Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course Name
Date of Submission
- Explain how language use is different in middle-class families in comparison to working-class families (make sure you use both Brooks and Heller to answer this question)
In the middle-class family’s life at home entails a lot of conversation and jousting. The parents get involved in reason together with their children, and they avoid issuing orders to their children. Normally parents affect the decisions that their children make. Children always have the autonomy to make judgement among the elderly and talk about what they feel. In working-class families, there is a little conversation between the children and their parents. Parents in the working class typically issue orders to them without further elaboration. Parents don’t influence the decisions that their children make; they always leave their children to make decisions on their owns. The kids lack the freedom to make a judgement on the elderly, and also they lack the freedom to talk about how they feel.
- -Explain how middle-class parents interacted with schools/teachers in comparison to how working-class parents interacted with schools and teachers (use Heller, but notice that this issue is addressed in Heller’s questions about Lareau’s first book and her more recent book)
The parents of working-class families always felt intimidated and coerced by their talkative skilful doctors and teachers. The parents grew up knowing they had no freedom expressing themselves anyhow to the adults. They just remained tongue-tied and constrained. The parents lacked the guts to raise any question that they might have, and they, therefore, ended up storing their information on a daily basis. The parents of the middle-class families always felt accepted and cherished by their teachers and school environment. They felt that these people were available to solve their issues. The parents grew up knowing how to express themselves to any adult. In case of any problem, they always felt free with their teachers and could raise any question without the fear of anything. At all times, the parents were talkative with their teachers.
- –Lareau’s research focuses on families of different social classes. She is asked in the interview if racial differences played a role in how parents raised their children. She answers, “yes and no”. Explain why she says “yes” and why she answers “no” (Heller)
According Lareau racial difference did not play a role in how parents raised their children. The working class and the poor parents, including both blacks and whites, gave the order to their children on equal measures while speaking to them. Also, the parents failed to involve themselves in leisure time with their children. Moreover, the parents were not free with the educations. In the middle-class families both for the whites and the blacks, the parents conversed with their children in the same degree, had similar kinds of activities, and both of them made time to meet with their teachers. The racial difference affects how parents raised their children because the black families seemed to transmit their mistreatment to their children, especially the working class. In other situations, the middle-class families seemed to do so like their counterparts the blacks.
- Lareau explains that she is not making a moral judgment about parenting styles. She notes that concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth each have advantages and disadvantages. Explain her point. (Brooks and Hellen)
Lareau explains that she is not making a moral judgement about parenting styles because the most important question is whether the parenting style rhymes with what the labour market, schools, and elsewhere expect. The advantages of the concerted cultivation are that it helps a child in the management of conflict and freedom enhancement. The disadvantage of concerted cultivation is that things such as conflict management and freedom enhancement do not help a child in getting a job. The advantage of accomplishment of natural growth is that it helps a child in self-expression and builds on the child’s confidence. The disadvantage of accomplishment of natural growth is that it does not aid the children from the working class, and it is not effective if a parent does not support it.
- What do you think about Lareau’s research? Do the points she makes about the class differences in how children spend their free time, how language is used, and how parents interact with authority figures seem accurate given your own life experience? Do you see the pattern she points to in other families you are familiar with? Or does your life experience provide a counterexample to the pattern she identifies? What questions do you have about her research?
Pertaining Lareau research on the raising of children by the middle-class families and workings is an actual thing that happens in the world. Working-class families and middle-class families have different ways of raising their children. The points that she makes about how children spend their free time, how language is used, and how parents interact with authority figures seem accurate based on my experience because I have observed that parents from the working class have a problem with interacting with authority figures, they always use a language which has orders and fails to have free time with their children while the parents from the middle class always interact freely with the authorities, spend their time freely with their children, and use a language that lacks orders. What Lareau has pointed about I have seen it with my neighbours that both the working class and the middle class. Children from the working class always seem shy to talk with the adults while the children middle class always seems confident to talk with the adults. I have a question concerning her research; my question is; Why is Lareau biased that the working-class families have a problem in raising their children?