Unequal Childhoods, Annette Lareau
Unequal Childhoods, Annette Lareau
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Unequal Childhoods
Class, Race, and Family Life, Second Edition, with an Update a Decade Later

Author: Annette Lareau

Narrator: Xe Sands

Unabridged: 14 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/14/2011


Synopsis

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.

About Annette Lareau

Annette Lareau is the Stanley I. Sheerr Professor in the sociology department at the University of Pennsylvania. A graduate of the University of California-Santa Cruz, she earned her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California-Berkeley. She is the author of Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education and Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, and coeditor of Social Class: How Does it Work?, Education Research on Trial, and Journeys Through Ethnography: Realistic Accounts of Fieldwork.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alexis on April 05, 2011

Makes some good points, but the author's tripping all over herself trying to avoid siding with the middle class was hard to take. She says several times that physical punishment used to be the norm--as though this makes it okay? I mean she shows plenty of concern that one of the children can barely......more

Goodreads review by Lynn on December 10, 2008

This is a book that I keep returning to. I've decided to have my qualitative research methods class read it for Spring 2009. Of course I love that it deals with differences in family life as they relate to social class, but I am also amazed at its thoroughness, sensitivity, and scope. One of the boo......more

Goodreads review by Manzoid on January 18, 2009

The book uses extreme close-ups of several families over several months (kind of like "embedded journalists"), to draw the differences in upbringing between poor/working-class families versus middle-class families. The book is divided into three parts. The first part shows the hectic schedule of orga......more

Goodreads review by jessica on April 07, 2013

I have to say that this book was surprising to me in the observations unspoken. Not an easy read as the vocabulary and style is quite academic (which for me borders on boring but that is me). As a student of human development or should I write Human Development I was surprised to find no reference t......more

Goodreads review by Christine on September 12, 2013

Everyone thinks they understand the concept of inequality, whether based on economic standing, race, education or environment. But do we really understand? When children are enrolled in the same public school system, (theoretically) have access to the same extra-curricular activities and the same so......more