The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Why are the poor, poor?
serious crayons:
I just ran across a mention of this book. It sounds fascinating, and very germane to our discussion here:
--- Quote ---Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life
by Annette Lareau
From Publishers Weekly
This accessible ethnographic study offers valuable insights into contemporary family life in poor, working class and middle class American households. Lareau, an assistant sociology professor at the University of California, shadowed 12 diverse families for about a month, aiming for "intensive 'naturalistic' observation" of parenting habits and family culture. In detailed case studies, she tells of an affluent suburban family exhausted by jaunts to soccer practice, and of a welfare mother's attempt to sell her furniture to fund a trip to Florida with her AIDS-stricken daughter. She also shows kids of all classes just goofing around. Parenting methods, Lareau argues, vary by class more than by race. In working class and poor households, she says, parents don't bother to reason with whiny offspring and children are expected to find their own recreation rather than relying upon their families to chauffeur them around to lessons and activities. According to Lareau, working class and poor children accept financial limits, seldom talk back, experience far less sibling rivalry and are noticeably free of a sense of entitlement. Middle class children, on the other hand, become adept at ensuring that their selfish needs are met by others and are conversant in social mores such as shaking hands, looking people in the eye and cooperating with others. Both methods of child rearing have advantages and disadvantages, she says: middle class kids may be better prepared for success at school, but they're also likely to be more stressed; and working class and poor kids may have closer family ties, but sometimes miss participating in extracurricular activities. This is a careful and interesting investigation of life in "the land of opportunity" and the "land of inequality."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Description
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.
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
"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
"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
About the Author
Annette Lareau is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education (1989; second edition, 2000) and coeditor of Journeys through Ethnography: Realistic Accounts of Fieldwork (1996).
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brokeplex:
--- Quote from: SunShadow on May 09, 2008, 09:02:16 pm ---Now that just wasn't nice, Broketrash. I call myself a "moderate" Democrat for the reason that I can see sensible points in the arguments on both sides. I do think that Republicans tend to look at issues from the top down (the big picture) and Democrats from the bottom up (individual level). Neither is wrong. Every issue has both aspects. Is there a better term than "moderate" to describe someone who can see merit in both viewpoints? People tend to become more polarized in their arguments when defending one side or another of a topic in a debate. I try to avoid this and keep an open mind. And I think that if Obama didn't court people on the Right by being centrist he would be unelectable. He is just being realistic. First he has to win before he can have any impact.
--- End quote ---
the term "moderate" has meaning only in the circumstances which you listed, you see valuable ideas both left and right of center. my point, is that many on the left, who do NOT find any value at all in the ideas of the political right, call themselves moderate in order to deceptively market themselves to the voters, who on the whole are like you, in the center.
my verbiage was not at all intended as a swipe at true moderates in either party or moderate independents. There are still some moderates left in both parties, but probably most moderates do not identify with either party, and tend to think of themselves as independents, or they are increasingly not voting at all.
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: Lynne on May 10, 2008, 03:13:41 pm ---Not a very subtle personal attack, Broketrash. Would you edit your post, please?
--- End quote ---
Kaiser, I know that it is no surprise to you that dictionaries are very useful. But, sadly it would appear that some others have not been taught that lesson. More the pity, and a continued poor reflection of the public school system as it has continued to deteriorate. I was taught that when all else fails, go buy a "Webster's Unabridged" and actually develop an interest in using it. But then that type of initiative and self-starting is not a part of the stage instructions at a "pity party", a whining fest is so much more on script - isn't it?
And isn't whining yet another red herring tactic to avoid discussing the need to radical change in the welfare system?
if the references to Nazi death camps made earlier is not a personal attack, then this post above is even further from that definition of what constitutes a personal attack. of course I will not delete this post.
cheers.
Lynne:
My apologies, broketrash. I can't see quoted posts on my blackberry.
It is the post that infers Jess is illiterate that I find offensive - herrkaiser?
Clyde-B:
If we have certain shared social values that most people agree on, why don't we teach them as part of public education? We certainly teach enough other crap.
It would seem to me that there would be very little disagreement in the idea that fathers are important to their children's lives and if you help create a child you have a certain responsibility to him/her. But this isn't formally taught anywhere. Why not? It would seem to me, the younger the better.
I can remember listening to Superman on the radio (yes, before TV), and they used to have public announcements by the regular announcer, or Superman himself, advocating things like social equality.
I don't believe it's true that our society has no shared values anymore. I believe we've become more sophisticated and refined the ones we had, but they still need to be defined and taught. And you can't really do it once, and stop, each generation needs to know them.
I don't see us doing that anymore. You're more likely to hear about global warming than you are the basics of life itself.
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