Analysis Of Unequal Childhoods By Annette Lareau

Annette Lareau is the sociologist who authored the book “Unequal Childhoods”. Lareau is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley, where she graduated with a PhD in Sociology. She has taught Sociology as a professor in multiple universities across the United States, and currently the she is the professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. For her work “Unequal Childhoods” she received the Sociology of Culture Best Book Award and the Best Book Length Contribution to Family Sociology Award from the American Sociological Association, which as of June 2012 she is the current President. “Unequal Childhoods” is Lareau’s naturalistic study of twelve families which were white, black, and interracial, and the ways in which social …show more content…
She points out the ideas that middle and lower class families have of language, activities, and interactions with institutions. These values that families hold correlates with the two parenting philosophies that Lareau identifies different social class families choose to utilize. Throughout her study, Lareau discusses concerted cultivation in middle class families, where parents play an active role in their children’s development. Lareau points out that in poor families, natural growth is the philosophy that parents use, where children have more freedoms and spend most of their time free of adult …show more content…
Lareau also describes the two parenting philosophies, concerted cultivation and natural growth, and how parents in different social classes use one philosophy or the other. It is evident that there is an obvious divide in social class, one social uses one philosophy while the other social class sticks with the other philosophy.Throughout the book Lareau notes how middle class parents use concerted cultivation, or an active role raising their children. In the study Lareau described how middle class families were involved and active in their children’s lives. Middle class parents enroll their children in numerous leisure activities, to a point where their children have a set schedule and be busy. In the middle class households in the study, words were constantly being spoken, and language was always used. These children were exposed to adult statements, reasoned with their parents and tried to negotiate with them. Middle class parents were very much involved in their children’s schoolwork and as recorded in the study many times complained to the institutions about their children’s problems. These children were raised to ask questions, during trips to the doctor, middle class parents encouraged their children to ask the doctors any questions that they