Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, 2nd Edition with an Update a Decade Later

Was pleased with the book in the description of it

The author and her research assistants follow the families written about in the book for 10 years looking at how their different child rearing practices affects their children's outcomes. The focus is primarily on the use of language in communication with the children and the use of language on behalf of the children in regard to schooling and other important instutions. Additionally parental involvement as it relates to connecting children to organized activities is analyzed. Not surprisingly the more verbal parents who confidently interacted with their children's schools and placed their children in formal activities had children who succeeded educationally and career-wise over those who did not. These children developed the verbal and social skills that lead to success in our society. Unfortunately, the children whose parents did not do those were less likely to thrive.Obvious yes but very interesting when you drive into the detailed case studies. Mentioned but could have been emphasized more is that the parents who were less verbal had less education themselves and in the families studied, far less money to spend on extracurricular developmental activities. These families were trying to survive and provide the basic necessities to their children.I would love to see a follow-up of where the children are now that almost another 10 years has passed. Most probably have families of their own and it would be interesting to see if anything has changed.

I am just so fundamentally troubled by the repeated positive reviews of this book. While I agree, this was a "fun" book to read, very readable that is, as a practicing sociologist I find this book to be hugely problematic. There are sooooo many criticisms I have of this book - where to start? Suffice it to say that the very rich data on which this book is based is it's high point. The low point is the vast absence of analysis. It is the critical analysis of data that makes sociology. If you're going to write about race, gender, class, etc. then do a critical analysis of it. Not knowing better, students would be left to believe after having read this book that only poor people beat their kids (For real? Can we not show some statistics of domestic abuse? Where's the analysis?), that people of color live in the middle class at rates equal to white people and go to college at rates equal to white students (context please??? A tiny little chart demonstrating the vast disparities please?) and for those who don't, we're led to believe that, well, they live in projects and then go to prison and there's no particular reason for that (Where's the analysis? Does the author REALLY want to leave it at that?). Moreover, there is no attempt at contextualizing the lives of poor people as active agents and/or survivors who DO advocate for themselves - we are left to believe they are dupes and passive victims with no voice (Seriously? Where's the analysis of poor people's movements?). I am furthermore, rebuffed that somehow on the basis of this that the author is now in 2014, amazingly, the president of the ASA. Wow. Just wow. This isn't actually sociology. The little tid bit references to "Life Chances" and Bourdieu are wholly inadequate and do not make this study sociological. It's as if this book is just raw data waiting to be analyzed.

Endlessly fascinating. As a teacher at a high poverty school, I often engage in conversations with colleagues about student engagement and parental involvement, and a key piece of the conversation has been missing: social class. Very few of us have seriously considered the specific impacts social class has on students in schools.'Unequal Childhoods' has filled a necessary gap in my understanding of why poor- and working-class students struggle with maneuvering through institutions (schools being a big one). I've always been told these students don't know how to "do school," and this book provides important insights into why that is true.Highly recommended for everyone but even more so for educators.

I greatly enjoyed this book. It stood out from the other books assigned in my graduate sociology program because it was very accessible, rather than strictly academic. It has had a lasting effect on how I think of childhood education and how that education affects the rest of people's lives. I've since given it to a long-time public school teacher who also found it very interesting. I did find some parts a bit repetitive and believe it could have been edited a bit more to remove the redundant parts. I just skimmed those parts and they did not take away from the content of the book. I also very much appreciated the 10-year followup. I would recommend it to everyone and believe it will be eye-opening for many people who work with children (and those that don't!).

The premise of this book is interesting and the initial questions raised when reviewing the concepts generally cause one to mind dwell into the "what-if" scenarios and the reason why I bought the book. However, I was not overly excited to learn the book was not really what I expected. It is written as if it were a Master's Thesis for the public. The extreme redundant nature of the writing, backtracking, and excessive levels of detail do not leave an opportunity to consider the true essence of the consequences and effects of the different forms of being raised. Sure, a thesis form of writing is good for those studying to be a sociologist or concerned with the traditional academic writing form but not for the general public. (obviously it was not written for the general public but maybe for some alternative motive that is not easily deciphered - maybe to pad the resume. Clearly a lot of work went into the study and I respect the effort. I just think there was so much more to write about than the research foundation. The book needs to focus more on the analysis and not the background detail and repetition of points.

Really interesting book and arrived in perfect conditions

Very interesting book!

This book should be required reading for all politicians, educators, parents and voters.I stumbled across 'Unequal Childhoods', while reading 'Outliers', by Malcolm Gladwell: he uses examples from Lareau to support the central argument of his book (that unusually successful people have almost always benefited from unusually fortunate opportunities - quite often including an unusually high level of parental investment. While it may sound obvious, it goes against everything I was taught to believe as a child: that succeeding is largely due to one's own effort).Lareau's book is actually very different than Gladwell's. It introduces us to children from different economic backgrounds and their families, following them for over a decade while bringing every individual to life. We're given an engaging insight into the daily routine of our protagonists; though Lareau makes sharp comparisons of parenting styles between socioeconomic classes, these are incorporated naturally into the narrative.On one level this is a very high quality piece of research - but it never feels dry or lifeless. To the contrary, it's a compelling read; avoiding an academic writing style in favour of a direct, simple, first person narrative.For me the most relevant part of the book came towards the end when Lareau interviewed the now university-aged participants: perhaps unsurprisingly, the children from the highest socioeconomic bracket (the "concerted cultivation" group) were on track to graduate from university with a wide range of opportunities. Two of the children from the highest income brackets will also be graduating with very little debt: the frankly astonishing investment of parental time/money into extracurricular sports paid off in athletic scholarships.What fascinated me is that these privileged young adults were blind to just how large a role their parent's investment played in their adult achievements: they viewed themselves as hardworking and responsible for their own success. This blindness is something I have often observed in my fellow university students, many of whom receive financial support from their parents (it also isn't uncommon for said parents to do their laundry, book them onto revision courses, buy them cars, assist them in buying apartments etc.). Yet these students widely condemned the looters in the 2011 London riots as being "scum" and "lazy": from what I could gather, this was because the looters felt entitled to things they hadn't earned.Another thing I found fascinating is that many of the behaviours teachers interpret as signs of intelligence (asking insightful questions, making eye contact, speaking clearly, backing up one's statements with evidence etc.) were in fact taught and encouraged by the wealthier parents.While some might argue that the nature/nurture debate wasn't addressed here (and indeed, data from adoption studies would have been welcome), I would still recommend this book to everyone - especially those who think children living in unequal societies have true equality of opportunity: Lareu provides compelling evidence that they do not.

Very interesting!