Shop by Topic
Shop by Product
ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues
<< Previous Issue
| View Past Issues | | Next Issue >> 
Middle Class vs Working Class Child Rearing
December 11, 2006
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
-Grace Murray Hopper
-Grace Murray Hopper
An article, “What It Takes to Make a Student,” in NewYork Times Magazine (November 26, 2006), author Paul Tough takes a close look at some charter schools that seem to be having unusual success in closing the education gap. The excellent article also looks at the entire issue what we know about compensatory education. At one point he discusses the research of Annette Lareau comparing cultural influences on child rearing. Lareau’s research team observed middle class and working class families �" basically moving in with the families for three weeks of close scrutiny.
Lareau found that parents in middle class families engaged their children in conversations as equals, treating them like apprentice adults and encouraging them to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and negotiate rules. They planned and scheduled countless activities to enhance their children’s development.
The working class families did things differently. They allowed their children much more freedom to fill in their afternoons and weekends as they chose, but much less freedom to talk back, question authority or haggle over rules and consequences. Children were instructed to defer to adults and treat them with respect.
Lareau described the costs and benefits of both methods. The approach followed by middle class parents places intense demands of them �" not only do they spend more time managing their children’s lives, but also their children argue with them, complain about their competence and disparage their decisions. Working class children, by contrast, learn how to be members of informal peer groups, how to manage their own time, and how to strategize.
However, Lareau also found that in school and beyond, the qualities that middle class children develop are consistently valued over the ones that poor and working class children develop. Middle class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, so they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the classroom and elsewhere, that working class children lack. According to Lareau, these cultural differences translate into a distinct advantage for middle class children in school, on standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
ExchangeEveryDay
Delivered five days a week containing news, success stories, solutions, trend reports, and much more.
What is ExchangeEveryDay?
ExchangeEveryDay is the official electronic newsletter for Exchange Press. It is delivered five days a week containing news stories, success stories, solutions, trend reports, and much more.
If you have benefited from ExchangeEveryDay, Exchange magazine, our books or other training products, or the World Forum, we invite you to share the word about us with your peers. You can download or order a wide variety of Exchange promotional materials by going to our Promotion Desk
Comments (5)
Displaying All 5 CommentsScottsdale Community College
Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
We have GOT TO do more talking about these parenting issues. We cannot continue to ignore the consequences of how we talk to children from infancy. Do we create bosses and workers in the cradle? And how do some of us move from worker to boss/creative roles?
Google them - The Talaris Institute avoided the "class" references in presenting information about the "30 million word gap" in their research spotlight for parent education. Talking to children, conversations rather than lectures and orders or instructions does make a difference. How shall we help mothers, and fathers understand this? And how about caregivers who have lots of children to converse with?
DuValle Education Center
Louisville, KY, United States
As one of the parents described in the article (middle class) I agree with the comments made, however I also believe a challenge that our children face is that many teachers in our schools are not ready for children who question things that don't make snese to them. While these skills we have taught may help on tests and later in the work place, I'm not sure the skills are always helpful in their classroom interactions, when the adults in the classroom see these exchanges as the student being rude and disrespectful.
United States
Since when are the Middle Class and the Working Class separated? I think everyone in the Middle Class is working too. How were the different categories decided?
Kulpsville, PA, United States
As a director of a child care center, I read your articles on the internet daily. This article's labeling bothered me immensely. Middle class parents are working class parents and lower income parents are working parents. So what this article inferred was that middle class parents don't work. My center is basically a middle class center and my parents work long hours and do a lot of traveling with their employment. I think the author/researcher needs to find other names for his group.
First School
Mahomet, Illinois, United States
Your construct is false. Your word choice as to refers to class of families equates working with poor or infers working is poor. Your word choice equates middle class with elitism or middle class with sense of entitlement. Does Bill Gates work?? Do the poor in the United States have a sense of entitlement?? Do those in public service offices "give" or "foster" or "nuture" or "place" the philosophy that "we" will take care of "you." Where does the sense of entitlement come from?? What is its source?? And, where does it take root?? If Head Start, now serving four generation, were a Grand Success, then why are more children served, disproportionate to the over all population increase, with each succeeding generation?? Again, your construct or your frame work within which you place the questions is a false construct. And, one expects the questions which have been asked here should generate considerable response from the majority of those who are involved in ECE. One recognizes that the questions asked here are seldom given the full light of day.
Post a Comment