Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

Lareau explores the lives of children outside the family home, specifically within the institution of school. She explains that middle-class parents tend to be very assertive in regard to their children’s schooling, but working-class and poor parents tend to expect the educators to take the lead and do not often speak out against them or take an overly active role in their children’s education. This approach clashes with the school system’s concerted cultivation approach, making it more challenging for children in working-class and poor families to succeed academically. Clashes also occur in terms of values surrounding physical discipline and physically defending oneself on the playground. This leads to underlying concerns by parents that their children will be removed via child services.

In middle-class families, parents intervene regularly in their children’s lives and the children’s problems are, in essence, the parents’ problems. This allows for more personalized and tailored experiences for the children at school and in their activities, and children come to “expect this individualization” (166). Lareau calls these types of parents a “guardian angel” (166). She turns to the Marshall family (Black), who are a married couple with two daughters. Stacey is 10, and her older sister Fern is 12.