Annette Lareau - Unequal Childhoods

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION

So where does something like practical intelligence come from? . . . Perhaps the best explanation we have of this process comes from the sociologist Annette Lareau, who . . . conducted a fascinating study of a group of third graders. You might expect that if you spent such an extended period in twelve different households, what you would gather is twelve different ideas about how to raise children. . . . What Lareau found, however, is something much different.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: The Story of Success

Through rich examples from each case-study family, this book makes a compelling case for the existence of different parenting values and practices between the classes. This wonderfully descriptive text is accessible to a wide audience and would be an excellent choice for instructing students about class and family life. In addition to providing a very enjoyable starting point for reflecting on the intersections between class, race, and parenting, Unequal Childhoods can serve as the foundation for a productive conversation on the merits and dilemmas of in-depth qualitative research.

Amy M. Tiedemann, Contemporary Sociology:

A Journal of Reviews

A major strength of Unequal Childhoods is the way it tackles the fact that cultural deficiency explanations are hegemonic in American national political discourse. Because of her more balanced view of class cultures, Lareaus analysis of concerted cultivation provides a useful tool for linking analyses of cultural and social capital.

Carl Stempel, International Review for the Sociology of Sport

Lareau does an excellent job of weaving into each chapter additional examples that show that her analyses are not limited to the particular family of that chapter. She makes a considerable theoretical contribution to studies of social and cultural reproduction. Annette Lareau has written an important and engaging book, one that will no doubt be used extensively by sociologists in both teaching and research.

Jenny M. Stuber, Teaching Sociology

Annette Lareau explores, through detailed descriptions of child-parent interaction and parent-institutional interaction, how class shapes daily life, language use, and engagement with institutions.

Ethnic and Racial Studies

In the thought-provoking Unequal Childhoods, Lareau challenges the widely held perception of America as the land of opportunity where anyone, no matter what his or her background, can rise to great heights of achievement. This sensitive, well-balanced book is highly recommended for academic, special, and large public libraries.

Library Journal

This accessible ethnographic study offers valuable insights into contemporary family life in poor, working-class, and middle-class American households. . . . A careful and interesting investigation of life in the land of opportunity and the land of inequality.

PW Online Annex

Unequal Childhoods is as exciting to read as it is depressing in its implications. (Four stars)

The Scotsman

An unusually good ethnography about social class socialization, it demonstrates with excruciating clarity what has gone wrong with contemporary social theory.

Melvyn L. Fein, Professor of Sociology,

Kennesaw State University

Fewer 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

Sociology at its best. In this major study, Lareau provides the tools to make sense of the frenzied middle-class obsession with their offsprings 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.

Michle 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 childrens 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 childhoodand 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 adheremaps 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 inequalityand for understanding the daily struggles of everyone attempting to raise children in America. Lareaus findings have great force because they are thoroughly grounded in compelling ethnographic evidence.

Adam Gamoran, Professor of Sociology and Educational Policy

Studies, 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 childrens 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 Slims Table

Unequal Childhoods

Unequal Childhoods

Class, Race, and Family Life

SECOND EDITION

WITH AN UPDATE A DECADE LATER

Annette Lareau

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