While reading Annette Lareau's "Unequal Childhoods" I constantly find myself asking the same questions. Lareau makes clear that class differences have a concrete effect on parent's child rearing practices, which in turn effects how students learn to interact with and in turn what they expect from the institution (the school). Why do these inequalities remain subverted? How can we change the current situation which places poor and working class children at a disadvantage and leaves them ill prepared in an institutional setting?
Lareau gives solid evidence of the different child rearing practices, contrasting middle class strategies as opposed to poor and working class strategies; the latter can be grouped together as they are very similar in their attitude towards children and their role in the household. While in poor and working class homes, children's lives are seen as distinct and seperate from adult's lives, in middle class homes, children see themselves as equal to adults and acquire a sense of importance. They feel that their parents are obliged to cater to their every want and need, even if that means adjusting and/or making sacrifices in their own lives.
Lareau assesses the costs and benefits of each strategy, and her bottom line is that middle class children gain a sense of entitlement, as if something is owed to them, due to the ways in which their parents speak to them as well as cater to their needs, a practice which Lareau coins as "concerted cultivation". They learn how to negotiate and verbally interact with adults, while poor and working class children do not gain the same social "capital". However, Lareau is careful to point out that their are many benefits to the poor and working class strategies as well, including the fact that children are more respectful of adults and more appreciative and connected to their families, as well as that children have a chance to be creative and make meaningful decisions about their own lives.
In a perfect world, all ways of interacting and speaking would be appreciated, respected, and seen as equal. All kids would be on an equal playing field due to the very fact that they are humans and have culture, thus are taught how to behave and act by the larger society. Unfortunately, institutions place a value on a specific way of interacting and speaking. The institution ascribes to a set of norms and standards that it expects people to conform to. Therefore, students (middle class) that are taught and get practice behaving in a manner that aligns itself with the hierarchical value system of the institution are at an advantage to those that are not taught these behaviors (poor/working class). Lareau makes this point beautifully when she says that "it is the specific ways that institutions function that ends up conveying advantages to middle class children" (p. 160). Lareau is saying that in reality, both child rearing methods have their costs and benefits, but in the eyes of the institution, the middle class practice is the practice is the one that aligns itself with the institution, thus gives middle class children an advantage over poor and working class children.
How do we enact a change in this inequality? To me their are several options. Changing the institution and its expectations may seem to be the most obvious, but institutions are powerful and serve the interests of those in power, thus can be difficult to change. As teachers, we do have the ability to change the way things function within the institution itself. I believe that by educating teachers as to first,the existence of class (a notion that many Americans do not like to admit to) , and second, the distinctions in child raising that Lareau points out between classes, teachers can begin to change the current disparity.
By being aware of class and its manifestations in the classroom, teachers can become sensitive to those students who have not grown up in a setting that prepares them for success in the classroom, and beyond, teachers can educate those students on what it takes to be successful in the face of the institution. This education will not only help poor and working class children be successful in school, but will also give them the necessary skills for continued success in the future, as interaction with institutions will always be a critical part of their lives. It determines their future jobs, where they live, and what resources they and their families will have access to.
Teachers are powerful. That power vested in the right place with sensitivity and creativity can drastically change the lives and futures of children. In order to change the current situation of inequality in the classroom that to me equates to inequality in life, teachers need to be aware of class and its manifestations. They need act as agents of change for their children who lack the social capital required for success in today's world. This means giving them an education that is academic as well as once that prepares them to negotiate and act as their own agents in the face of the institution.
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