Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [226]
6. For a discussion of poor mothers’ efforts to make ends meet as they grocery shop, see Marjorie DeVault, Feeding the Family, especially the chapter on “provisioning.”
7. She is less direct with Katie, but with her, too, there are special, affectionate rituals. For example, when Katie is away from home (typically, at her grandmother’s house) and calls her mother on the telephone, Ms. Brindle says in a warm and loving tone, “I love you,” and, “I miss you too.” In addition, she and Katie have developed a ritual to make it easier to say good-bye. They count to three together, “Okay, one, two, three,” and hang up at the exact same moment. Ms. Brindle explains, “[Katie] doesn’t like to hang up and so we count together.”
8. Middle-class parents are especially likely to stop what they are doing to watch a child if the child specifically requests that they do so. Although some may ask for a temporary delay before the start of the performance they are supposed to watch, few of these parents simply refuse their children’s requests.
9. Katie does draw adult attention when she demonstrates her ability to cry on command: “[Katie] scrunches up her face and begins to make fake sobs; she—in an agitated and very persuasive way—begins to frantically run her hands through her hair; she throws her entire body on the couch and the sobs get louder.” This acting stint prompts comments from the adults, but not ones aimed at cultivating Katie’s talents: Ryan says, “That is some job—especially the hands and the hair.” . . . [His mother remarks,] “Oh yeah, she really does a job there.” (Uncle John continues to show no affect of any kind.) See Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words, for a discussion of viewing adults, rather than children, as appropriate conversation partners.
10. In a setting where the television was virtually always on, and was only casually attended to, this action by Amy appeared to be an effort to gain her grandmom’s attention. Grandmom did not appear to define Amy’s action as disrespectful.
11. I am surprised that no one is watching. Occasionally, I crane my neck up and around to watch the girls from my spot on the floor.
12. She suggested that Katie use her birthday money to purchase dark shoes to complete the outfit.
13. This family was particularly vulnerable to intervention by state officials as their routine child-rearing practices sometimes violated prevailing standards. As I discuss briefly in Appendix A, the field-workers and I found visits to this family more difficult than the visits to other families.
PART II: LANGUAGE USE
1. Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words.
CHAPTER 6: DEVELOPING A CHILD
1. As I explain in Appendix A, Alexander did not attend school where the classroom observations for this study were conducted. Instead, an acquaintance consulted the directory for the private school her daughter attends and supplied me with the addresses of the two Black families with children in the fourth grade. I sent the Williams family a letter. After a series of meetings (and my compliance with their request to see a copy of my previous book and my résumé), they agreed to be in the study. Because of this difference in recruitment, we do not have data from classroom observations or parent-teacher conferences for this family.
2. This is not to suggest that parent-child talking is the only pathway to academic success. There is compelling evidence of academic achievement in immigrant populations, for example, where this kind of cultivation of language skills is limited. Still, even here, the social origins of the immigrants appear to matter in children’s educational experiences. (See, for example, Alejandro Portes and Dag MacLeod, “Educational Progress of Children of Immigrants.”) In addition, some middle-class children have learning disabilities, differ in achievement motivation, and are subject to other mediating