The most interesting thing I have read this week comes from Annette Lareau who wrote, "Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life." Here is just a taste of Chapter 1:
America is a land of inequality. The differences among families seem to cluster together in meaningful patterns. Class differences shape the ways children view themselves in relation to the rest of the world.
Professionals say--talk with children, develop their educational interests, play an active role in their schooling, reason with them, teach them to solve problems through negotiation rather than physical force. These are a dominant set of cultural repertoires. As professionals change their recommendations, middle class parents have responded rapidly. For working class parents, sustaining children's natural growth (food, shelter, etc.) is viewed as an accomplishment.
Society is stratified. We live in a society characterized by considerable gaps in resources or by substantial inequality.
Middle class children were born on 3rd base and think they hit a triple.
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