Children: Katie Brindle Part II. Language Use 6. Developing a Child: Alexander Williams 7. Language as a Conduit for Social Life: Harold McAllister Part III. Families and Institutions 8. Concerted Cultivation in Organizational Spheres: Stacey Marshall 9. Concerted Cultivation Gone Awry: Melanie Handlon 10. Letting Educators Lead the Way: Wendy Driver 11. Beating with a Belt, Fearing ""the School"": Little Billy Yanelli 12. The Power and Limits of Social Class Part IV. Unequal Childhoods and Unequal Adulthoods 13. Class Differences in Parents' Information and Intervention in the Lives of Young Adults 14. Reflections on Longitudinal Ethnography and the Families' Reactions to Unequal Childhoods 15. Unequal Childhoods in Context: Results from a Quantitative Analysis Annette Lareau, Elliot Weininger, Dalton Conley, and Melissa Velez Afterword Appendix A. Methodology: Enduring Dilemmas in Fieldwork Appendix B. Theory: Understanding the Work of Pierre Bourdieu Appendix C. Supporting Tables Appendix D. Tables for the Second Edition Notes Revised Bibliography Index"
Annette Lareau is the Stanley I. Sheerr Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She is faculty member in the Department of Sociology with a secondary appointment in the Graduate School of Education. Lareau is the author of Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education (1989; second edition, 2000), and coeditor of Social Class: How Does it Work? (2009); and Education Research on Trial: Policy Reform and the Call for Scientific Rigor (2009); and Journeys through Ethnography: Realistic Accounts of Fieldwork(1996).
Reviews for Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life
This sensitive, well-balanced book is highly recommended for academic, special, and large public libraries. * Library Journal * Unequal Childhoods captures the social-science imagination just as Betty Friedan's 1963 best seller, The Feminine Mystique, had captured the public imagination in restating the arguments for feminism. * Chronicle Of Higher Education * At both its best and its worst, social-science research tells us what we already know. Annette Lareau's new book is, however, quite different, and packed with insights into such matters as precisely how middle-class children acquire the habits of success and sense of the entitlement early. . . . as exciting to read as it is depressing in its implication. * The Scotsman * This accessible ethnographic study offers valuable insights into contemporary family life in poor, working class and middle class American households. . . . A careful and interesting investigation of life in `the land of opportunity' and the `land of inequality.' * Publishers Weekly * Lareau's work is well known among sociologists, but neglected by the popular media; . . . in books like Unequal Childhoods - Lareau has been able to capture the texture of inequality in America. She's described how radically child-rearing techniques in upper-middle-class homes differ from those in working-class and poor homes, and what this means for the prospects of the kids inside. * New York Times *
