Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [118]
Ms. Nettles describes Melanie’s mother as “defensive” and preoccupied with things like whether or not past and present teachers have been sufficiently supportive of Melanie’s self-esteem. These concerns, the teacher feels, prevent Ms. Handlon from paying attention to other, arguably more important, issues (such as having Melanie tested for learning disabilities). After the parent-teacher conference, Ms. Nettles remarks to the researcher, “I don’t think she was really listening.” Most of Melanie’s problems, Ms. Nettles suggests, may be traced to Ms. Handlon’s overprotective parenting style:
Mom has consistently been putting things off and making excuses for Melanie since day one. I mean, Melanie was sick over thirty days last year. I think it’s a big step for her to be here. But, I think her mom is like, in denial. Melanie is having a very good year. Melanie is very happy, and I think a lot of Melanie’s problem is her mother.
Finally, Melanie’s teachers are not aware of either the amount or the frequency of Ms. Handlon’s efforts to help her daughter do her homework. They have no knowledge of the dramas that unfold in the Handlons’ dining room as Melanie and her mother tackle her assignments day after day.5
WHY ACTIVATING CAPITAL DOES NOT ALWAYS
YIELD PROFITS
The Handlons, a family with a solid middle-class position, engaged in concerted cultivation. Mr. Handlon had a master’s degree and had a managerial position; his wife had attended junior college. All of the children participated in many organized activities. To be sure, there were moments when Ms. Handlon issued directives, especially when frustrated while helping with Melanie with homework. But, although parent-child interactions are not elaborated in this chapter, for most of them, both parents engaged in the kind of reasoning and negotiation that was carried out in Alexander Williams’s home.6 Similar to Ms. Marshall, Ms. Handlon was well informed about school dynamics. Ms. Handlon believed that she had the right to intervene in her daughter’s experiences outside the home and, as we have seen, had many criticisms over school practices. Nonetheless, despite these resources, Ms. Handlon was unable to gain clear advantages for Melanie in the areas that were of greatest concern to her, namely, grading and homework. She did, however, succeed in customizing specific elements of Melanie’s educational experience: Ms. Nettles agreed to supply the spelling lists, to prepare materials for Melanie’s tutor to use, and to send home packets of exercises covering the curriculum Melanie missed during her frequent illness-related absences from school. But the benefits that she gained for her daughter were fewer than one might expect.7
As Pierre Bourdieu points out, the complex nature of social life means that multitudes of subtle skills are drawn on in the transmission of social class privilege. Accordingly, there are important variations in the effectiveness of parents’ efforts to activate cultural capital. Factors such as the shrewdness of the intervention, the degree to which the parent frames the complaint in a fashion that compels a response from the person in power, and the nature of the child’s difficulties each play a role. In the realm of education, there are at least three important reasons why the activation of cultural capital may fail. First, educators sometimes are not aware of middle-class mothers’ strenuous efforts to comply with school policies. They cannot be expected to grant privileges in return for actions they know nothing about. The children, however, are not only aware of their parents’ efforts but often feel oppressed by them. Despite being well-intentioned, parents’ interventions