Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [237]
Readers interested in details of the transitions to adulthood of the children of these families can find them in Annette Lareau and Elliot B. Weininger, “Concerted Cultivation Continues,” which provides an extensive discussion of Tara Carroll’s college application process and describes the education experiences of Jessica Irwin and Karl Greeley. Briefly, Tara made energetic efforts to enroll in college, but after a short stint in community college she stopped attending. Jessica persisted further; she attended a local four-year public college where she had a full scholarship. In both cases, as in Wendy Driver’s family, the working-class and poor parents had limited knowledge of higher education and therefore turned over responsibility for the college application process to educational professionals. Thus, the relationship between the family and colleges echoed the pattern of accomplishment of natural growth that had been evident in earlier years.
13. See, for example, Richard A. Settersten Jr., Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., and Rubén G. Rumbaut, On the Frontier of Adulthood.
14. See Chapter 14 for further discussion of the research methodology, including a detailed description of the process of finding, contacting, and re-interviewing the original study participants. Chapter 14 also closely examines the families’ reactions to the book.
15. In the presentation of quotes, I have eliminated false starts and filler words, such as “um,” “like,” “you know,” in instances where doing so seemed not to change the speaker’s meaning. In a few instances I have reordered speech for clarity when it did not alter the speaker’s original meaning.
16. I interviewed Katie Brindle in her own apartment, Melanie Handlon at the church where her mother was working, Harold McAllister at his brother’s apartment (where Harold was living), and Garrett Tallinger in his college dorm room.
17. See Michael Burawoy “Revisits”; Linda Burton, Diane Purvin, and Raymond Garrett-Peters, “Longitudinal Ethnography”; Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Ire in Ireland”; Jay MacLeod, Ain’t No Making It. See also the compelling series of British Up movies (7 Up, 14 Up, etc.) produced by Michael Apted, beginning in 1964, and discussed by Michael Burawoy, “Public Ethnography as Film,” and others in the journal Ethnography.
18. The SAT scoring system changed in 2005. The scores presented in this chapter reflect the old system—the one in place at the time the kids in the study took the test with the maximum of 1600, followed by a rough approximation of the equivalent new scores in brackets. The new test consists of three parts with a maximum of 800 each for a total of 2400.
19. It is surprising that Stacey’s score was relatively low—and identical to Melanie’s score. Recall, however, that Stacey never tested well; even in third grade this was a concern. Also, Melanie’s third grade teacher never was convinced that Melanie had a learning disability. Mr. and Mrs. Handlon, however, told me that Melanie was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.
20. For a discussion of the rise in incarceration, see Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality. In 2008 approximately 23% of African American high school dropouts were in jail or juvenile detention; for whites the figure was 7%. Dropouts also have much higher rates of unemployment: while 13% of college graduates and 32% of high school graduates were unemployed in 2008, the figure for high school dropouts 16 to 24 years of age was 54%. Black high school dropouts had an unemployment rate of 64%. See Sam Dillon, “Study Finds High Rates of Imprisonment among Dropouts.”
21. See Robert Haveman and Timothy Smeeding, “The Role of Higher Education in Social Mobility”; U.S. Department of Education, “Academic Preparation for College”; U.S. Department of Education, “First-Generation College Students