Annette Lareau Home Advantages

Home Advantage is an insightful and compelling book as Annette Lareau considers the means in which parents are able or sometimes unable to shape their children’s educational experiences. Lareau draws on the theory of social capital first discussed by Pierre Bourdieu, to develop the argument that social class (independent of ability) does affect schooling. This is a comprehensible and enjoyable text as she challenges the current view that family socio-economic status is no longer important in determining successful academic achievements. Throughout the book she tries to answer; how and why social class influences parent involvement. Lareau uses a qualitative case study method to compare family-school relationships in a working class elementary …show more content…
Working-class families were characterized by “separation”, as parents believed that education was the teacher's responsibility and compared school as something that happened between the hours of nine to five (separate from home life). Presents would seek little information about their child, rarely attended parent-teacher conferences or school Open House and focused criticisms on non-academic matters. Mothers were solely responsible for monitoring school activities and parents socialized more with their kin groups. In comparison, the relationship between the school and the upper middle-class families were characterized by “interconnectedness”, as parents believe that education is a shared responsibility between teachers and parents and attempted to practice the curriculum at home. These parents were well-informed and did not hesitate to criticize school and teacher performance. Because of this, a “fourth R” was implemented in respecting the advice and action of the teacher. Teachers were impressed that fathers attended school events and took an active position in school-related decisions. Upper middle-class parents, were more likely to form professional relationships with one another and use these relationships to their …show more content…
Lareau’s analysis would have been stronger had she broadened her research sample to include more diversity within her participants. First, Lareau conducted her research in pronominally white neighbourhoods. Her research could have benefited from a more ethnic sample to address the issues of race in relation to social class and their involvement in their children’s education. Second, Lareu’s participants were mainly hetero-sexual couples. Her research does not address a variety of family structurers, such as single parent, blended family, and same sex couples. Third, Lareau conducted her study in educational institutions where the student body was not a mixture of students from different social classes. Lareau recognizes this when she says… This lack of data poses the question of the whether in a diverse social class school, would the working-class families benefit indirectly from the social capital the upper middle-class parents. Would all students benefit from having volunteers in the classroom and would the social network of the upper middle-class parents be transferred by association. Consequently, I feel that addressing these issues of diversity would strengthen the validity of her