Correlation between Social Class and Child Development and Socialization

In The Merits of Meritocracy, by David Brooks, Brooks discusses the lives of middle-class children growing up in America. He opens up with an anecdote about his daughter, to lead into one of his main points: middle-class children have busy and protected childhood, filled with many opportunities supervised by adults (193). For instance, his daughter has four different helmets for biking, pogo sticking, skateboarding, and playing baseball (193). She is a prime example of how the middle-class is presented with opportunities and busy lives; because of this, Brooks claims the general middle-class parent fears their child is too spoiled by abundance, and will never have to commit to one thing (194). Another large fear Brooks states they have, is

We live in a culture where success is increasingly defined by a paycheck and is seemingly as important to the parent as the child. Raising children to be “successful” is increasingly becoming an obsession for upper-middle-class-parents, who encourage certain activities and scores to provide their child with the best chances of attending elite schools. The article focuses on the inherent advantage upper-middle-class parents provide but fails to mention those who the parent’s action affects: their children.

While both styles of parenting have their benefits and weaknesses, the educational system of the United States is built predominantly on middle class values and Concerted Cultivation. Consequently, this may negatively affect how children who aren’t familiar with this upbringing navigate their already complex academic and home lives. This imbalance within the student population can put some students farther ahead and at the same time neglect students who don’t have the resources they need to keep up with their peers. Lareau refers to this as “transmission of differential advantages to children”. She states the benefits the advantages that middle-class homes typically offer:

In Annette Lareau’s short story “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life”, she presents two types of child rearing and the very first one she identified was “concerted cultivation”. This type of approach is highly demonstrated in middle class families where the parents encourage and facilitate their children’s abilities by involving them in structured activities, to shape their reasoning skills, and intervening on their behalf with authoritative figures. The author makes careful observations that “middle-class parents challenge children to formulate questions for doctors, teach them to shake hands and look adults in the eye, broaden their vocabularies, and model how to demand action from social institutions” (Lareau). The next child

While the middle class children learn how to “play by the rules of game”, the working class children struggle with interacting with people as they never get trained to do so. That’s why the author states, “Children raised according to the logic of concerted cultivation can gain advantages, in the form of an emerging sense of entitlement, while children raised according to the logic of natural growth tend to develop an emerging sense of constraint.”

Accordint to the author Gonzalez-Mena, “The Status—that is, the family’s position in society—affects socialization and can in turn affect expectations as well as where children find themselves” (p.126). That is, children socialization is greatly affected by the status of the family due to, the different expectation between children belonging to rich families and that children living in poverty.

In the study Lareau conducted, it can be see that working class and poor families differ slightly in that being poor means less resources and a means of a greater struggle for the child. The similarities found explain why being lower class has it benefits in some areas then if you were middle or upper class. Now Lareau is not telling people to raise their children one way or that being rich is better because even the rich have many disadvantages their children encounter. Lareau emphasizes, “Overall, daily life for working-class and poor children is slower paced, less pressured, and less structured than for their middle- and

Poor and working-class parents were found to hold to an “accomplishment of natural growth” parental philosophy. Natural growth promotes a clear separation between children and adults, employs the use of directives, places little emphasis on the importance of verbal communication and eye contact, allows children greater independence, and promotes deference and submissiveness to adults. Inspiring and positive qualities can be found in children raised in homes exercising this perspective, qualities such

In a child’s upbringing, the concept of social class and race plays a pivotal role in a child’s growth and development. In the ethnographic study, “ Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life”, the author, Annette Lareau argue that the influences of children with distinct socioeconomic backgrounds can determine how a child will be raised. The author primarily focuses on two distinctive practices of child-rearing: concerted cultivation and the accomplishments of natural growth. Lareau explains that both of these distinctive patterns of childrearing have their own benefits and drawbacks, but emphasizes on how concerted cultivation and parent involvement allows children to gain a deeper understanding of the world and the ability to fluently interact with social institutions. Also, the practice of concerted cultivation allows children to develop skills that are shown to be beneficial for the future. In contrast, the practice of natural growth limits the child’s language and communication skills, in which they are not adequately prepared for the challenges of adulthood. In my opinion, I believe that the way a child is raised has a significant impact on a child’s future.

In roughly 95 million middle-class American homes the notion of making last minute plans to share quality time with family and friends is challenging. With their priority for leisure time being focused on their children’s futures, making plans often involves two to four weeks advance notice. However, 200 million working-class and poverty level families accommodate those last minute plans with ease. Parenting styles in American families is what Annette Lareau addresses in Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Lareau identifies middle-class families as concerted cultivators, mothers and fathers that dominate their children’s lives with established, controlled and organized activities intended to give them experiences that

All families want their children to be happy, healthy, and grow. Social classes make a difference in how parents go about meeting this goal. In Annette Lareau book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, she promotes middle class parents as concerted cultivation. Middle class parents encourage their children’s talents, opinions, and skills. For example, engaging their children in organized activities and closely monitoring children’s experiences in school. According to Lareau, middle class children gain an emerging sense of entitlement through this pattern of converted cultivation. This causes a focus on children’s individual development. There are signs that the middle class children gain advantages from the experience of concerted cultivation. However, the working class and poor children do not gain this advantage.

Another defining factor for social class is education especially since education is seen as an achievement toward the American Dream. (Lareau, 235). Younger generations seem to place more emphasis on achieving higher education and the occupational opportunities provided for those who are well-educated (Cherlin, 113). The socioeconomic stratification corresponds to those with differing levels of education such as upper/middle class individuals have a college education while working/lower class have some college and/or minimal high school education (Cherlin, 118-119). These individuals and their given circumstances based on education and income have different values and trends about marriage, family and socialization/rearing of children. (Cherlin, 114-117). Family inequality is then based on direct obtainment for individuals who are head of these households such as employment of fathers and mothers (Cherlin, 111), which in turn affects the childhood/family experience of child within the socioeconomic status of their parents. (Lareau,

Brown (1997) argues that middle class families impose values onto their children regarding education from a young age; they place high importance on educational qualifications as they are aware that the job market is becoming increasingly competitive (cited Ball and Vincent, 2001). This suggests that middle-class pupils value school and try to get as much as they can out of it, thus have higher levels of attainment than working-class pupils.

Before going into further depth of how the social class effects the offspring of parents there is a need to return back to the notion of intersectionality. Ivy Ken, another writer of this subject explains intersectionality of race, class, and gender as simple three ingredient recipes; she does this to simplify the understanding of

Economic circumstances has an influence on multiple areas that affect infant development. Income related difference in parenting appear early in the infants life; for instance, on average low income mothers are less affeffectionate, less responsive to infants’ distress signals, and they are more likely to have harsh parenting styles. Children from a low income have fewer stimulating experiences and learning materials than children from higher income households. This leads to apparent differences that during the first years and often last into adulthood. One of those differences are that the children from low income are more likely to have increased behavioral problems and lower cognitive scores. Furthermore, children from a high income family usually experience psychological stress because the parents pressure the child to overachieve. The financial situation can also affect if the infant is able to get the nutrition intake that is needed, and if the infant is unable to get the right nutrition that will lead to other areas of development being affected.Financial situations