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After reading “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black families and White Families,” by Annette Lareau, it was evident that she collected much data from her study of different types of families. In this study with the help of other sociologists, Lareau went into the lives of both black and white middle class and working class/ poor families. In her study she observed the behavior of children at home, school, and in the public eye. She observed the parenting methods the adults chose to use and the child’s reaction to them. Lareau and her team were able to see what influences certain factors such as income, race, family size, home location, schooling, and career choices had on each family and their children. The purpose of this study as well as the central argument is very well addressed by Lareau in the text and leads to many well supported conclusions. Lareau’s main argument in the text is that when children grow up in certain environments, parents are more likely to use specific methods of child rearing that may be different from other families in different social classes. In the text, Lareau describes how she went into the home of the McAllisters and the Williams, two black families leading completely different lives. Ms. McAllister lives in a low income apartment complex where she takes care of her two children as well as other nieces and nephews. Ms. McAllister never married the father of her two children and she relies on public assistance for income. She considers herself to be a woman highly capable of caring for all the children yet she still struggles to deal with the stress of everyday financial issues. The Williams on the other hand live in a wealthier neighborhood and only have one child. Mr. W... ... middle of paper ... ...parents were much more successful in the working world encouraged him to complete many daily activities such as choir and piano lessons. His parents engaged him in conversations that promoted reasoning and negotiation and they showed interest in his daily life. Harold’s mother joked around with the children, simply asking them questions about television, but never engaged them in conversations that drew them out. She wasn’t aware of Harold’s education habits and was oblivious to his dropping grades because of his missing assignments. Instead of telling one of the children to seek help for a bullying problem she told them to simply beat up the child that was bothering them until they stopped. Alex’s parents on the other hand were very involved in his schooling and in turn he scored very well in his classes. Like Lareau suspected, growing up
For such families, “sustaining children’s natural growth is viewed as an accomplishment” (Lareau 34). Lareau also reported that many working class and poor parents feel that educators hold the expertise, and usually fear doing the “wrong thing” in school-related matters (Lareau 357). What this usually leads to is trying to maintain a separation between school and home (Lareau 358).
William Julius Wilson creates a thrilling new systematic framework to three politically tense social problems: “the plight of low-skilled black males, the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, and the fragmentation of the African American family” (Wilson, 36). Though the conversation of racial inequality is classically divided. Wilson challenges the relationship between institutional and cultural factors as reasons of the racial forces, which are inseparably linked, but public policy can only change the racial status quo by reforming the institutions that support it.
The book Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life published in 2003, takes a close look into the lives of different families in the United States and how they are affected by race and social class and how their family lives differ. The Author, Annette Lareau, discusses how social class affects the parenting styles and how these parenting styles are affecting the children. Although Lareau’s book could use a few changes, it is well written and it is a good read to help better understand how social class and parenting styles can affect the lives of different children on a personal level. In
In our society of today, there are many images that are portrayed through media and through personal experience that speak to the issues of black motherhood, marriage and the black family. Wherever one turns, there is the image of the black woman in the projects and very rarely the image of successful black women. Even when these positive images are portrayed, it is almost in a manner that speaks to the supposed inferiority of black women. Women, black women in particular, are placed into a society that marginalizes and controls many of the aspects of a black woman’s life. As a result, many black women do not see a source of opportunity, a way to escape the drudgery of their everyday existence. For example, if we were to ask black mother’s if they would change their situation if it became possible for them to do so, many would change, but others would say that it is not possible; This answer would be the result of living in a society that has conditioned black women to accept their lots in lives instead of fighting against the system of white and male dominated supremacy. In Ann Petry’s The Street, we are given a view of a black mother who is struggling to escape what the street symbolizes. In the end though, she becomes captive to the very thing she wishes to escape. Petry presents black motherhood, marriage and the black family as things that are marginalized according to the society in which they take place.
In a country like the United States of America, with a history of every individual having an equal opportunity to reach their dreams, it becomes harder and harder to grasp the reality that equal opportunity is diminishing as the years go on. The book Our Kids by Robert Putnam illustrates this reality and compares life during the 1950’s and today’s society and how it has gradually gotten to a point of inequality. In particular, he goes into two touching stories, one that shows the changes in the communities we live in and another that illustrates the change of family structure. In the end he shows how both stories contribute to the American dream slipping away from our hands.
Moynihan perceives the inclusive problem amongst the black family to be its structure. This is a product of disintegration of nativism in the black community. The “racist virus” still flowing through the veins of American society hinders, in virtually all aspects, the progression of the Negro family. Moynihan discusses the normativity of the American family as a reason that people overlook the problems that occur in Negro and nonwhite families. He emphasizes the significance of family structure by stating “The family is the basic social unit of American life; it is the basic socializing unit.” (Moynihan, II 4). This assertion implies that due to the instability within the black family, socially, the Negro family would be unable to prosper. Because Moynihan feels the largest overall issue in the black family is structure it’s structure, he believes that it will only continue to disintegrate. To further his idea, Moynihan highlights the subdivisions of this structure: matriarchy, failure of youth, economic differences, alienation etc. Each of these subdivisions of family structure contributes to the overall issue Moynihan within the Negro family.
Although there were numerous efforts to attain full equality between blacks and whites during the Civil Rights Movement, many of them were in vain because of racial distinctions, white oppression, and prejudice. Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi recounts her experiences as a child growing up in Centreville, Mississippi. She describes how growing up in Mississippi in a poor black family changed her views of race and equality, and the events that took place that changed her life forever. She begins her story at the tender age of 4, and describes how her home life changed drastically with the divorce of her parents, the loss of her home, and the constant shuffle from shack to shack as her mother tried to keep food on the table with the meager pay she earned from the numerous, mostly domestic, jobs she took. On most days, life was hard for Anne, and as she got older she struggled to understand why they were living in such poverty when the white people her mother worked for had so many nice things, and could eat more than bread and beans for dinner. It was because of this excessive poverty that Anne had to go into the workforce at such an early age, and learn what it meant to have and hold a job in order to provide her family. Anne learned very young that survival was all about working hard, though she didn’t understand the imbalance between the work she was doing and the compensation she received in return.
In her book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau argues out that the influences of social class, as well as, race result in unequal childhoods (Lareau 1). However, one could query the inequality of childhood. To understand this, it is necessary to infer from the book and assess the manner in which race and social class tend to shape the life of a family. As the scholar demonstrates, each race and social class usually has its own unique way of child upbringing based on circumstances. To affirm this, the different examples that the scholar presents in the book could be used. Foremost, citing the case of both the White and the African American families, the scholar advances that the broader economics of racial inequality has continued to hamper the educational advancement and blocks access to high-paying jobs with regard to the Blacks as opposed to the Whites. Other researchers have affirmed this where they indicate that the rate of unemployment among the African Americans is twice that of the White Americans. Research further advances that, in contrast to the Whites, for those African Americans who are employed, there is usually a greater chance that they have been underemployed, receive lower wages, as well as, inconsistent employment. This is how the case of unequal childhood based on race comes about; children from the Black families will continue residing in poverty as opposed to those from the white families.
Both the Younger family and the Johnson family are similar because both share their ambition in wanting to achieve the Black American Dream. However, only the Younger family is able to achieve it because they have goals, working adults, money, and support. They have the freedom to move into their new home in Clybourne Park, despite White supremacy, stereotype, and greed standing in the way. Unfortunately, despite meritocracy, not all Blacks have money and support to transcend themselves into upward mobility. The Johnson family is not able to achieve the Black American Dream because there is no goal set, only one working adult, and no money and support involved in their lives to offer them freedom. It is a lot harder to have upward mobility with no family support especially when society is against the individual. The Johnson family’s unsuccessful attempt to achieve the Black American Dream illustrates that it is not meant for all Blacks living in America. Perhaps it is impossible for all Blacks to excel in America because not all Blacks are privileged to have what other Blacks
Yes, when thinking about social classes in the Unites States, it is easier to gravitate towards the differences among them. However, through reading about the different families in Unequal Childhoods, there are similarities across social classes. One of the similarities among the middle, working, and poor class is the “absent” of parental involvement. Now, this also depends on how the reader views the situation. For the poor class or working class families, such as Katie Brindle and Tyrec Taylor, their parents left them alone to play on their own. Katie Brindle is a White girl who comes from a poor class family. Tyrec Taylor is a Black boy and is part of working class. Lareau observes, “Most working-class and poor parents did not consider children’s
After getting the apartment on 116th Street Lutie didn’t know what her next step would be. She didn’t know how long she would stay there. They had just enough money to pay rent, buy food and clothes. Being locked into poverty enables Lutie from seeing a future. “She couldn’t see anything but 116th Street and a job that paid barely enough for food and rent and a handful of clothes. “(147). This world she was living contrasts with places that were “filled with sunlight and good food and where children were safe was fenced off to African-Americans so people like Lutie could only look at it with no expectation of ever being able to have it.”(147). Lutie came to the realization as to why white people hate black people so much. It is because they are entitled to white privilege at birth. Take McIntosh’s “White Privilege-Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” into account. McIntosh describes white privilege as invisible things that we are taught not to see. For example Mrs. Chandler, who employs Lutie as her maid. Mrs. Chandler has an advantage over Lutie, which puts Lutie at a disadvantage. People of the dominant society like The Chandlers have a “pattern running through the matrix of white privilege” (McIntosh), a pattern of assumptions that were passed on to them as a white person. “[The Chandlers] are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and also ideal.”(McIntosh). In proportion as The
Perhaps more importantly, the average black teenager is raised within a single parented home, typically with their father being absent. Not only does the absence of father’s affect the home financially, but also emotionally and socially destruct the family. Although most single mothers do a great job in raising their kids, 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. For children who live only with a mother, a male teacher may be the only positive male role model in their lives. Most black teens attend urbanized schools in the city or in low budgeted areas. In most cases, these schools does not always function at it’s full potential, due to the high number of students. The average high school graduation rate in the nation’s 50 largest cities was 53 percent, compared with 71 percent in...
The poverty that poor black Americans experience is often different from the poverty of poor whites. It is more isolating and esoteric. It fans out of family homes and inundates the entire neighborhood; the streets, the schools, the grocery stores, the community centers. A poor black family, in short, is much more likely than a poor white family to live in a neighborhood where many other families are poor. Creating what is called the "double standard" of poverty. “The sense of privilege that he [Marks], a multi-generation white class guy has to share his wisdom with all of those ‘poor black socially-orphaned children out there in the West Phillies of the world’ is astounding” (DNLee 256). Assuming that those children have no direction is a misconception that many white privileged Americans assume. And that assumption is why the life chances and opportunities of people of color in the United States are limited as compared to whites. Place continues to be a defining characteristics of the opportunity structure. Children growing up in more privileged neighborhoods often ponder what they will do when they grow up; as were poor children ponder on if they will even have the opportunity to grow up. The privileged are so blind that even they do not realize it, and they do not see that others are not privileged. As Cinderella’s privileges and opportunities were taken from her, her chance at the ‘good life’ was too. The element of the good life, however defined, is only accessible to those who are
African-American parents and grandparents play a pivotal role in the socialization of children as they help
Social class, group of people who rank similarly in term of property, power, and prestige, separate people into different lifestyles and provide them with distinctive ways of looking at the world. It gives each individual 's different roles to perform and allow them onto different stages. Social class set people onto different path; it open opportunities to some, but close it from others. In the article, “Class Differences in Child-Rearing Are on the Rise” by Claire Cain Miller describes the impact of parents’ social class on raising a child. This article argues that families of different social classes supervise their child differently.