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By Root 1432 0

as the Marshalls, Williamses, and Tallingers often exuded confidence in their interactions with school officials. They did not appear to hold similar fears of the school. The idea that authorities would “come and take my kids away” was never expressed in any observation of or interview with middle-class parents in the way it repeatedly appeared among working-class and poor families. For example, after returning from an out-of-state soccer tournament for Garrett, Ms. Tallinger recounted that she and some other parents had left the children in a hotel room with a video and a cellular phone and gone out to dinner at a restaurant about a block away. She told me in a light tone with a smile on her face, “Don’t turn us in!” Overall, the demeanor of Garrett’s mother was vastly different from that of Little Billy’s mother. She was joking about the matter rather than treating it gravely. More to the point, middle-class parents never gave any indication that they worried about what the school could do to them. They did not appear to see themselves in the vulnerable position that gave rise to so much fear and worry on the part of Little Billy’s parents. Thus, their use of reasoning as a child-rearing strategy had an invisible benefit: it put them in sync with patterns of dominant cultural repertoires. This facilitated their ease with school officials.

In sum, these standards are developed by professionals and encoded in schools. In other words, social workers, psychologists, medical doctors, and other professionals have issued standards for proper child rearing and caution about what constitutes incorrect child rearing.8 Teachers and administrators in schools have adopted these standards. Moreover, the schools, for better or worse, are an arm of the state, and are therefore legally required to report children they believe to be abused or neglected. Since school attendance is compulsory for young children, families cannot avoid the school or, indirectly, the eyes of state officials. In this context, the middle-class families—with their greater likelihood of adopting professionals’ standards—appear to enjoy largely invisible benefits not available to working-class and poor families.

CHAPTER 12

The Power and Limits

of Social Class

At the end of fifth grade, the children looked forward with trepidation and excitement to their transition to being with “big kids” in the local middle school. Lower Richmond and Swan schools each separately marked this life transition with a graduation ceremony, held on hot, sunny days in June. At Lower Richmond, there was tremendous enthusiasm for the ceremony, particularly on the part of the children and their families. Many parents arrived at school carrying bouquets of flowers and clusters of circular, shiny silver balloons emblazoned with phrases such as “CONGRATULATIONS GRADUATE!” Mothers, especially African American mothers, were in starched, immaculate, pale-colored suits and outfits of the style often worn to weddings, church, and special events. The girls, including Wendy Driver and Tara Carroll, wore frilly dresses. A number of girls wore prom dresses. Billy Yanelli was in a formal jacket, slacks, white shirt, and tie. Harold McAllister was less formal but no less carefully prepared in an assiduously ironed, print dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes. The school provided yellow carnation wrist corsages for the girls and boutonnieres for the boys. In the “cafetorium,” parents, grandmothers, young children, and older siblings sat on children’s chairs, reading the list of graduates, chatting, and laughing together. To the strains of a scratchy “Pomp and Circumstance,” the children entered in a formal march: from opposing sides of the auditorium, two children, each at the same moment, began a promenade (step, pause, step, pause). Some of the boys, including Harold McAllister, had a pained expression on their faces when beginning the processional. When Harold heard family members hooting, he flashed a grin, and then adopted a look of studied casualness.

Jane, Lori, and Alexis laugh when