Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Second Edition, with an Update a Decade Later MP3 CD – Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
Author: Visit ‘s Annette Lareau Page ID: 1452654719
Review
“A fascinating study.” —Malcolm Gladwell
From the Inside Flap
“Less than one in five Americans think ‘race, gender, religion or social class are very important for getting ahead in life,’ Annette Lareau tells us in her carefully researched and clearly written new book. But as she brilliantly shows, everything from looking authority figures in the eye when you shake their hands to spending long periods in a shared space and squabbling with siblings is related to social class. This is one of the most penetrating works I have read on a topic that only grows in importance as the class gap in America widens.”—Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of The Time Bind and The Commercialization of Intimate Life
“This is a great book, not only because of its powerful portrayal of class inequalities in the United States and its insightful analysis of the processes through which inequality is reproduced, but also because of its frank engagement with methodological and analytic dilemmas usually glossed over in academic texts. Hardly any other studies have the rich, intensive ethnographic focus on family of Unequal Childhoods.” —Diane Reay, American Journal of Sociology
“Lareau does sociology and lay readers alike an important service in her engaging book, Unequal Childhoods, by showing us exactly what kinds of knowledge, upbringing, skills, and bureaucratic savvy are involved in this idea, and how powerfully inequality in this realm perpetuates economic inequality. Through textured and intimate observation, Lareau takes us into separate worlds of pampered but overextended, middle-class families and materially stressed, but relatively relaxed, working-class and poor families to show how inequality is passed on across generations.” —Katherine Newman, Contexts
“Sociology at its best. In this major study, Lareau provides the tools to make sense of the frenzied middle-class obsession with their offspring’s extracurricular activities; the similarities between black and white professionals; and the paths on which poor and working class kids are put by their circumstances. This book will help generations of students understand that organized soccer and pick-up basketball have everything to do with the inequality of life chances.”—Michele Lamont, author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration
“Drawing upon remarkably detailed case studies of parents and children going about their daily lives, Lareau argues that middle-class and working-class families operate with different logics of childrearing, which both reflect and contribute to the transmission of inequality. An important and provocative book.”—Barrie Thorne, author of Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School
“With rich storytelling and insightful detail, Lareau takes us inside the family lives of poor, middle-class, and affluent Americans and reminds us that class matters. Unequal Childhoods thoughtfully demonstrates that class differences in cultural resources, played out in the daily routines of parenting, can have a powerful impact on children’s chances for climbing the class ladder and achieving the American dream. This provocative and often disturbing book will shape debates on the U.S. class system for decades to come.”—Sharon Hays, author of Flat Broke with Children
“Drawing on intimate knowledge of kids and families studied at school and at home, Lareau examines the social changes that have turned childhood into an extended production process for many middle-class American families. Her depiction of this new world of childhood–and her comparison of the middle-class ideal of systematic cultivation to the more naturalistic approach to child development to which many working-class parents still adhere–maps a critically important dimension of American family life and raises challenging questions for parents and policy makers.”—Paul DiMaggio, Professor of Sociology, Princeton University
“Annette Lareau has written another classic. Her deep insights about the social stratification of family life and childrearing have profound implications for understanding inequality — and for understanding the daily struggles of everyone attempting to raise children in America. Lareau’s findings have great force because they are thoroughly grounded in compelling ethnographic evidence.”—Adam Gamoran, Professor of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
“With the poignant details of daily life assembled in a rigorous comparative design, Annette Lareau has produced a highly ambitious ethnographic study that reveals how social class makes a difference in children’s lives. Unequal Childhoods will be read alongside Sewell and Hauser, Melvin Kohn, and Bourdieu. It is an important step forward in the study of social stratification and family life, and a valuable exemplar for comparative ethnographic work.”—Mitchell Duneier, author of Sidewalk and Slim’s Table
–This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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MP3 CDPublisher: Tantor Audio; MP3 – Unabridged CD edition (November 14, 2011)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1452654719ISBN-13: 978-1452654713 Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.6 x 7.4 inches Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #191,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #149 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Children’s Studies #200 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Poverty #415 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > Ethnic Studies
Most Americans see individual effort as the key to success, with fewer than one in five seeing class or race as very important in getting ahead in life. The reality is that social class is a more important determinant of a person’s success in life than it used to be due to two powerful trends: Growing economic inequality that has created a wider gulf between rich and poor, and less mobility between classes. The fact is the USA has both less social mobility and wider economic inequality than any of the other rich democracies in Canada, Australia, Japan and western Europe.
With more sluggish mobility than in the past, class has become more hereditary than it once was. The gap in spending per child is growing between rich and poor Americans, from 5 to 1 in 1972 to 9 to 1 in 2007. Just 17 percent of kids raised in the bottom fifth of the income distribution will make it to the top two-fifths by age 40.
It’s no wonder then that class differences are so powerful in shaping a child’s life experience, more important in child raising than racial differences, according to Annette Lareau, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who won awards for the first edition of this book in 2002.
Lareau’s research reveals the basic class differences in approach to raising children. Middle-class parents have their children in organized activities and engage in a process of "concerted cultivation." By contrast, working-class and poor parents don’t engage their children in concerted cultivation, instead allowing development through "natural growth."
Poor parents face economic challenges just putting food on the table and getting medical care. They lack the resources and energy to put their kids in as many organized activities.
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