People had different opportunities during their childhood period concerning their education attendance, their residential locations, and access to good schools. Lareau in the book Unequal Childhood focuses on these issues. In the book, she investigates the way social class affects parenting styles by deeply analyzing the differences between parenting styles based on class and how this influences the future of children. Lareau reached different conclusions about the effect of parenting styles among different classes based on social class inequality.
The current paper examines the book based on sociological theory and key sociological questions. The first part synthesizes the key theoretical ideas that Lareau applies to develop her argument. The second part addresses the key sociological questions concerning how Lareau’s analysis improves the understanding of these questions.
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Part 1
Theoretically, Lareau significantly contributes to research about cultural and social reproduction by basing her arguments on different theoretical ideas, which include habitus, cultural capital, inequality, and social class. She demonstrates how these concepts emerge in the lives of middle-class and lower-class families and children.
Habitus
The author, for example, offers a detailed view of the underlying mechanisms concerning the habitus concept (Lareau, 2011). All children have a habitus that characterizes their personality (Anyon, 1980). The habitus of an individual comprises of a group of internalized dispositions, values, and expectations that are influenced by life experiences. The habitus significantly influences the tendencies of a social group to behave in a specific way and to engage in specific practices (Lareau, 2011). Habitus is established early during childhood through socialization and is vital since the future influences on a person’s habitus across life experiences happen based on previous experiences, even though people gradually polish their habitus (Anyon, 1980). A habitus is the basis upon which people learn to behave in specific ways unconsciously and entails both groups based and individual based elements. Factors influencing the habitus include the level of cultural, economic, and social capital in the family. Dispositions that young children develop predispose them to seek identical levels of capital as their families. For instance, Lareau shows that language use as a component of the habitus idea is developed and transmitted in the family. The differences in language use among different classes then yield different results in institutional environments.
Cultural capital
Another vital concept is the cultural capital idea, which is the immaterial and material resource that people and families can access through their social networks (Lareau, 2011). The resources are mostly inequitable based on culture, income, and class among other social factors. The concept thus relates social inequalities with using culture as a resource. Lareau shows that cultural capital due to class differences or the cultural resources available to different classes contributes to the daily parenting routines and substantially affects the chances of children achieving their dreams (Lareau, 2011). Highly educated parents have high cultural and social capital levels that their children can access. In turn, this has a powerful and positive impact on the academic achievement of their children compared to the economic resources that they have. Students from these families have high chances of being ready for school, attend schools with many children from high-class families, access high cultural capital levels through their parents and peer social networks, and have high confidence levels concerning their ability to be successful in future (Anyon, 1980). Cultural capital is important due to its explanations regarding the differences between the middle class and working and poor class childhoods. Cultural capital affects common practices such as the type of leisure activities and the level of emphasis on schooling (Anyon, 1980). These differences are attributed to the distinctions in parents whose views regarding schooling and other elements translate into values and practices that influence the lived experiences of children.
Inequality
Lareau also explores the concept of inequality among families, school relations, and peer networks through inequalities in socio-cultural capital. She argues that inequality occurs through processes involving the interplay of several factors including social networks, dispositions operating under the conscious level, and views about limited resources (Lareau, 2011). Even though most children attend identical public schools and theoretically engage in identical organized activities, there is still a discrepancy among students (Labaree, 1997). Lareau explores these discrepancies by considering the different socio-economic and racial backgrounds of students. The inequality concept reflects the disparities in socioeconomic and cognitive development aspects (Bowles & Gintis, 2010). Children from different social classes start their education with different cognitive abilities and continue learning the same way throughout their schooling years.
Social class
Throughout the book, the author examines the mainly unclear but strong ways in which the social class of parents influences the life experiences of their children (Lareau, 2011). Social class at its core is based on capital, which is mostly economic even though it does not exclude other capital forms (Ballantine & Spade, 2007). The different capitals provide ways of examining the accumulation of benefits among different social groups across different dimensions. Social class can be understood by both economic differences and the daily ideologies and expressions used in action. The different class labels such as middle class or working class emerge mainly due to differences in incomes and other aspects such as educational level, and family size. Lareau examines the association between social networks and the desired education information and outcomes, how the cultural norms that people draw upon to negotiate individual and institutional associations relate to desired results, and how the economic capital contributes in informing social action and location.
Consequently, conflict theory reflects Lareau’s approach by showing how societies and schools are bound inextricably in which the education system transmit inequality (Bowles & Gintis, 2010). Based on the conflict theory, the education system perpetuates inequality by helping the elite maintain status quo (Ballantine & Spade, 2007). According to Bowles and Gintis (2010), education is the main social institution through which inequality and privilege are transmitted across generations. Lareau clarifies the association between class and parenting styles and their impact on educational and social attainment in which the high levels of cultural capital among middle-class families enables them to perpetuate their achievement cross the lifespan compared to lower-class families without adequate cultural capital.
Part 2
Q1
Students encounter various formal and informal structures, practices, and processes in the school. For instance, students formally learn in school through classroom attendance, completing assignments, or laboratory exercises and mainly focus on complying with a specified curriculum. Informally, students can learn through outside classroom activities such as home study, asking questions, interaction with peers and other groups in the society, and parental involvement. These practices, processes, and structures affect the educational outcomes, experiences, and identities of students. Parental involvement in the education of children is linked to positive academic outcomes (Ballantine & Spade, 2007). The ability of parents to be involved in the education of their children, nevertheless, depends on the social and cultural capital of the parents (Lareau, 2011). Parents with adequate social capital are involved more in the education of their children because they have high levels of social networks that allow them to effectively navigate school settings.
Compared to lower-class parents, middle-class parents have extensive social networks that help in producing high levels of social capital. While cultural capital allows groups with knowledge and educational resources to maintain and reproduce these resources, it offers little benefits to groups without such knowledge and resources. For instance, High-class families know ways using school opportunities to obtain benefits for their children (Lareau, 2011). The rich social networks available to these families also provide extra advantages by allowing them to share among themselves the knowledge of available school opportunities, work together to maintain structures in schools in the best interests of their children, or stimulate each other’s student to engage in rewarding school behaviors (Ballantine & Spade, 2007). In turn, this leads to positive academic outcomes for their children. Working or poor families, however, lack these resources and families here compel or expect their children to find paid jobs immediately after compulsory education period instead of going to universities.
Additionally, lower-class parents have less cultural capital that hinders them from navigating schools, which influences them to encourage their children to engage in behaviors that hamper their academic performance (Lareau, 2011). For instance, while middle-class families encourage their children to ask for assistance from teachers and to be verbal, low-class families are more likely to encourage their children to void annoying teachers, which inhibits their children from seeking assistance (Lareau, 2011). The impact of this is that middle-class students are better prepared to be successful in schools, which leads to higher achievement and continuity. The lack of adequate cultural capital among lower-class families leads to low success rates regardless of the aspirations of parents for students.
Q2
Student’s backgrounds, resources, and out of school lives influence their educational experiences, outcomes, and opportunities by working together to establish a cultural logic upon which students draw on their cultural capital and dispositions. The logics differ based on social class. For instance, middle-class parents focus on concerted cultivation logic of child-rearing (Lareau, 2011). Elements of this logic include the intensive involvement of children in scheduled events and substantial verbal engagement. For instance, children may be involved in family discussions during dinner time, parents may encourage their children to ask questions, and parents may discuss with their children regarding discipline matters. Middle-class children use these paths to develop notable knowledge of abstract ideas, verbal flexibility, and being comfortable with people in authority. In turn, this leads to an extensive sense of privilege among middle-class children (Lareau, 2011). In contrast, working and poor class parents focus on accomplishing natural growth (Lareau, 2011). Language use in these families is for directives, not for discussion and parents encourage children to entertain themselves instead of engaging in different scheduled events. For instance, children here have extended periods of unstructured time in which they spend time with neighbors and relatives, watch TV, and wander around the neighborhood.
Compared to middle-class families, this style of child-rearing creates a sense of restriction for working and poor class children. Based on Lareau, these are not just different parenting styles based on class. Since the middle-class parenting style matches the expectations of the major societal institutions, they transmit differential advantages to children. Children from middle class families, therefore, eventually develop a rich cultural capital compared to their peer from the lower class families. Based Lareau’s analysis, schools reward children who demonstrate cultural competence (Lareau, 2011). Additionally, students with high cultural capital do not experience challenges when transitioning into formal education and their chances of academic success are high.
Besides, the high levels of cultural and social capital among high-class parents allow them to offer intellectual stimulation in the household required to develop the cognitive abilities of their children (Lareau, 2011). Children from lower class families start school with low cultural capital and depend on opportunities t school to obtain these resources before engaging with school activities successfully (Durkheim, 2020). While these students can compensate their lack of high cultural capital levels at home by attending schools with high cultural capitals, schools with these resources are usually found in high-class locations instead of low-class location, which exacerbates inequality in accessing the resources. Based on Lareau, even though engagement in extracurricular events help students access cultural capital, the involved costs and time limitations among parents hinders children with low cultural capital from engaging in organized activities.
References
Anyon, J. (1980). Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work. Journal of education , 67-92.
Ballantine, J. H., & Spade, J. Z. (2007). Understanding Education through Sociological Theory. Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education , 5 .
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2010). Beyond the Education Frontier: The American Dream Freezes. In I. R. Beattie (Ed.), The Sttructure of Schooling; Readings in the Sociology Education (pp. 112–120). MacGraw Hill.
Durkheim, E. (2020, March 29). Moral Education. PDF.
Labaree, D. F. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals. American educational research journal , 34 (1), 39-81.
Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family life . Univ of California Press.
