Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [23]
Educational accomplishments are also lopsided. In the United States, just under one-quarter of all adults have completed a bachelor’s degree; the figure is a bit higher for individuals in their twenties. More than 10 percent of high school students drop out.19 Even among younger people, for whom college education is becoming increasingly common, a clear majority (from two-thirds to three-quarters) do not graduate.20 Although some studies show that, after taking into account parents’ social position, Black youth are more likely to pursue higher education than whites, overall levels of educational attainment are far lower for Black children.21 Substantial stratification also exists within higher education, ranging from community colleges to elite universities. The more elite the school, the more richly graduates are rewarded.22
Moreover, there has been a profound shift in the U.S. and world economies, with a decline in “good jobs” with high wages, pensions, health benefits, and stability, and a rise in “bad jobs” with relatively low wages, no benefits, little opportunity for career promotion, and lack of stability.23 In the lives of most people, these separate threads—their educational attainment, what kind of job they get, and how much money they earn—are all tightly interwoven. Together, these factors constitute parents’ social position or social structural location.
Many studies have demonstrated that parents’ social structural location has profound implications for their children’s life chances. Before kindergarten, for example, children of highly educated parents are much more likely to exhibit “educational readiness” skills, such as knowing their letters, identifying colors, counting up to twenty, and being able to write their first names.24 Schooling helps, and during the school year the gap in children’s performance narrows quite a bit (but widens again during the summer). Children of highly educated mothers continue to outperform children of less educated mothers throughout their school careers. By the time young people take the SAT examinations for admission to college, the gap is dramatic, averaging 150 points (relative to an average score of 500 points) between children of parents who are high school dropouts and those with parents who have a graduate degree.25 There are also differences in other aspects of children’s school performance according to their parents’ social structural location. 26 Many studies demonstrate the crucial role of educational success in determining occupational success. Parents’ social class position predicts children’s school success and thus their ultimate life chances.27
UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY
Many people in the United States hold the view that the society is, in fundamental ways, open. They believe that individuals carve out their life paths by drawing on their personal stores of hard work, effort, and talent. All children are seen as having approximately equal life chances. Or, if children’s life chances appear to differ, this is seen as due to differences in raw talent, initiative, aspirations, and effort. This perspective directly rebuffs the thesis that the social structural location of the family systematically shapes children’s life experiences and life outcomes. Rather, the outcomes individuals achieve over the course of their lifetime are seen as their own responsibility.
A second perspective, held by some social scientists, recognizes the existence of important forms of social inequality. Differences in parents’ educational levels, occupational experiences, income, and other factors are all duly noted. Yet these social scientists, such as Paul Kingston, in his book The Classless Society, argue that inequalities