Summary Of Unequal Childhoods Lareau

Annette Lareau’s book Unequal Childhoods is a compilation of her observational data of 12 children between the years of 1994 – 1995. Recently, a second version of her book was published in 2011 that included follow-up interviews with some of the selected children ten years after the study finished. The 12 children selected for her study were put into various categories to facilitate a diverse range of economic, racial, and cultural backgrounds that would allow her to try to make broad observations. Her categories also act as dividers for data tables to help readers make concrete examinations on the similarities and differences between all the children. However, Lareau talks about having a difficult time trying to create her 12 family sample,
That would not be her only distinction between all the children in her book. She would also write about the differences in vocabulary, institutional intervention, and educational awareness of the families. Except, child-rearing would act as giant umbrella for which she could use for comparison and contrast because of vastly different those two child-rearing lifestyles were. For example, Garrett Talinger’s was raised by means of concerted cultivation, and usually had his schedule pretty jam-packed with activities during the entire week. On the flip side, Tyrec Taylor was raised with achievement in natural growth, and was often left to his own devices to try to entertain himself. Lareau never takes a stance in her book as to which she believes was better. Instead, she took a more objective approach saying both styles had their advantages and disadvantages. Concerted cultivation children tend to have a stronger sense for vocabulary, and achieving a sense of entitlement. The disadvantages for them is exhaustion, due to their heavy schedules. Achievement of natural growth tended to be more autonomous and creative, due to need to entertain themselves because they were not enrolled in extra activities. The downsides for those children is that they tended to obtain a sense of constraint when it came to institutions. While both styles look equal, the follow-up interviews show a different outlook. Lareau would end her book with a brief overview of the limitations and possible effects that social class, and child-rearing styles had on children. Before I go onto to talking about that, I am going to focus on some problems with her