What is interesting about this way of parenting is that the parents are the ones who have to go out of their way to make sure that Alexander gets to all of his appointments, rehearsals and games on time. The parents are able to do this precisely because they are in an upper-middle-class economic level. Parents such as the ones in the McAllister family would not be able to

Unequal Childhoods Critical Analysis Lareau's Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life reveals some of the root causes of social injustice and inequity in American society. The author's analysis is astute and relevant to current social trends. Taking a structuralist perspective allows Lareau to explore the patterns and normative behaviors within different income categories, to show how those patterns influence inter-generational disparities and perpetuate problems like economic disparity. The gap between rich

it's aspect of social capital: survival. Chapter 8: Children of middle class parents (like the Marshall family) can freely express themselves without worry of being punished; children of low income families usually are told what to do and only say what won't get them into trouble. Skills are passed along to children through parents' "overseeing, criticizing, and intervening in [children's] institutional lives. Chapter 9: Not much social capital is achieved in

They gain a sense of distance, distrust, and constraint in their institutional experiences, a distrust that is common to White working class Italian households, and Black working class housing projects alike. Middle class children learn to regard leisure time as a time of skill building, to deal with strangers, even strange adults, to look these adults in the eye, and to comport themselves like members of the privileged class.