Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [250]
42. It is important to remember that researchers and subjects not only have different interests in the final product, but they are engaged in different endeavors: study participants are living their lives; researchers are engaged in analysis.
43. This kind of dialog is not easy to achieve. It requires a willingness to listen to people’s highly critical and angry statements. Here the key is not to argue, or be defensive, or insist on explaining the original ideas. Rather, the goal is to listen very carefully to others’ statements, clearly conveying that you have heard not only their words but the emotions behind them. Acknowledging these respondents’ concerns word for word demonstrates that you have heard and understood their position. Then, by continuing to come back to visit, you confirm the sincerity of your concern about them and their feelings. I term this “staying in relationship with them” through the anger. It is quite difficult to do. But it is not impossible.
44. Indeed, when I went by the house to share my summary of their reaction to the book (included above), both Mr. and Ms. Yanelli noted that their views had changed. Mr. Yanelli said the summary was “on the money,” an accurate statement of their feelings “at that time.” When I told Ms. Yanelli on the telephone that I had a draft of their reaction to the book, she asked, “When? At first or now?” In addition, Ms. Yanelli was aware that others had different views. (Ms. Yanelli had given the book to a relative to read; the relative liked the portrait.) Still, the portrait of the family clashes with Ms. Yanelli’s view of herself and her family and thus remains a source of pain. During our visit, over six years after the book appeared, Ms. Yanelli became tearful as she discussed it.
45. William Foote Whyte, “On the Evolution of Street Corner Society,” p. 66. Paul ten Have makes a similar point in Understanding Qualitative Research and Ethnomethodology. He notes that “Doc” read “every page” of Whyte’s book before it was published, but that it can be difficult to predict how research participants will feel later. As ten Have writes, “The feeling of being ‘used’ by the researcher may be hard to avoid” (p. 116).
CHAPTER 15: IN CONTEXT
1. See Daniel Kindlon, Too Much of a Good Thing; KidsHealth.org, “Is Your Child Too Busy?”; Madeline Levine, The Price of Privilege. For earlier works, see David Elkind, The Hurried Child; Alvin Rosenfeld and Nicole Wise, The Over-Scheduled Child. For a vigorous defense of the virtues of hectic schedules (as well as a defense of blending of parenting directives with the cultivation of children’s talents), see Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Despite her emphasis on the virtues of issuing directives, the rebellion of Chua’s daughter led Chua to retreat from her style of blending parental directives with the cultivation of her daughter’s musical talent. In the end, Chua adopted a more traditional style of concerted cultivation. For historical accounts of changes in child rearing, see Steven Mintz, Huck’s Raft; Ann Hulbert, Raising America.
2. I received a grant from the Spencer Foundation to conduct the follow-up study and to examine the results of Unequal Childhoods using a large, quantitative data set. As a result of that grant, Elliot Weininger collaborated with me; later Dalton Conley and Melissa Velez at New York University also were involved in a more limited fashion. See Lareau and Weininger, “Time, Work, and Family Life.” See also Weininger and Lareau, “Cultivating the Religious Child”; and Weininger, Lareau, Conley, and Velez, “Concerted Cultivation and